Still Feeling Peckish

I’m trying to work myself out of a job. On Sunday I didn’t really feel like cooking but then I didn’t really feel like going out. So what better strategy than to make kid#2 cook dinner for the family. I asked her to think up the menu and do some background reading of recipes on the internet. In the end she chose to roast a chicken (super easy method from Allrecipes) and make zoodles and a salad. She needed a little help in trimming the chicken but otherwise she managed really well.

Looking back I remember I wasn’t really competent in the kitchen at a young age. We had domestic helpers who dominated the kitchen; I do remember peeling potatoes and chopping onions occasionally but I hardly was allowed to touch the stove. My parents would remind me that I should focus on my studies, typical of most Asian families. I remember going to Perth as a teen and not knowing how to prepare Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup out of a can! Hey there is a kind of technique to make sure you don’t get lumps in the soup! My dad was astounded that I didn’t know how to make soup, but truly I wondered how he expected me to when nobody really took me in hand in the kitchen!

So I’m happy that for my kids it will be different. They won’t have to love being in the kitchen all the time (I have no idea why cooking became such a passion for me), but they should be competent to make simple dishes that should help them cope with living on their own or starting up their own homes in the future. Too many of my colleagues eat out all the time. It’s different if they want to but for some of them they have no choice as they have zero culinary skills and Singapore’s food courts and hawker centers are just too convenient. But I want my kids to be able to eat well and look after themselves in the future and it was a real pleasure to see Kid#2 at work.

This Zoodle recipe was based on what was available in the fridge and pantry. We usually keep a couple of cans of diced tomatoes handy, and bacon is, of course a staple in a low carb home. The sour cream was a good mistake as we had dumped too much salt in initially and the cream balanced out the sauce beautifully. The zoodles were perfectly cooked at the perfect juncture between crunchiness and softness. It was a lovely meal.