Cooking Company

This week I did something that I have found I really enjoy. Twice this week, on Wednesday and today, I had friends come over and we cooked together. What a great way to get a tedious task out of the way! Visit while you cook!

On Tuesday, my fellow-mom friend who also has a JK student starting school this week came over and we baked muffins to have on hand to send to school for the boys' snacks. What a lot of fun ... most of the time! At one point when all the kids were either crying or screaming we just looked at each other and laughed and she shouted so that I could hear, "It feels like a day care in here!" With babies and preschoolers playing, fighting and being themselves, it got pretty noisy at times, but we got our baking done! Actually, it was quite nice. One of us would be tending to the kids while the other one kept measuring or stirring or washing dishes. We got so much done, had a great time visiting and the kids got to play with their friends. There is also a nice little stash of Raspberry Yogurt Zucchini Muffins and Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread in the freezer! Yummm!

Today another fellow-mom came and we made some delicious soup together for tonight's supper. She brought all her ingredients and we stood in the kitchen and chopped onions and carrots and potatoes and cauliflower together while we took turns wiping noses, changing diapers, stopping tantrums and washing dishes. Once again, lots of fun! It's amazing how enjoyable making supper can be when you're not doing it all by yourself. We traded tips on how to manage our days better, how to liven up boring recipes, how to get our kids to clean up after themselves, etc. We took a little break from cooking when we went for a long walk around the block after meeting Stephen at his bus stop. What a beautiful day for that, especially since about an hour later it started to pour! We all enjoyed our time together and wished that it wasn't nap time because that meant our friends had to go home and the boys had to head upstairs. There were lots of tears because of that, but the promise that we'd do it again soon calmed them for the moment.

If you've never tried this before, I highly recommend finding a friend that you can cook with. Last summer my baking partner and I got together with my neighbor several times and we let the kids play while we made several freezer meals. Two of us were expecting babies at the time and the other was getting ready to move, so we all had busy lives that would benefit from a frozen meal ready to go. We would make enough of a dish so that we had a meal ready for that night, plus one ready to go into the freezer. We got together about once a month or more and it was so nice to visit and work at the same time. If you want some recipe ideas of what to do, let me know. We put together several easy dishes that were simple yet something all of our families would eat.

If you try this, have fun and let me know how it went!