Monday, 16 September 2013

Cooking lesson

One of my goals this year is to encourage my oldest to do more in the kitchen and around the house, which can be called home economics for the education system.   While Firedrake loves the idea on paper, she has proven to be less than 100% committed to the process, which I am afraid has not made for the most pleasant experience.  Hopefully this will change and we will somehow figure out how to work together.  One of the things I want to see is her making a meal for the family.  Currently we do a lot of baking or she can manage a simple breakfast or lunch meal, but I wanted to expand her horizans a little more to make more complicated meals.

I showed her several cook books from which to choose a meat dish and she choose oven fried chicken:)  Next we talked about how we can make this a well balanced meal and added vegetables.
Showing her how to turn on the oven, we are starting at the basic plus this is a different oven than the one we had in England:) 

Since we have just moved into the house I also had to show her where the kitchen utensils where.  Her chore is the wash the dishes not put them away so she was a bit lost to where things are:).  Plus most of the time I am not sure where things are as I am still rearranging my kitchen as I unpack boxes so things tend to move around a bit:)

Following cook book directions and learning new terms.   


This was the mess she  walk away from when she finished  her prep work:( She wanted to read a book.
I was less than pleased that I had to track her down to clean it up.




After she cleaned up her initial mess Firedrake once again ran off to read.  I found this near the trash can.  Once again we had a discussion on how to leave your work space and that her responsibility was not only cooking the meal but to make sure she leaves the kitchen in the condition in which she found it.

Once the chicken was in the oven, Firedrake ran off to read and had to be reminded that the vegetables don't cook on their own, so she returned again for the third time to finish her job  

She wasn't too happy to hear she need to stay near the kitchen to periodically check the chicken to make sure it doesn't burn:(  She really wanted to read that BOOK!!!!!

IT wasn't the smoothest of process we will both admit, but the meal turned out great and she was pleased with that at least.  
In return for her cooking the meal with LOTS of supervision and guidance I washed the dishes after the meal.  I promised her that in return for her cooking the dinner meal I will do her dishes for that evening only.  It has been at least a week since our first attempt at a meal and I am gearing myself up to do this again very soon.  I am hoping that it will go a lot smoother next time:)

4 comments:

  1. On she is such a typical child. I had one daughter who loved to cook and would clean up. One that cooked but didn't like to clean up as much and then one that just was too busy to try. Of course, now they are mothers faced with the same problems you are having. Being a grandmother is so much easier.
    I love that you are teaching this because I think both boys and girls need to cook. My boys all learned to cook because I worked at that time and they had too. Now their wives love me because they still like to cook.
    Another fun adventure; I love it.
    Blessings!

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  2. I know people have different approaches to messes and cooking. I'm really big into cleaning up as I go, which makes cooking take longer, but is necessary for my sanity. My older daughters are both of the "clean up after you cook, if ever" mentality. My sons both were taught to cook, but don't make anything more complicated than spaghetti and meatballs. Sola doesn't seem inclined to want to cook, we'll see.... My other kids all loved to be in the kitchen when they were younger. Her tastes run to simpler foods, however, like fruit, she doesn't even like cookies or cake, so has no desire to cook them (at least at this point in time).

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  3. hee hee!I can hear all the intonation behind the narrative!!!
    In our house, we have an interesting optical phenomenon:dishes and pans that become invisible to juvenile eyes as soon as they are dirty. It makes cleaning up SO hard when you can't see what is there to clean.......

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  4. You are cracking me up. I'm glad your daughter likes to read. We had a discussion this morning about responsibility and privileges... it went something like, as you get older you get more of both, and there were many examples.

    As for cooking, when my kids cook I find it very difficult to be in the kitchen. I'm too controlling and they want to quit. It's better for me to let them go and then show up at the end to help them clean-up. They've been cooking for a while, and are getting much better at cleaning up after themselves.

    It's all good:)

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