Liam's Edible Garden Concoction

I have spent a lot of time with my boys making "stone soup".  I outfit them with a real kitchen pot and wooden spoon and they spend hours collecting  various nature items (rocks, twigs, bugs, dirt), mixing it all with water and then trying to feed "supper" back to me.  This is a favourite activity at our house.  Finally all this "training" paid off!

Today I returned once again to the stone soup activity but this time with a twist.  During Seamus' nap, I outfitted Liam with scissors and gave him free range of the kitchen garden with the mandate of making "garden soup" for supper.  I monitored from a distance to make sure that he did not include inedible things (tomato or potato plants, poisonous mushrooms, etc.) but the only real caveat I gave him was that he was going to have to eat his concoction too.  And if you do not eat your dinner in this household, you do not get dessert.  Dessert is a very effective motivator for my kids.

Well, my twist worked like a charm.  Liam did a fabulous job; his soup included: winecap mushrooms, onions, garlic, sorrel, borage, lovage, parsley, sage, thyme, spinach, kale, radishes and radish greens, salt, pepper, and homemade turkey stock.  We pureed it and added goat milk at the end to "creme" it.  We paired it with homemade corn bread and voila!  Liam's first attempt at making dinner.

He was so incredibly proud to feed his family off of our land (I must be rubbing off on him!).  He was thrilled when we each had several bowls of his creation.  My boy is growing up! I am so proud.