I’m More Like Michaelangelo From the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…
I think Worm is getting tired of his toys. We rotate them, but he may have already caught on to our evil toy recycling scheme. We’re going to try something new. Worm currently plays with plastic toys that are pre-designed, pre-made and pre-packaged. Logically, the next creative step for Worm’s brain is to make something out of nothing. To offer a truly plastic experience for him, I decided to make some good old-fashioned natural play dough! This way, he can mold something out of the depths of his little mind…mu hu ha ha ha!
So a Train Conductor and Play Dough Walk Into a Bar…
I found a great recipe for play dough online at Skip To My Lou. It takes only 15 minutes to make. If you are married to a chef like I am, you may already have these ingredients in your kitchen. Otherwise, find all this stuff in the cooking aisle of your supermarket:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tsp cream of tartar (It’s not the same as tartar sauce. Trust me on this!) Substitute 2 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar if you don’t have cream of tartar!
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1 tsp oil
- Food coloring
Mix everything together except the food coloring! Toss it into a small pot. The consistency should be like thick coughed up phlegm.
Turn stove heat to medium. Stir continuously. (Come on, use a little muscle! Work up a sweat!) The mixture should start turning sticky on the bottom of the pot. It will continue to get more and more clumpy. (This is the magic of cream of tartar. Tartar sauce will not do this, although it will add more flavor.)
You can stop stirring when you’ve got a huge lump of dough. It should now look like caucasian Play-doh of Germanic descent. (I’m trying to be politically correct here.)
Turn off heat. Let the play dough cool.
Grab the play dough and feel the consistency. If it falls apart too easily, add a few drops of oil and massage it into the dough. (If you massage too roughly, the dough may wince in pain.)
Now you’ve got a hunk of dough the size of a genetically modified naval orange.
You’ve got a few choices here. You can be uber-creative and break up the play dough into pieces and add different food colorings. Or you could be a lazy good-for-nothing parent and give your child the dough as is.
Today, I opted to be the minimum requirements parent. One that does just enough to still be called a ‘Dad’. I added 30 drops of blue liquid food coloring to the dough ball before me and called it a day.
Can I Feed Some To The Puppies?
And yes, you can eat it. It won’t kill you…in small doses.
Store it in an airtight container. If there’s hair growing out of it, throw it away.
Me vs. Gavin 