As much as I am an advocate for meal-planning, sometimes I like to pick out foods on a whim and challenge myself to make something creative with them. On this particular grocery shop, I decided to grab orange beets, because I’d never seen orange beets before, and an eggplant, because I hadn’t cooked with eggplant in ages. The beets and eggplant sat for a while in my refrigerator until I had an idea to roast them up for soup.

Roasting vegetables just seems like the right thing to do at this time of year, as does making soup and dumplings.

Astoundingly, all three kids liked this healthy soup! Cole almost gave it his usual so-so rating, but when I asked what he didn’t like about it, he couldn’t think of anything, so he decided to give it a thumb up.  Bennett agreed that it should get a thumb up.

Tony seemed puzzled by this meal. I told him it was soup, but I guess the dumplings threw him off. He kept asking me things like, “Do I use bowls?” and “What about spoons?”

Um yeah, it’s soup!

He liked it a lot once he started eating it and stopped trying to figure out what it was.

Since Ayla insists on feeding herself but isn’t so great at using a spoon yet, I cut up a dumpling and poured some of the soup on top of it. She picked it up in fistfuls and shoved it in her mouth. She couldn’t get enough of it! When she was done all of her dumpling, she grabbed some of Bennett’s as well. She must have really liked the dumpling because she didn’t drop any of it, although she got soup over everything. She even managed to get it on her feet.

Learning to feed oneself sure can be a messy business.  At least she looks cute doing it.