Kid-Made Rainbow Waffles

Waffles, oatmeal, boxed macaroni and cheese, biscuits from scratch, and coffee mug eggs comprise much of what the kiddos cook independently. Occasionally, they'll be inspired to cook something more elaborate, but in the one to two meals that we all make for ourselves every day, these, combined with such uncooked fare as sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal, are what they eat.

Every week, I try to make a quadruple batch of waffle batter, a double batch of pizza dough, a giant bowl of pasta salad, a pan of whole grain muffins, a Mason jar full of marinated tofu, a crock pot's worth of beans, and whatever else I think might help the week out. Often it's refrigerator pickles, these days. Oven-dried tomatoes. Kale chips.

Most of the other food is eaten throughout the week, and it does help make the days easier, but that quadruple batch of waffle batter? Man, it's gone in two days! And not by me or Matt, either--those kids will plug in the two waffle irons, and then just stand in the kitchen, making and eating waffles. For hours. For real.

Last week, combined with a clearly insane desire to spend even MORE time in the kitchen, I divided the quadruple batch into thirds and dyed it in the primary colors. We've made rainbow waffles before, of course, as a one-time treat, but I've never just made it and stored it that way.

Would it make kid-made waffles even MORE nommy and fun? You BET it would!

I put some of the batter into big jars that the kids could spoon into their measuring cup.

I put the rest of the batter into squeezie bottles.

The kiddos REALLY liked using the squeeze bottles to make waffles funnel-cake style.

I've been trying, lately, to think of more foods that the girls could cook independently, and ideally foods that would work as dinners, because not having to cook dinner all the time would be AMAZING. The kids have made dinner before, so I know they can do it, but I feel like they need some more meals under their belt before it becomes a regular thing--I can only eat so many waffles and coffee mug eggs, you know?

Here are the ideas I've got so far:

• grilled cheese sandwiches
• hamburger soup
• rice and veggies in the rice cooker
• spaghetti

Any other ideas? To make it more complicated, they're both still too short-armed and timid to really use the oven independently, and when I say I want them to make dinner independently, I MEAN it, as in they're in the kitchen cooking dinner, and I'm over across the room not cooking dinner, so we're talking kid-friendly stovetop, crock pot, microwave, and rice cooker meals here.

Fine, I'll let them use the blender, too, so now we're up to waffles and coffee mug eggs AND smoothies every week.