It was a long weekend, and I didn’t sleep well last night. So I was planning on ordering delivery from a local diner for dinner. When I told mudgirl this, she said “Or I could just make you some spaghetti”.
She just turned 11, but since she was about 8, she’s been watching me cook, on and off, and I am sure to explain to her what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Still, I said “You don’t know how to make spaghetti!”
“Sure I do! You boil some water, put the spaghetti in, drain it, toss it with some sauce, and make some garlic toast”.
Uh, well, sure!
Now, we already had jarred spaghetti sauce. When I use this, I doctor it up, but I certainly didn’t expect her to do that. Straight out of the jar is fine, if it’s a decent brand. I also had some artisan bakery bread I bought yesterday, that has big chunks of roasted garlic running all through it.
So, she boiled the pasta, put the garlic bread on a baking pan and sprinkled some grated cheese on top and toasted it in the oven; then she drained the pasta, tossed it with the sauce, and added some grated cheese to the top. She even put a mini candy bar on the side of my plate!
I told her that when we do menu planning next week, we’ll start planning a night for her to cook. I told her to start thinking of some simple recipes she might like to learn how to do herself.
I might be raising a little chef! Plus, I never object to not having to cook dinner and not pay for it to be delivered!
She really is a great kid. Obviously, she makes me crazy sometimes, but I’d be more worried if she didn’t!
Yeah, my Mom never taught me to cook (probably just as well, since she was not a good cook, and she probably would have taught me some habits I’d have had to unlearn). Once I was married and on my own, I became self-taught. I’ve tried to teach my kids at least some of the basics of cooking before they’re out on their own!
Good for her, and it seems she knows what she’s doing!
My kids love to cook, but they’re not tall enough to use the stove safely yet. About twice a week, I get breakfast in bed, though… and you would be amazed how much peanut butter can fit on a slice of toast.
Lol, I know! I’ve gotten breakfast in bed several times, and the sheer variety would amaze you! Cheese toast, leftover pizza from the previous night’s dinner, a fruit cup, cheese cubes, Saltine crackers, on and on! Oh, and fresh-brewed coffee! She does know how to operate my grind n’ brew coffee maker!
I hadn’t thought yet of getting her her own cook book and knife, but it’s a great idea. I could even let her help me shop for them!
Thanks for the suggestion!
Oh, btw, in the past when she’s helped me prepare for dinner, I have called her “My little sous-chef”, explaining to her that a sous-chef is the head chef’s assistant (which she already knew, of course, from watching Ratatouille).
Well, I had already uncorked a bottle of Katsiteli, which is a dry white made in the Republic of Georgia, so it’s not like she had to make any decisions there!
Ray Ray has a cookbook for kids, with age-specific sections. Once she masters that, give her her own copy of The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and stand back.
I always stop to read threads about mudgirl, and I have to say that, between you and her, someone seems to be doing that upbringingy learningy stuff right!
Ha, when I was eleven my mother was working 60 hours a week to support us (six kids) and didn’t have time or energy to cook much so I got out her copy of The Better Homes and Gardens recipe book and got busy. At first it was pretty much tuna casserole or beans/wieners along with canned vegetables but I eventually got more proficient. I still like to cook when I have time or reason to. My little brother is the one who became the sous chef.
When I was a kid I messed up making Hamburger Helper. It was more like Hamburger Helper Soup. I just bought How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I’m gonna start teaching myself. I just turned 32.
Wow, perfect! She likes Rachael Ray, too, so that will help!
Thanks!
Oh, I know a lot of kids her age are carrying a lot more of the household weight than she does. She has the luxury of having a mother who’s never worked outside the home in the span of her life time. I do have a job, but the hours are pretty flexible, and mostly I work from home (with a bit of work-related travel/errands thrown in, but I mostly try to do that stuff while she’s at school). So for most of her life, I’ve been putting dinner on the table almost every night.
Starting when my daughter was MUCH younger (she is now 13), so about 6 or 7, I bought her her own special recipe book, with a pocket, clear sleeves and blank pages.
The idea was that she should write down recipes as her father or I cooked them, so that she would have a collection of her favourite recipes as she grew up. The clear sleeves were for recipes printed out or photocopied, and the pocket for ones cut from the papers or magazines. The blank pages were for ones she wrote down from watching us, or copied from cookbooks. For ones she copied from cookbooks we got her to write the name of the book and author.
It worked extremely well - she is an enthusiastic cook and has a decent collection of recipes. She looks back at the early ones and laughs at her appalling writing!
It had the unexpected benefit of also teaching her some organisation - getting the ingredients and steps in order.
You can get quite fancy versions of the blank book - she gave one to a friend as a birthday present last year. Or you can get the el cheapo, plastic kind and gussie it up with a fancy front page for “Recipes from Chez Mud” :).*
Things like rosti are dead simple, and point up the fact that Macca’s hash browns have little relationship to actual food.
M’daughter is a chocolate fiend, so the recipe folder came pre-loaded with a couple of easy chocolate recipes, like brownies. And when the recipes didn’t work, and there were some very…special… disasters, we sat down with her and helped her figure out what went wrong.
