Monday, July 22, 2013

Liberate myself and put the cookbook away


Cat Mush

I dutifully followed a recipe for lemon cilantro chicken.  Let's just say it was a tad bit lemon-y, and unfortunately, there was a lot left over.  The frugal part of me couldn't throw it away.  But something needed to tame it's flavor.  What to do?
 
Ah ha!  I'd turn it into a Mexican chicken croc pot something.  I was very proud of myself for creatively adding ingredients that I had on-hand...the remaining carton of roasted red pepper soup in the frig, a can of black beans, some frozen sweet corn.  Mission accomplished.  Quite tasty.  Not too lemon-y anymore.  

Dinner time.  Somewhere between the kitchen island (where we each serve up our plate) and mid-way through dinner,  my creation was innocently named by our youngest child as "Cat Mush".   Hmmm.  I never thought of it that way.  I guess it did kind of resemble our kitty's canned food.  But it tasted good.

Unfortunately, the addition of ingredients to the croc pot to doctor up the lemon chicken resulted in a lot left over.  I knew I couldn't serve "Cat Mush" again to my family.  Recycle it into something "new"?

As dinnertime approached the next day, I secretly and very quickly laid out some tortillas, plopped some "cat mush" onto each one, rolled them up, placed them in a casserole dish, smothered them with a can of enchilada sauce and grated cheddar cheese, and popped them in the oven.  Voila.  Steaming hot enchiladas were brought out of the oven and placed on the island for serving.  Mum was the word on the secret ingredient.

Whew, so far so good.... until the child who named it "Cat Mush" looked suspiciously at me from across the table.  With an interrogating voice she exclaimed to what seemed like the world, "Is there cat mush in here?" 
  
Busted!
  
Lessons learned from experimenting with cooking without a recipe:
Lesson 1:  Always name my creation first (a desirable name- how about "Mexican Pulled Chicken Stew") - before someone else beats me to it with a less than desirable name like "Cat Mush". 

Lesson 2:  Don't get so caught up in the glory of my creation that I forget to pay attention to the appearance of it from a 3rd party's perspective.

Lesson 3:  Use my cooking sense to adapt a recipe in the first place (I thought the recipe called for too much lemon juice but I dutifully followed it anyway).

Lesson 4:  I'm ready to start delving deeper into how to cook without a cookbook. 

 


 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

"Cook Night" 2 and 3 results

We began Jennifer's cook night with good intentions.  Early in the afternoon, Jen and her helper friends did a beautiful job cutting the rack of ribs and "painting" on the BBQ sauce.  However, when our out-of-town family arrived near the dinner hour, I became caught up in the conversation and merriment.  I didn't provide quite as much instruction and foster as much cooking independence in Jennifer as I would have liked. 





Take two: This week on Jennifer's cook night, we invited her friend, Liz, to stay for taco dinner.  Since Liz has Celiac disease and needs to avoid all trace of gluten, we made an adjustment from packaged Taco seasoning to a blend of our own spices.  Experimenting with spices isn't my forte (yet!), so we used an on-line "recipe" for taco seasoning.  I was surprised at how quick & easy it was.

We moved quickly through the dinner prep since the girls were quite ravenous after an afternoon of  playing and swimming.  Nothing like hunger to motivate the cooks!
 
Dinner prep was pretty simple. The girls cooked the meat, measured out and added spices.  They also grated the cheese, cut up some lettuce, heated the taco shells, and sliced the cantaloupe.  It was ready in 30 minutes flat.  Delicious!

I'm discovering how easy it can be to completely blow-off the idea of teaching the kids how to cook.  For me, it's sort of like wanting to keep a clutter-free house.  I love the idea but struggle to achieve it.

With a concrete plan on the calendar to have each child cook dinner on Monday nights throughout the summer, I'm much more likely to follow through on the idea rather than toss it out the window to flitter away in the summer breeze.  I know it will be worth it in the long run.