The boys love to cook and I love to teach, so why is it that only Josiah can do the most basic cooking tasks yet? He can fry eggs, do toast, boil water for pasta, and make sandwiches for his brothers when I am busy and that's great. But he is almost 13, and years before that I was often cooking entire meals. Raised by a single Dad, it was often out of necessity when we were between housekeeper/caretakers. I'm sure it was not good cooking, but I could do it and I enjoyed it. Sam and Caleb are old enough to do more now than just crack eggs and stir, as they've been doing that since 3 years old and have it pretty well down pat. Yesterday I read this blog post over at http://bakersdozen.typepad.com/ and was blown away. The Mom was sick so her 7 and 9 year old children made Beef Barley Stew! I realized that though the boys are in the kitchen with me constantly, I haven't truly taught them. It hit me that I haven't walked them step by step through a recipe, teaching as if they were someday going to do it on their own. Which is why we teach life skills at The Red Barn Academy. Someday in the near future that Star Wars room will be empty and the bunkbeds taken down and my babies will be men. Hungry men. Subsisting on eggs, toast, pasta and sandwiches alone if I don't get busy!
Then if we don't have the ingredients for a favorite recipe, or we're bored with the old standbys, we go online. Josiah, the computer lover, liked this part! I showed them http://allrecipes.com/ which is my favorite. We also googled "rhubarb recipes" whih is how we found this recipe. I didn't save the authors name and I am sorry I cannot give the right credit to the originator-you know how google is, scrolling through word mazes and getting lost! We printed up three new ones and agreed to try one each day and then vote on the best. Sam and Caleb then got all of the ingredients out of the cupboard and set them up ("like on Food Network!" Caleb says) while Josiah washed the stalks. There were 2 slugs found and we had a good discussion about why there are never bugs on "store bought" produce and why and what organic means! Here, Sam learned how to use the food processor. You know the testosterone level of cooking rises to a fever pitch when you add mechanical RPMs and sharp blades! Pressing "pulse" was a huge hit, everyone had to take a few turns at that.
Pre-heating the oven, greasing the pan, how to set the timer-I couldn't believe how many "little things" I hadn't yet taught them! But they were enthusiastic (even sweeping up spilled sugar) and had fun. We let it bake while we finished up our History Read-Alouds and the smell was wonderful. Josiah and Sam loved it but Caleb had made up his mind early and 2 bites was all he could stand. It isn't a pretty dish, it's true, but I wouldn't quite go as far as he did and name it Vulture Vomit.
If you have rhubarb, try it. If you don't have rhubarb go buy some stalks to make this recipe. You'll love it. Then you can order a plant from Gurneys and plant some this fall. Its easy to ignore in a corner of the yard and is one of the few edible perennials! Never harvest the leaves though, they are quite poisonous. This is a very simple recipe and that's why we used it for the first lesson. Besides, my other cooking rule is "use what ya have". If you have to run to the store for $8 of cardamom, forget it!
Rhubarb Flip
Prepare a yellow cake mix according to box directions (we used a white cake-see rule above)Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan.
Chop up 4.5 cups of rhubarb (we minced it well in the food processor since 2 out of 3 boys aren't huge fans-they know a vegetable, even when disguised by sugar)
and mix in 1.5 cups of said sugar into rhubarb.
Spread this evenly over batter (it kinda plops down on there, there is NO spreading possible)
Pour over the top 1 full pint of whipping cream (not cool whip-the cream. liquid. in the little carton.) Bake at 350 for 1 hour.
Serve inverted and still warm. It makes a creamy custard bottom, with a tart saucy middle and crusty cake on top. Very homey and delicious-true comfort food!
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