One thing the Wife and I both are proud of regarding the kids is their level of self-sufficiency, particularly where food is concerned. It’s not like they’re outside killing and cooking squirrels for snacks or anything, although the boy does have a bow and arrow. But they prepare their own lunches for school, prepare their own breakfasts and not infrequently help with dinners.
Tonight, the Wife decided on steaks for dinner, so I decided to let the boy do the bulk of the steak cooking. Grilling is one culinary area where the Wife has little to no interest in learning. Thus, I do all of the grilling so it was a simple matter to pull the boy in on the project.
A fortunate aspect of grilling steaks is it’s quick. From the time the grill comes up to temp, it takes maybe 10 minutes depending on how thick the steaks are. Thus, attention span is almost a non-issue- he does have to wait for the steaks to cook on each side.
I only had to give him a couple pointers regarding using the tongs. He wanted to hold them close to the grabbing end; kind of defeats the purpose of having the long tongs. Once he figured that out, and I realized that I had to hold the plate low enough for him to easily grab the meat off the plate, he was in good shape. We passed the time tossing snowballs for a bit then he flipped the steaks. I explained the basic idea for cooking steaks: getting the grill as hot as possible then cooking each side for a few minutes so that the steak is cooked but still tender in the middle.
Not to be outdone, the lass learned how to cook “mushroom rice.” This is a particularly tasty version of rice that uses beef consumme and butter along with sliced mushrooms when cooking the rice. It’s very tasty and one of the lass’ favorites. It’s also pretty easy for her to help with since it basically consists of dumping everything into a bowl. While she was at it, she also took care of setting the table.
When all was said and done, the Wife and I had a nice meal more or less prepared by the kids. Pretty good stuff. They aren’t ready to take over just yet, but they’re a step closer than they were.