Connor has been cooking me dinners almost nightly.

I knew it was time to invest in some new play foods for Connor's play kitchen when he started "cooking" me rather unusual dishes. The most allarming came a few weeks before Dylan was born, after he spent a good hour cooking me a special dinner (or so he said) he presented me with one of his little plastic police men and informed me that "I cooked you a boy mommy! Make sure you use a knife he has lots of bones!". He was just so proud of himself, and I wasn't so sure if I should laugh or be alarmed. Thankfully though Learning Resources sent us a really fabulous set of play food to try out and there has been no more "boys" on the menu since. heh.

The Learning Resources Pretend and Play Meal Time Playset includes everything you need to make for an awesome play kitchen, or even to play with on their own! It includes three full meals with their own "shopping" baskets for storage and play. Actually we found that the storage baskets fit perfectly on our bookshelf and they ended up being reused to store and sort Connor's most played with small toys including small cars, his knights, and one for random favorite trinkets that do not fit anywhere else. They do however make the perfect shopping baskets for role playing as well! Not to totally get distracted by the baskets but you can buy them seperately as well. heh.

The Pretend and Play Meal Time Playset is really all you ever need to stock your play kitchen. I looked everywhere at Christmas when we got Connor his kitchen for a really quality all inclusive set to buy him along with the kitchen. The problem was that all of the sets were very poorly made, cardboard, or you ended up having to buy several sets to even come close to completing a meal. I've been very impressed with the quality of Learning Resources toys from the very beginning as all of the toys we have reviewed for them have been really well made! This meal set is no exception. Actually my favorite piece in the set is the bacon from the breakfast basket. It's soft and rubbery and Connor quickly learned that you can easily wrap it around other items. He's "cooked" me bacon wrapped strawberries, bacon wrapped corn.. and pretty much any other thing he can fit the bacon around. Who ever said he wasn't the typical man? If you are just starting out your kitchen collection you'll be glad to know that the set also comes with drinks which always seems to be missing from most kitchen sets. The "liquid" inside the cups is removable as well so you can really confuse your kids when they offer you play milk to drink by removing the milk and telling them your all done. Connor always gives me the weirdest look and then promptly informs me that I was NOT supposed to actually eat it!

Now if I could only get him to cook me a real meal! Even just throwing a microwaveable meal in would be fabulous as baby Dylan is taking all my time as of late. Too bad the bacon doesn't actually taste as good as it looks.

You can buy your own Pretend and Play Mealtime Playset on the Learning Resources website.