Core Memories: Baking

Excited giggles float throughout the air as my children gather near the kitchen counters ready to commence one of their favorite activities of our day. As we home school there are opportunities for free time in order to invite room for boredom, creativity, independent play, etc... Typically, however, this time tends to be spent in the kitchen cooking up some new goodies.

A friend of mine recently gifted us some sourdough starter, which I'm told means I now have another child to tend to, and with this new addition we find ourselves searching through recipes to use the discard for. Breakfast can become quite monotonous when all my son wants is pancakes, and my daughter goes for the avocado toast. Both are great choices, but after a few weeks I wonder about their digestive systems getting enough diversity. We decided to sit down and look through "vegan breakfast sourdough discard recipes", and found a delicious looking scone picture. From there we realized some of the ingredients aren't ingredients we use or have on hand, so we decided to just create our own recipe. This usually comes to my daughter as she is clearly the baker in the family always making cookies and experimental treats during her free time.

We all measured ingredients, discussed whether blueberries or chocolate chips should be the special ingredient, decided on both, mixed, my son tried a few taste tests (and quickly found unbaked dough to not be as tasty as he thought), rolled out the dough, and sliced the scones into triangles. As it baked we found ourselves starting some bread with the leftover discard, which was a journey within itself of practicing patience as we let the dough rise. My children spent more time running to the oven to turn the light on and peek at the scones as they slowly changed form, which brought whispers and even more giggles when the blueberry juice popped out!

As we all waited for the scones to cool down we cleaned up the kitchen together. All of the flour that somehow dusted every surface was wiped down by me, the ingredients were put away by my daughter, and my son readied the table for everyone to eat at. Their jobs were much quicker than mine, so they ran outside to play together with one of our dogs, and I took a moment to soak up all of the precious gratitude for such a beautiful day. Because, lets be honest, when I was working full time these moments were too few and far between. Being present enough to recognize these sweet blissful moments, and soaking it up to save for a rainy day, has honestly been one of the greatest tools to come from my personal healing and learning journey.

My husband finished his call that he had been on, then I called the children to come try out their latest creation. All in all we were very pleased! My husband noted that he actually would've liked even more blueberries, and my children said more of the vegan butter is what they thought it needed. We talked about how we could work on the recipe together until we got it just right, and planned on what we would like to make next. Of course, both children had seconds, and dad as well.

The bread was finished in time for dinner, and it received the highest praise from my daughter, "I think this is the best bread I've ever had!" We ate it with our veggie & herb soup, which my husband made after he finished his work for the day. While we don't always have days that flow so well, it is almost always in the kitchen that we have the most high points when at home. And, home being where the heart is stands true as our family finds deep connection and meaning when preparing and eating meals together.

I hope that this short glimpse into our homeschooling every day life gives an example into how these beautiful simple moments, like baking as a family, can be created for our children to look back on one day.

The family that bakes together creates memories that last a lifetime!