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.