Friday, April 24, 2015

All About The Cooking

At the beginning of the year, when we were making our homeschool plan for 2015, Lu said he wanted to cook at least twice a week and bake at least once. When I count cooking as school, it has to be with a new recipe each time, so he also does a lot of researching. With the baking, it is not uncommon for me to walk into the kitchen on a day with no planned baking time, and find him making a pie, or cookies, or cake... and be like: "Well, I had 15 minutes to kill, so I thought I'd bake something."

Lu recently took on an apprenticeship at a restaurant with a gourmet chef.  Once or twice a week, I drop him off around 2pm and then go back for him around 7pm. I'll order a beer and a little something to eat and hopefully get a glimpse of him whizzing around serving tables. But he's mostly in the kitchen "plating" the food and helping with the cooking, under the chef's supervision. He LOVES it. Here's a post he wrote about his experience.

It's kind of tricky getting pics of him in the restaurant kitchen, 
because it's busy and I'm not supposed to go in, 
but I snuck this one:


and took this one of Lu serving a table:



Between what he has learned from his grandmother, on his own,
with Chef Pauly, and from the vegan desserts workshop he recently attended, we get some pretty awesome food at home when it's his turn to cook, and a vastly different experience from my nutritional-value-oriented and minimal-effort take on cooking equals beans and salad everyday.

So far this year, Lu has made:

Bacon potato fritata

 
Banana crunch cake
Key lime pie
Stuffed cabbage
Grilled marinated eggplant 
with anchovy dressing on tomato salad


Baked pork chops in a citrus marinade
with french fries and curried zucchini
Pork and rice stew 
Bacon and chard quiche



Texas rice casserole
Spanish flan
Chocolate cheesecake
Almond rice with nori and curried vegetables


Cornbread
Cornbread casserole
Flourless brownies
Orange chocolate cupcakes

 
Chocolate, avocado, amaranth cake
Shepherd's pie
Homemade yogurt
 Scrambled eggs, hash browns and bacon breakfast


Citrus glazed tuna steak with lemony potatoes 
and broccoli in soy sauce
Vegan cheesecake
Almond, coconut, chocolate meringue pie


Sour cream chocolate mousse
Bahamian pork chops with sesame broccoli
Vegan orange cacao nut pie
Vegan cacao bliss balls


Garlic butter shrimp and zucchini rolls
Tuna steak in peanut sauce and salad
Cheesy minced meat casserole


Pickled cucumbers and onions
Pork chops in tomato sauce with potato/broccoli with herbs
Cornbreaded fish, stir fry veg with peanut sauce, 
blue cheese stuffed potatoes, and glazed nuts


Lemon cupcakes
Chocolate chai cake
Chocolate caramel balls


Birthday cake for his grandma, 
and several other birthday cake commissions 
from friends and neighbors


To see my son finding his passions is exciting and inspiring.