Sharpening Your Knives
I posted my book review of An Edge in the Kitchen at my book reviews site. I liked it, but when I went to try to sharpen my own knives, I found myself quite frustrated. Just the concepts of burr and angle were rather hard for me to comprehend.
My husband has sharpened his own knives with a stone before. He insists the problem was mine and not the book.He’s probably right, but reading a book really did not help me at all in the knife sharpening department.
Do you sharpen your knives on stone? How did you learn how to do so?
What We Ate (Week ending Aug 29)
In addition to the popovers I raved about the other day, I also tried the Noodle Pudding from Pretend Soup. It was okay. My son loved it and ate it very quickly, but I ate it with a stomach ache. It was like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner for me: Eck. I could eat it but it doesn’t feel good in my belly.
I liked the chicken dinner, which was good because there was so much leftover I ate it all week. Got pretty tired of it, to be honest.
I’m going out of town for the coming weekend, so I won’t have another What We Ate until two weeks from now.
Sunday
chicken curry with cashews and rice
Monday
[leftovers]; Popovers (from Pretend Soup) thoughts here
Tuesday
[leftovers]; Noodle Pudding (from Pretend Soup)
Wednesday
[leftovers]
Thursday
carrot soup; cheddar biscuits
Friday
pork chops with parsley butter sauce; mustard potatoes; Zucchini Moons (from Pretend Soup);
Saturday
Macaroni and cheddar
Popovers
My son and I made the popovers recipe from Pretend Soup. I’ve never made popovers and I must say these were absolutely delicious! Especially considering how easy they were to make, this is something we’ll do again.
My son loved every part: watching the butter melt in the microwave, spreading the butter into the muffin tin with a pastry brush, cracking the eggs, stirring the milk and flour into the eggs, putting the batter in the muffin tin, watching the batter get big in the oven, and, of course, eating three popovers with butter, maple syrup, and grape jelly.
And he’s only 23 months old. Cooking with my son is turning out to be so much fun, because he is obviously enjoying it so much.
I can’t, of course, post the recipe from the book for copyright reasons, even if it does have only four ingredients. But go check out Molly’s slightly-more-complicated-but-certainly-delicious popover recipe. It also looks good.
Cookbook Review: Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson
Most mornings, after my son (age 23 months) finishes his breakfast, he jumps out of his chair and runs to the kitchen stool, yelling, “Cook! Cook!” He climbs the stool and pounds the counter, a big smile on his face, for he knows I’ll probably give in and cook something with him. (I normally prepare a batch of breakfast granola twice a week, so I think that’s when this obsession started.)
I’ve been looking for something to nurture this interest, and then I recalled a book that months ago Eva mentioned her niece enjoyed: Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson.
I didn’t realize how wonderful Pretend Soup was until I consulted another preschool cookbook and compared the two.
The second book had cooking activities, and each treat was either in a shape (such as fruit pudding decorated like a cat, bread shaped to look like a bear) or the treat itself was a sugary desert (chocolate dipped fruit, fruit tarts arranged in a pretty pattern). These recipes seemed far too artistic for my creative design talents, let alone those of my one-year-old (or even an older preschooler).
While Pretend Soup does include some “decorated” food (“Bagel Faces,” decorated with vegetables, for example), the emphasis in the entire book is different. Katzen and Henderson assert that for a preschooler, the fun part of cooking is the actual act of cooking. Watching my son, I believe it.
The introduction provides numerous safety ideas (such as mark the handle part of the bread knife with masking tape to remind the child where to hold it), as well as ideas to ease the stress of cooking with a child (such as keep a baking sheet under the mixing bowl, so clean ups will be as painless as putting the baking sheet in the sink). Cooking with children will certainly be messy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a no go.
Further, each recipe is written twice, once for the adult in words, and then illustrated in a two-page color spread so the child can “read” the recipe himself. My son is still too young for that aspect, but I’m sure three- and four-year-olds love being able to “read” along.
And then the “critics” (i.e., preschoolers) also provide hilarious reviews of the food they’ve created.
“I wish I could have two bunches of them!” says Nathan, liking his plate after the “Zucchini Moons”
“This is so good, I can’t even say a word.” says Matthew about the “French Toast”
“It tastes so good, I’m gonna eat it ALL UP!” says Jessica on the “Oatmeal Surprise”
“Good! Very good! So really very good!” says Sammy about the “Pizza!”
What I like best about Pretend Soup is not the recipes; the end results seem mediocre and ordinary. My son and I have so far cooked the “Zucchini Moons” (sautéed zucchini with salt, pepper, and cheese), the “Hide and Seek Muffins” (with a hidden strawberry inside each one), and the “Pizza” (which he loved putting cheese on, and then some more). My son wouldn’t eat much of any of these, probably because he’s getting teeth this week and not eating much anyway. I didn’t think they were the most original or most delicious meals either.
No, what I like most about Pretend Soup are the tips and ideas for making the process fun. Cooking doesn’t have to be intimidating, and Pretend Soup makes even the most basic dishes into a game. I think the kids praised the end results (even the pretty ordinary sautéed vegetable dishes) because they had made it themselves. It was their creation: of course they liked it.
I have a friend that doesn’t let her son cook with her because “he wants to help me crack the eggs.” Apparently, she doesn’t want him to get that “hands on.” It’s messy, and eggs are, well, raw eggs.
Oh, my. How can I explain to you the look of absolute delight on my son’s face when he helped me crack open those eggs? That’s worth any mess. He had a blast: one minute the egg was hard, the next minute it was all runny. Enter: delighted screeches, loud laughter, and a largest smile I’ve ever seen. Plus, a mess on his hands and the counter, but hey, who cares?
Of the three recipes we made together from this book, I think my son had the most fun with the “Hide and Seek Muffins.” We had to roll the strawberry in sugar and dip it inside the muffin dough. My son would eat a strawberry, and then remember to get another and put it in the muffin dough. He also had fun putting the papers in the muffin tin, cracking the eggs, mixing the mix, and putting the dough in the papers. Yeah, pretty much all of it. He didn’t have patience to wait the 15 minutes for the muffins to be done: he said, “Eat! Eat!” as soon as he saw the strawberries. So we ate strawberries while we waited for the muffins. Altogether, it was a fun morning.
I look forward to many more mornings cooking with my son. It may not be recipes from Pretend Soup, but it will certainly be with my son! I may make more recipes from this book; if I do so, I may revisit this subject on this site.
Do you cook with your kids?
What are your favorite “kids cooking” recipes?
Cross-posted on Rebecca Reads
What We Ate (Week ending Aug 22)
This week I’ve taken the fact that my husband is out of town to my advantage by cooking meals with my son specifically for my son. I have lots more to say about Pretend Soup and how much fun it is to cook with my toddler. I plan on cooking some more of the recipes in the coming week.
I also tried something new that I’ve always wanted to try: meatloaf. It was so good. The recipe I made could use improvement, but considering how easy it was to pull together, I’m eager to add this to repertoire. Making a “new” recipe is a “mini-challenge” for the Spice of Life Challenge I’m hosting, so while I do try to a new recipe once a week anyway, at least this time the new recipe was for something I’d always wanted to try. I’ve had this stereotype of meatloaf as a dry, boring thing. I thought it was moist and tasty.
Sunday
French toast
Monday
Surprise Muffins (from Pretend Soup); Zucchini Moons (from Pretend Soup); peanut butter and jelly
Tuesday
Macaroni and Cheddar
Wednesday
Personal pizzas! (from Pretend Soup)
Thursday
asdf
Friday
parmesan risotto with peas
Saturday
meatloaf; baked herb polenta; vegetables
Another Reason to Have a Sharp Knife
Onions hold sulfur compounds in the liquids within the cell walls. When the cell is crushed or damaged, vacuoles containing an enzyme break open, allowing the enzyme to mix with the sulfur compounds and create a volatile compound that attacks the eyes and nose. It is this compound … that causes our eyes to water. … A keen edge [knife] will slice the cell walls rather than crushing them, limiting the amount of enzymes that get mixed in.”
From Chad Ward, An Edge in the Kitchen (color plate number 21)
I’m really enjoying this book and learning a lot about how my knives really can be an asset to my cooking and my kitchen. I’m learning how to use them correctly!
I grew up in a house where the knives were 20 years old and had never been sharpened for fear of someone getting cut. So needless to say, I’m learning a lot.
What We Ate (Week ending Aug 15)
I realized something this week. When we have company, I make yummy, special meals. When we don’t have company, I made the same things every. single. week. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The regular fare is cheaper in the long run. But I do have to say I like the new meals the best! I really enjoyed Saturday’s dinner, and the rub was so easy, I’ll do it again.
I also am realizing, as I said yesterday, that I need to be more “experimental” in planning my meals. I tend to stay inside the box, unless, as I said, someone special is coming for dinner.
Other than that, I’ve already forgotten what I meal I made on Friday night. It was ordinary and all, I just don’t remember what I did! LOL!
Sunday
Grilled steak with parsley butter; pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and thyme
Monday
[leftovers]
Tuesday
lunch with family/ [leftovers for dinner]
Wednesday
Chicken Pot Pie Stew and Buttermilk Biscuits
Thursday
[picnic dinner with family]
Friday
I seriously forgot what I made Friday Night. Oops. It was really memorable, apparently.
Saturday
Experimental Cooking
Our dinner guests the other night asked us if we are “experimental cooks.”
“No way!” I immediately responded. I like to cook recipes. I don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Anything I cook will be common. That’s not “experimental.” Experimental would be using odd ingredients and cooking without recipes: just making dishes up.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since.
I realized that every recipe I cooked Saturday night was brand-new to me, including the churros, which had to be fried in oil. I had “experimented” with three new dishes. And I’d only done so because I thought my husband (whom I consider the cook) would be in the kitchen helping me. I probably wouldn’t have attempted new recipes if I knew he was going to be in the basement fixing the water softener, as he was. I would have been afraid to do so, for some reason.
And yet, I was fine. I cooked new recipes by myself and they were delicious and easy. Now I consider them in my repertoire, and cooking them again won’t be a “challenge.”
So I am an “experimental cook” in that I try new recipes that sound good, even if they are new to me. My husband’s encouragement and implicit faith in my cooking helps me to be more experimental.
As I ponder that little bit of experimentalism, the more I think that such willingness to experiment is part of being a cook. In order to improve, I have to try something new. If my baby hadn’t experimented with walking, he would be crawling still.
My hope is that as I become more comfortable experimenting with new recipes, I’ll also become more comfortable experimenting beyond “new recipes” and into the No-Recipe Improvisation that I’m always so impressed with.
Are you an experimental cook? In what ways do you experiment? What are the best techniques for becoming more experimental and less timid about new foods and recipes?
Churros
I’d eaten these and loved them, but I’d never made them before. The dough worked out fine, and our only problem turned out to be the pastry piping bags: ours were so cheap they fell apart as we tried to squeeze the dough into the hot oil. Putting the dough in without the pastry bags created somewhat uglier churros, but they tasted just as good!
Arroz con Crema
This is a delicious rice casserole option. What else is there to say? I liked it. It was easy and tasty. I’ll definitely make it again.
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