Cooking with Kids
My neighbor asks if I am out for a morning walk with my daughter. One look at her face and the tension in my arm as I am being dragged along shows her determination. This is not a morning walk; this is a mission. My one year old has discovered that I have allowed wild raspberries to take root in my front garden bed. I thought that these fruits may encourage the birds to stop by. Now my feathered friends are racing my daughter in trying to discover the next one. She insists that I help her in this quest.
Ihave been concerned about her eating habits, since she has been spending a lot of time with her aunt and cousins. Cookies, popsicles, chips, and other such lovely stuff has become too much a part of her diet. I do not mind her yanking off every eggplant before its time, although I would like them to grow larger. I explained that they were babies, so now she tells me that she has the babies. Bell peppers are her next favorite target in the garden.
Last night, I found a new snack for her. My kitchen is usually my quiet domain, but events took a strange course. My pre-teen son decides that he wants to help me cook dinner. He has not done this in some time, so I thought something might be up, but no he had a definite idea for a meal. My wife chose this day to final complete her Amish Friendship Bread. My wife cooks one meal a year, but she bakes four times a year. My daughter decided to make play dough from my flour bin. I am to supervise this gathering, offering assistance when needed. Thinking that my wife was not going to make her bread/cake, I had taken two cups of the mixture to make my own little bread.
I had added one cup of water to it, some ground flax seeds, and three more cups of flour. I kneaded in my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook on a low speed for five minutes. I placed this dough in a warmed oven (it was off for some time, but it was still warm from an earlier meal that I was planning for that evening). The risen dough went into a greased and floured bread pan.
My son in the mean time took a can of kidney beans, an 8oz can of V8, a can of tomato paste to be mixed in a casserole. He added crushed garlic. He grabbed three medium sized eggplants from my daughters collection, along with some bell peppers, for a rough chop. He headed out to the garden for spinach, green onions, and beet greens with some herbs. These were sliced in a chiffonade. Everything was mixed with the following spices: paprika, black pepper, cinnamon, and chili powder. He added the remainder (about 1 1/2lbs) of fajita meat that I had. This baked in the oven with my bread at 410F for thirty minutes. He planned to serve this in a pita.
Things went awry in the kitchen as they frequently do. My son went off to complete some homework, while my wife decided that the kitchen was hers, so I was out. I had placed the pita bread in the oven for a quick warm up. I went off to check on the homework progress, forgetting the pitas. Well, they ended up crisp. My son was upset that his masterpiece was not turning out as envisioned. In the meantime, I was letting my bread cool. My daughter was breaking off pieces to eat. She loved it.
I took the crisp pitas, and I smeared some mayonnaise lightly on them. I had added pressed garlic, grated lime skin, and lime juice to the mayonnaise. On top of this, my son piled his concoction to be dubbed a Middle Eastern Pizza. It was a big hit, and we had my wife’s Friendship bread for dessert. Even mistakes can turn out well. He told his friends at the bus stop this morning that he had developed his own pizza recipe (no mention of a pita pocket was made).
Frank
Schulte-Ladbeck
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