I have come to realize that what I am teaching Genevieve is how to read and follow a recipe. It sounds so obvious, but the first thing I taught her was a technique with no recipe (eggs and toast).
I realized I need to teach her to read the recipe through once, assemble her ingredients, and keep re-reading as she steps through the recipe. What I do is stay in the kitchen and put away ingredients as she uses them.
Ben adores kitchen work, too, so he stays in the kitchen and his sister kindly allows him to stir or something. Then he gets to be my helper at the next mealtime.
This lesson, we made Baked Oatmeal. I have blogged a lot about Baked Oatmeal because it is healthy, cheap, fast, and delicious.
And people with summery-hot houses, take note: we put this Baked Oatmeal in a 4-quart slow cooker on high for 1.5 hours. Slow cookers don't give off a lot of heat to begin with, but you can also plug it in outside to cook and keep more heat out of your house. Great, huh? (We didn't take the slow cooker outside today because I thought it would be simpler for the newbie cook to stay in the kitchen.)
We actually had this cooking lesson in the afternoon due to our busy day, so we ate the Oatmeal for breakfast the next morning with some blackberries. I love to have meals figured out so far in advance! It frees my mind up to think of other things and to get to the sewing machine.
However, later that evening as I sewed happily away, I listened to a sermon we missed while on vacation; it came highly recommended from several church members.
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| scraping technique: hard to explain, hard to execute, but she licks the spatula at the end |
I was convicted. The sermon was about how Jesus responded to interruptions and didn't get glued into his plans and miss God speaking.
Oh, how I love my plans! Oh, how I love order!
But I want to love my children, my family, Jesus, more than my plans. So I'm trying make plans that I'm willing to release - hard lesson for me. And so far, the cooking lessons have been bright spots, so I'm grateful for that.
6 comments:
Margo, I'm sure that is a hard lesson for everyone! But, a great and true subject for a sermon.
To accept God-given interruptions with grace is a big thing. I'm not so good at it.
(I made your shortbread crust again recently - so easy!)
I am a planner and I've struggled with realizing that no matter how I plan it is not ME that in the end is in charge of it all. Sometimes plans are changed for a reason. But, that goes against my planner-nature so I'm still in a bit of learning curve! Does your church record all the sermons then? That is pretty handy.
How wonderful that your children both are so interested in cooking.
I loved this.
Yay for plans and yay for grace to release them. It's hard for me, too!
Fun to read your cooking lessons.
Hahaha. Ooh yeah you nailed it! The interruptions.. yeah. I've got six kids. This one has been a big one for me. I'm a planner too. I'm so glad god put an older woman in my life to show me how to let go and take life as it comes.
Great job teaching g. To cook!
Christina
Love that last paragraph. I think it is the thing God has taught me most during this period of motherhood is that my plans cannot be set in stone. At all.
Sally Clarkson's The Mission of Motherhood was a book I loved when my firstborn was a baby because I felt it cemented this realization in my heart.
I could write a book on this very subject. But it would mostly say over and over "I had to learn to surrender"--so I won't write it.
How sweet that Ben is in the kitchen learning too..[and watching is a great lesson]. Both kids are adorable.
Now on to oatmeal.----I really, really dislike oatmeal. Aren't I abnormal? lol .. My hubby eats it, but not me!
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