Back in September, at the start of the school year, I decided that one day a week my ten year old daughter would make supper. She has an interest in learning to cook so this seemed a good opportunity to nurture that. I confess we have not managed every week, some weeks we are just busy, sometimes I forget....and to be honest preparing a meal myself is faster and easier.
This endeavour has had multiple benefits already though. I am learning patience, to let go of control, as well as revisiting old favourites in my kitchen. I have also had to back track and explain my short cuts and alterations. My daughter has become far more adventurous in her eating habits. She has earned bragging rights and is learning to plan ahead, read directions and to measure accurately. I still help with some of the chopping and peeling, for efficiency and safety, but she is responsible for the rest.
In that vein then Tuesday posts will be "Cooking with Emily", posts that allow me to share a kid-friendly, easy to do recipe along with my musings.
One of Emily's favourite soups is Corn Chowder. There are tons of recipes out there, and I have modified my favourite recipe along the way to make use of odds and ends. She declared on the weekend that this was what she wanted to make. I confess I had to scramble to find the actual recipe, as it is one I can make from memory. I did find it, in my ancient metal recipe box. It is faded & stained, written in my own juvenile hand. I don't know where the recipe is from any more, it was one of the earliest additions to my repertoire. Sunday evening I had Emily check the pantry for canned corn, for onions and potatoes, I knew for sure the other ingredients were on hand, but I thought we might be out of onions and potatoes. All we had were red onions, so a trip to the grocery on Monday was in order.
She eagerly set to peeling 4 fist sized potatoes. I could have done it faster, but I held my peace and left her to it. This is something of an accomplishment for me. I am pretty territorial in my kitchen, and impatient to boot. But the only way to learn some things, and to gain speed and efficiency in those tasks is to do them. I did peel the onion, when she set to attack it with the vegetable peeler. She fretted about the onion making her cry, asking me to wash it. It's not washing it so much as knowing that running an onion briefly under cold water neutralizes the fumes that make your eyes water when you chop them. I don't know why it works, but it does. Really. Sometimes the random things we read on the internet is useful.
Vegetables chopped, into the soup pot. The recipe calls for 2 cups of water, but I find that's not enough to cover the potatoes and onion, so we added enough water to do that & set it on the stove to boil. While the potatoes cooked Emily went to start her homework. I returned to my Words With Friends games, checking their progress toward tenderness occasionally.
Once the potatoes were tender Emily made a paste of 2 tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of water, to thicken the soup. I explained to her that if she poured that mixture into the pot she'd have a doughy lump in the soup, and helped her spoon some hot water into the flour mixture first. While the flour cooked she opened and drained 2 cans of niblet corn, which were added next to the potatoes and onion with 2 cups of milk and 2 tablespoons of butter. While it heated through she returned to her homework. She is learning the fine art of multitasking too.
The soup was delicious. It is in fact an almost fool proof recipe, a good starter soup for a beginner chef.
Later, while I was doing dishes and she was finishing her spelling she heard me singing "That's Amore". I think the line "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie" amused her, so we had to play the song, and find the lyrics. She was singing it at the top of her lungs in the shower within the hour. All of my children have be given the gift of wildly eclectic tastes in books and music and movies. I can't help but grin to think of her asking the music teacher to add that song to the playlist....I doubt she will, but a mother can dream, of children singing with crooners, and a day when I don't need to face the kitchen once a week, at least.
Corn Chowder
4 medium potatoes, peeled & chopped into bite size pieces
1 large onion, peeled & chopped
2 cups water (enough to cover vegetables)
4 tablespoons flour + 2 tablespoons water
2 cans corn (niblets) drained
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
salt & pepper to taste
Place the potatoes & onion in a large pot, cover with water. Bring to a boil & simmer until potatoes are tender. Blend together flour with second amount of water until smooth. Spoon a little hot water from the pot into the mixture, then pour into the potato/onion water, stir and allow to thicken slightly. Stir in corn, milk, butter, salt & pepper. Heat through.
* I have used chicken stock to cook the potatoes and then added leftover chopped chicken to the soup with the corn & milk to make Chicken Corn Chowder.
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