I made the guys a St. Patrick’s Day Pistachio Cake tonight. I actually made two–one for the guys and one to take to a dance tomorrow night. I got the recipe from Just a Pinch and revised it a little. The guys gave it rave reviews! And it was simple!
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Not long ago my twenty-one year old son was helping me clean and cut fruits and veggies. This is a rare sight nowadays. The boys are either in college all the time or working very full time jobs (well, actually, they both do both at the same time!). I miss those times of cooking and cleaning in the kitchen with my kids.
However, I didn’t expect the boys to miss it! Josiah, the twenty-one year old pediatric nurse I just referred to, said, “You know what I miss? I miss those times that we used to gather around the table with tons of potatoes, carrots, apples, and other fruits and vegetables and peel, cut, clean, and prep them while you read aloud to us for hours!”
So do I, baby, so do I!
In a recent Cook’s Illustrated book, I read a “rule of thumb” that I have long upheld for cooks in general but especially for teaching kids to work in the kitchen.
Their thinking (and mine) is that these two “conversion skills” will lead to unlimited other conversions and understanding in the kitchen. (Yes, I did love it when I read this since I have taught my kids this for twenty years!)
In a previous podcast episode called Simplified Menu Planning, I encouraged listeners to not overthink meal planning. (You may listen to that episode here.)
In this audio, I described how my original freezer cooking, in which I plugged all of my entrees into categories (based on meat types), led me to look at meal planning in a more simplified way. I made my master list of most of the entrees that I fix under each category, and then I can see what meats are on sale, scan my master entrée list, and choose meals to make.
I have been doing some podcast episodes about efficiency in the kitchen and freezer cooking. I wanted to have this as part of our back-to-school 2015 series, but I knew that auditory presentations would work better.
There are many things in the summer that you can do to set your kitchen up so that you can work more efficiently during the school year thus giving you more time for homeschooling, school activities, and heart training.
