I had the older grandkids this weekend.  After picking them up before lunch on Friday morning (1/2 day) we went to the outlet mall park (no sand to irritate grandpa) and had a bit of a picnic and playtime before heading to our home.

Once there, Aidan told me all about getting a button from his teacher. He was very excited and told me that everyone got one so they could go home and make “button soup“.

Button Soup?  Sure enough he pulled out the button and the recipe from his backpack.

It seems that the class had seen the Mickey Mouse cartoon of Stone Soup and they discussed the theory of sharing and potluck dinners.

Good lesson and it made an impression with my little blue-eyed blonde.  “Grandma, can we make the soup???”

Since it was grandpa’s late night at work and I had already prepped dinner for the three of us, I told him we’d make it for dinner the next night.  

The only thing we had to go get was a can of diced tomatoes.

Aidan looked through my vegetable bins and decided we should use:  zucchini, carrots, potatoes, some of a bag of shredded cabbage and a stray onion.  He picked out a can of tomatoes that had some chilies in it (tried to change it for the plain version, but he really liked the artwork on the rotelle can).  He also wanted to use some of the rosemary I planted in the yard.

Pretty sophisticated for 6, no?

We pulled out the last of a loaf of bread I had frozen from a different dinner to serve with it.

The results?  A very delicious way to get the boys to eat some greens!  Dylan was dubious when he saw the zucchini and Aidan at first told me he didn’t want to eat it!  But that was dinner. I pointed out that he wanted us to make this dinner and that he had chosen everything that went into it-so he needed to try it.

A few shedded tears later-they were happy they ate it and asked for more.

And thankfully, there was enough left for us to eat for the next night’s dinner.  I’m just going to add some muffins since there is no more bread back-up left in the freezer!

And with this column, I’ll “see” you all in a few weeks.  I’m off with DD and the older boys for a week in NYC.  Wish me luck-I am in no mood to find out what 40 degrees feels like at all.