Seeing things in a different light

I used to love baking with my little girl. Mess and all - we'd make up songs as we sifted, move the chairs so she could reach to stir the pots on the stove, and of course lick the bowl together afterwards.

Then baby Iris was born and, as tends to happen with a newborn in the house, life became about the basics for a while. I came to the conclusion that if the washing was fairly up to date and the kitchen was clean and had an occasional meal coming out of it, then life was just fine.

Almost eight months have passed and it's time to get some level of normality back. And so it is that I've found myself giving Abbey the choice of what's for dinner every Friday night, a  new little piece of independence for her. Her choices have been amazing so far - seafood, vegetables, beautiful pasta dishes, and yes I know she does well with food. 

This weekend she declared she'd quite like "a feast".

"A feast?" I asked. It hadn't been my best week, and my energy levels weren't quite up to making a range of interesting dishes.

I pondered over it while she was at preschool, and then realised that my version of a feast and her version of a feast were likely two different things. And it dawned on me what she really wanted, so I headed to the shops to grab a few things and we got cooking when she came home.

This was our feast:

(Bad photo, but whatever.) It's sausages and veg, but with one big difference - it's served up on a platter where we could each help ourselves. A feast - and she was thrilled with it.

Sometimes you just have to think of things a little differently to find out it isn't that hard after all.