12/09/2011

{meatball man}

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A few days ago I was doing my dinner prep,
rolling these bad boys to put into the crockpot,
when James asked if he could help.
My usual OCD self thought, "heck no, you aren't touching raw beef",
but then my mom-who-tries-to-teach-her-kids-a-thing-or-two self thought, "why not?...dig in!".
So, I brought him over a stool, gave him a small bowl of the meatball mixture and let him have it at.
He rolled the most PERFECT little mini meatballs!
I stood there in awe and delight, happy that he was able to succeed and ecstatic that I was able to let my guard down.

And just for the record, the meatballs were delicious (I made them with beef instead of turkey),
and ALL 3 of my kids (and the hubs) devoured them.
I decided they just may be a weekly regular around here if they keep causing that kind of kidlet protein intake.
The sauce was a bit weak, so next time I will tweak it more like my regular standby spaghetti sauce recipe.

And since I know some of you are fainting at the thought of a 3.5 year old handling raw meat,
he washed his hands just before and just after, very thoroughly, with my help.
My teaching even expanded to telling him about illness that can result from eating that stuff uncooked.
He just kept asking, "We killed this cow, huh mom?".


2 comments:

Orange said...

Ezra once ate several spoonfuls of meatball mixture raw while I had my back turned (this was when he was maybe Stella's age) I freaked and called poison control and they acted like it was no big deal and he was fine.

Anyway, I'm just telling you that it's more than okay to let kids handle raw beef especially if they are washing afterwards!

We eat meatballs a lot- especially with my sweet & sour sauce :)

Jessie said...

Kins-Good to know! I'm going to need your recipe!