Cooking Lesson: Tapioca Pudding

Genevieve is seven-and-a-half years old and she is ready. We are taking a bit more formal approach to cooking this summer. Every Wednesday, we will have a cooking lesson and then I will share it with you!

Our second lesson involved reading a recipe and using measuring cups, spoons, and a liquid measure.  I talked about reading the recipe first before beginning and then often throughout.  We spread out the measuring spoons, cups, and glass measure to talk about them; Genevieve whirled around to get a paper and pen and show me what she knew about fractions from school - I was so pleased and impressed that she instantly made that connection! 

She learned to look at the milk in the glass measuring cup by bending down on the same plane as the red lines on the side.  She learned that vanilla extract rushes fast out of the bottle and that tapioca is cassava root from South America (although I thought it was from Africa too, and called manioc there).

She got more comfortable with the stove and what a medium flame looks like; her arm got tired of stirring the pudding, so we talked about different stirring patterns and switching hands and we made silly jokes while she stirred.  My husband asked her at lunch what she learned and she explained boiling to him.  We talked about stove safety and how to scrape out every little bit of the pudding using a silicone spatula; I told her Granny is the queen of scraping bowls clean.

"tired-of-stirring" face

This was a very successful lesson, even if I forgot to instruct Geneveive in the art of slicing and macerating strawberries to eat on top of the pudding.  She was quite proud to serve us dessert!  The recipe for the pudding that we used is here.

A Hankie as Bandage

We went on a hike and Ben ran down the trail so hard he fell.  This is typical.  My sister the nurse just looks at him and shakes her head and wishes he would wear a helmet all the time. 

Well. 

On this hike, I had bravely taken nothing with me.  Normally, I like to be prepared for every contingency, but for once I thought, oh, it's just a short hike, I'll leave my water bottle and knitting and bag in the car.  But after the bad fall, Ben's elbow was bleeding and he was under the impression that a band-aid would cure the pain.  I hesitatingly offered to tie my hankie-from-winter that was still lurking in my jeans around his elbow.  He was instantly comforted - why would he care if the hanky was partially used and linty?  I knew I could soak the blood out of the hankie in cold water.  We were all cheerful again. 

I am quite sure a tissue would not have been big enough or sturdy enough to tie around his elbow - let's hear it for cloth hankies in every pocket!

Two Weeks of Collecting Sugar Snaps

Finally, all our little handfuls of sugar snap peas added up to a meal.  I made chicken and dumplings to carry a meal to my in-laws and work at some food in the freezer - surprise! a little cranberry applesauce was in there, too!

Just lightly steamed, with a little salt.  Delicious.

We planted the peas at the end of March and for the first time this year, we used pea fence for them to climb on.  It worked well, and we'll do that again.

I don't know if we'll get more peas or not, but we already planted the beans between their rows, so it's okay if the peas' time is over.  I feel quite clever, starting the beans in there like that.  Next year, I'm going to plant the lettuce around the peas - got that tip from a farmer at market.  How kind of the country farmers to help the urban gardeners manage their tiny space!

Cooking Lesson: Eggs and Toast

Genevieve is seven-and-a-half years old and she is ready.  We are taking a bit more formal approach to cooking this summer.  Every Wednesday, we will have a cooking lesson and then I will share it with you!

Genevieve flew down the steps to get the eggs out of the fridge although normally she lolls in bed as long as possible.  What a nice sign of her interest and pleasure in cooking lessons!

I hadn't thought through much of what I was going to say or teach, unusual for me.  I simply talked her through the process of frying eggs and making toast, trying to let her make her own mistakes when possible and offer simple tips when possible.  She was tractable (praise God! - a good sign that the timing is right!) and pretty competent.

Genevieve learned how to turn the stove burner on, how much bacon grease to put in the pan, how to flip eggs over-hard, and how to go back and forth from toaster to stove to get the eggs and toast out at relatively the same time.  She learned how hard it is to tug open the oven door where the skillet is kept.  She swiped the lid of the butter dish to the floor, breaking it in two tidy pieces that have already been glued together (whew - I do like that butter dish).  So we talked about keeping things back from the edge of the counter.

I purposely kept the lesson to once a week to make sure I would follow through and not be overwhelmed.  Yet when I was putting together the lemon chiffon pudding for our first strawberries, she stayed wistfully and insistently at my elbow until I put the mixer in her hand and showed her how to turn it on.  I am deeply gratified by her interest and I hope I can show her what pleasure and creativity I enjoy in the kitchen.  I welcome any advice you have for me!

Summer Goals 2013

This is the structure that we established this summer:

Monday - library with Dad
Tuesday - market with Mom, vacuum, clean kids' room
Wednesday - G cooking lesson with Mom, Mom pay bills/desk/inbox
Thursday - sketching with Dad
Friday - vacuum/dust house, day of reckoning for stuff, G piano lesson with Mom
Saturday - change sheets, clean bathroom

Daily: G feed rabbit, fold laundry, quiet time, help Mom and Dad with other chores, set table, clear table, clean up toys

(Last summer's schedule and some more explanation is here)

 

The notable changes:
1.  Genevieve and I are doing cooking lessons together.  More on that tomorrow.
2.  I separated cleaning the kids' room from the rest of the house cleaning.  I was getting too frustrated and it was getting short shrift.  I would really like to be more patient and detailed in teaching the children how to sort and organize their desks this summer.
3. My husband wants to teach the children some drawing principles. 
4.  We've always gone to the library randomly, usually when the adults needed something.  But now, we are experimenting with a regular library day because Genevieve has turned into a voracious reader.  It's exciting!  And way more economical to keep her in books by checking them out from the library.

Other than cooking lessons, I didn't make a list of specific tasks I want to teach the children this summer.  It might come to that, but for now, they are both handling the tasks we give them pretty well.  They are also both very grateful for quiet time after the obligatory kick-and-fuss-for-a-few-minutes.

This schedule will probably wiggle around some to accomodate lots of swimming at the pool this summer, but for now, we are really enjoying our relaxed, yet purposeful, days.

Finally, a Solution for Playing Out of Hymnals

Back when we toured a local historic farmstead, a musician was playing out of tight little hardcover music books from the 1800s.  He kept them open with large wooden clothespin-looking things.  I couldn't concentrate on his talk because I was staring at the wooden pins.

I love to play hymns out of my hymnals where I jot notes to myself on the margins, but it was a perennial problem to keep the hymnal open.  I was always propping it under books or grabbing at it as it flapped shut midway through the song.  I don't like to use the spiral-bound hymnal for accompanists at church (no notes!) and I don't want to make photocopies (an avalanche of paper!).

Clearly, I needed those wooden pins or their equivalent.

There are giant binder clips, but the ones I found were about $10 apiece.  Then, one day in the local art store, I came across large silver clips for $1.25 apiece. 

They work!  They are large enough to handle the biggest hymnal I have, and I am so pleased.   I haven't seen this solution among the musicians I know, but perhaps this is a common trick for professionals and I just missed it all these years.

Banana Milk

Once upon a time, I had overripe bananas on the counter.  I was planning to give milk to the children at breakfast anyway, so I just blendered the bananas in the milk.  I put it in cups with straws which makes my children deliriously happy. 

I was pleased to have an easy, nutritious breakfast drink.  Sometimes I use kefir or yogurt instead of milk.  It's a nice way to tempt lagging appetites in a heat wave as the cool drink slurps down so easily. Also, you can toss overripe bananas directly into the freezer and they could be used in this drink or in baked goods. 

I used to think smoothies needed 10 ingredients, 1 of them kale, and at least 5 others bought at the health food store. I'm not fond of a smoothie as a meal (I like chewing), so I serve banana milk as the fruit and dairy in the menu. 

To wit:

banana milk
peanut butter toast

banana milk
French toast (pictured above is pb&j French toast)

banana milk
muffin (lemon poppyseed, oatmeal blueberry, rhubarb, etc.)