Homemade Playdough

I tried to start a juice fast yesterday.  It lasted about... 21 hours.  Including the night before.  While I was sleeping.  Yeah, turns out deprivation is not my style of diet.  I'm more than happy to make smoothies; with those, I've eaten more fruits and vegetables in the last week then I have in the last month.  It's pretty pathetic.  But, either way, I spent Friday choking down a sickening combination of freshly juiced produce or lemon water and pining over what I couldn't eat off my kids' plates.  So, instead of sitting around hating the thought of the next seven days, I made playdough.

The recipe:
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
1 TBSP oil (I used vegetable, but baby oil may be softening/smell better)
food coloring (4 drops of red to make pink)
(it called for 1 tsp of cream of tartar, but I didn't have any so I omitted it and it turned out fine)

You mix it all over medium heat until it forms a ball.  Then you take it off the heat and let it cool a bit.  Then you knead all the lumps out.  Then you break it up and give it to your kids.  Then you tell them it's not food.  Play ensues.

We got some plastic utensils for cutting and mashing and poking holes.  And then I pulled out some toothpicks and Cheerios and got them to stack the Cheerios on the toothpicks.  I call Aurelia's masterpiece "Don't Sit On Me".  Thaddeus had some fun, but mostly just ate the cereal.  All in all, a solid two hours of entertainment for the 2.5 year old and yet another snack for the 16-month old.  And I'm a juicing quitter.