Whole Wheat Pasta

In approximately 2004, on some reality cooking show, a woman made a whole wheat pasta dish.  (I believe you are familiar with my binge tv habit, yes?).   She made this dish - with tons of fresh veggies and a pesto sauce - for a challenge to create healthy kid food.  When they asked her where she got the idea, she told them she makes it all the time...with the assistance of her young daughter...and she loves it.

Let me get this straight.  She makes very healthy, fresh food her child not only will choke down, but loves AND she lets kids in the kitchen to help make dinner??

Lady, you're ruining the curve.  Knock it off.

Let's not even dwell on the kids in the kitchen part.  Our older two daughters can make sandwiches and boxed mac 'n cheese - but when they are done cooking it looks like they cooked for an entire squad of Army Rangers...that ate with their hands tied behind their backs...while doing jumping jacks...with every dish in my kitchen. There is rarely some picture of domestic bliss where I pass on generations of cooking secrets while wearing matching aprons in our house.  Sometimes I yell instructions from the living room on how to make brownie mix.  When I want brownies.  Sometimes.

So not only does her daughter help her make this, thereby seeing all the ingredients, but she also eats it.  I can't get Baby Boy to eat much more than a few servings of ketchup that he licks off any food I give him.  Does that count as a vegetable serving?  I am going with yes.  And whole wheat pasta?  I am not that mom.

I am the mom that embarrasses her kids during a shopping trip by getting visibly excited over a sale on regular, plain, starchy pasta.  79¢ a box?  Whaaaatttt????  Then as my daughters cover their heads in shame I gleefully toss ten boxes in one of our carts.  And then wonders if I shouldn't just buy ten more.  The kids think I have lost my mind. 
Which I must have, because I am on a grocery store with five children.

If you want to see heads turn, take a bunch of kids out in public.  I am not sure exactly what is so fascinating...like statistically one of them will explode without warning if they keep watching long enough?  Maybe?  But we are a bit of a spectacle at the grocery store.  We look a little like a very organized train, which is pretty much what I am aiming for.  Our modus operandi this summer is each big girl takes a baby, our nine year old takes care of himself, and I bring up the back to catch falling debris and make sure no one dies.  So far...no death.  

So, in conclusion... I let my kids pretend to feed Army Rangers, eat brownies, ingest their vegetables in liquid form, learn about the importance of a good sale, and I take them in public.

Hmmm...maybe I am the one ruining the curve.