Kid's cooking night
A few months ago, one of the mom-blogs I read had a post about her plan to get her kids to cook dinner for the family one night a week. Her kids are a little older than Hannah, but I thought she might be ready.
Hannah has been my kitchen helper for years now, and she dives on Everyday Food and Bon Appetit as soon as they hit the mailbox - folding down the corners of all the pages with recipes she wants me to make. Most months, there's more folded corners than not, and we usually plans out the menu plan for the coming week together. She's a little foodie in training, is what I'm saying, and so actually being in charge and responsible for dinner seemed like a logical next step.
I ran the idea past her, and she was thrilled at the thought. Then life happened, and we've been so busy for the past month that we never actually got to do it - I could count the number of home cooked dinners in our house in October on one hand - but this week, life is mostly back to normal.
She picked out a shiitake mushroom pasta alfredo from this month's Everyday Food (I would link to the recipe, but I can't find it on the site) and she gave me a list for the grocery shopping trip. We got home late tonight (not quite back to normal, I guess) and she set to work. Since we were running late, I volunteered my services at a prep cook and chopped garlic and shallots and mushrooms while she got the herbs ready, the pasta cooking and all the other ingredients gathered. She needed help draining the big pasta pot and beyond that, all I did was answer questions. She made a few rookie mistakes but nothing that made a real difference, and the dish she turned out was actually delicious!
She was so pleased with herself for turning out a good meal, and it was awesome to watch how comfortable she was being in charge and making decisions about how the dish would get made.
Best of all? This, combined with my brainstorm about making Wiley cook on the night he works from home (and I'm out until 7 picking Hannah up from dance class) means that I'm only responsible for two dinners during the week, even if I'm still working in the kitchen for one of them.
Hannah has been my kitchen helper for years now, and she dives on Everyday Food and Bon Appetit as soon as they hit the mailbox - folding down the corners of all the pages with recipes she wants me to make. Most months, there's more folded corners than not, and we usually plans out the menu plan for the coming week together. She's a little foodie in training, is what I'm saying, and so actually being in charge and responsible for dinner seemed like a logical next step.
I ran the idea past her, and she was thrilled at the thought. Then life happened, and we've been so busy for the past month that we never actually got to do it - I could count the number of home cooked dinners in our house in October on one hand - but this week, life is mostly back to normal.
She picked out a shiitake mushroom pasta alfredo from this month's Everyday Food (I would link to the recipe, but I can't find it on the site) and she gave me a list for the grocery shopping trip. We got home late tonight (not quite back to normal, I guess) and she set to work. Since we were running late, I volunteered my services at a prep cook and chopped garlic and shallots and mushrooms while she got the herbs ready, the pasta cooking and all the other ingredients gathered. She needed help draining the big pasta pot and beyond that, all I did was answer questions. She made a few rookie mistakes but nothing that made a real difference, and the dish she turned out was actually delicious!
She was so pleased with herself for turning out a good meal, and it was awesome to watch how comfortable she was being in charge and making decisions about how the dish would get made.
Best of all? This, combined with my brainstorm about making Wiley cook on the night he works from home (and I'm out until 7 picking Hannah up from dance class) means that I'm only responsible for two dinners during the week, even if I'm still working in the kitchen for one of them.