making them earn their keep

Doug was out of town for a couple of nights last week and usually when he's gone I make things for dinner that I know he won't really mind missing, like breakfast or macaroni and cheese. But last week, I thought it would be fun to put Ryan and Emily in charge of dinner. I told them they had to come up with an entree and side dish and then they were responsible for making a grocery list to get any of the things we didn't already have in the pantry. Then while we were at the grocery store, they were responsible for finding all the items they needed. No, I didn't make them buy the groceries themselves. Geez!

So they spent a good hour pouring over cookbooks and came up with Sloppy Dogs and Oven Cheese Fries.

Now, the Sloppy Dogs are a variation of the Sloppy Joe, served in a hot dog bun. Also, not as sweet...more of an Italian Sloppy Joe (and in fact, the leftovers were very good on some leftover pasta!) The recipe called for ground beef, but we decided to substitute ground turkey instead. Then once the meat has browned you add some tomato sauce, onion, basil and oregano and let it simmer for about 15 minutes and then you end up with this:



Then you load the meat into a whole wheat hot dog bun and top with shredded mozzarella cheese.

The method for cooking the fries was a little different than anything I'd seen before. The recipe called for the kids to dip the potatoes in egg white, bake for 10 minutes, flip, and then bake for an additional 20 minutes. The egg white made them extra crispy! Then you load them up with cheese (and Emily's addition of crumbled bacon) and then they go back into the oven for a couple of minutes until the cheese is melted.





Then you add a little watermelon:



And dinner is served:

It was really very tasty. And all I had to do was buy the groceries and clean up!

Sloppy Dogs from Disney's The Magic Kitchen Cookbook.

Oven Crispy Cheese Fries from There's a Chef in My Family by Emeril Lagasse.