Cooking with the kids
Jan. 18th, 2009 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsLast night, I had fun with the girls teaching them how to cook their favorite meal: macaroni & cheese, the real stuff straight out of Mark Bittman's book, How to Cook Everything (absolutely a fabulous book, recently re-issued, and probably the best textbook ever for actually doing implementing Michael Pollan's prescription: "eat food, not too much, mostly plants").
Since the recipe calls for making a white sauce, boiling elbow noodles, and creating bread crumbs from leftover bread, it involved a bit of kitchen machinery. Yamaraashi-chan prepped the boiling water while Kouryou-chan got the milk measured and the bay leaves together. Then Yamaraashi-chan melted the butter and browned the flour while Kouryou-chan grated the cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.
It was fun how well they worked together, trading off. "It's my turn to stir the sauce," was about the only complaint Kouryou-chan had the entire night. They had worked well together, Yamaraashi-chan stirring the white sauce while Kouryou-chan slowly fed it milk, and then all the cheddar. She traded off with her sister, whose job was to grease the casserole dish, and then they switched again so she could tear the last of the french loaf into small pieces and feed them to the food processor. Yamaraashi-chan mixed the noodles and the cheese in a large bowl, then helped me pour the mix into the casserole. They both spread the crumbs over the top of the casserole.
I put the casserole dish into the oven, and took it out fifteen minutes later, and it was perfect.
I'll have them cooking proper meals yet.
Since the recipe calls for making a white sauce, boiling elbow noodles, and creating bread crumbs from leftover bread, it involved a bit of kitchen machinery. Yamaraashi-chan prepped the boiling water while Kouryou-chan got the milk measured and the bay leaves together. Then Yamaraashi-chan melted the butter and browned the flour while Kouryou-chan grated the cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.
It was fun how well they worked together, trading off. "It's my turn to stir the sauce," was about the only complaint Kouryou-chan had the entire night. They had worked well together, Yamaraashi-chan stirring the white sauce while Kouryou-chan slowly fed it milk, and then all the cheddar. She traded off with her sister, whose job was to grease the casserole dish, and then they switched again so she could tear the last of the french loaf into small pieces and feed them to the food processor. Yamaraashi-chan mixed the noodles and the cheese in a large bowl, then helped me pour the mix into the casserole. They both spread the crumbs over the top of the casserole.
I put the casserole dish into the oven, and took it out fifteen minutes later, and it was perfect.
I'll have them cooking proper meals yet.
