What's Cookin?

What we've been cooking lately:

Lest you think my kids are the only ones who do any work in the kitchen, I thought I'd include a little collage of my latest foray into baking.  For Jeff's birthday, I made an extra-special dessert:  Guinness-and-whiskey cupcakes with chocolate ganache and Bailey's frosting.  They were incredible.  And an incredible pain-in-the-ass to make.  Good thing he's worth it!

Leo made his favorite Chicken Pot Pie on a night when Jeff and I had curried lentils.  I especially love this first picture where Leo is sneaking Pax a bite of carrot:

He chopped and sauteed all these veggies and chicken....

....before finishing off the pie:

During spring break, I awoke after the kids were already up and went downstairs to discover this:

Aidan made breakfast for everyone, start to finish, and with the added flourish of personalized pancakes, no less!  As the kids savored their brother's meal, I relished in sitting in my rocker, sipping coffee and reading my book. Another night, I was walking out the door as Jeff was walking in; I needed to hand off dinner preparations as well, since I'd fallen behind a bit.  I asked Aidan to make the rice and steam the broccoli, and was thrilled to be able to hand off these tasks with full confidence in his capable hands.

My aunt recently sent us recipes that she and her partner had made and loved.  She thought that the kids would love pounding the chicken for the simple yet satisfying dishes, and she was right.  Leo's Provencal Chicken, roasted tomatoes, and couscous was one of the best meals we've had recently; we deemed it "company-worthy" and I was disappointed the next day when there were NO leftovers - we'd gobbled it all up at dinner.

Pax finally got a chance to make the pudding cake recipe that was one my grandmother used to make. (Remember the infamous cooking of Jean Seehaver?)  Pax' Pudding Cake was a big hit, and turned out beautifully.

As the warm weather returns for good, our cooking will start to move outdoors and onto the grill.  This weekend, Aidan and Jeff will serve up what they've been working to perfect:  ultimate turkey burgers and traditional All-American beef burgers.  Next week, they'll do homemade BBQ chicken.... to be washed down with Jeff's latest batch of homebrew, an amber ale in the style of New Belgium Fat Tire.

And then, of course, there's the other kind of outdoor cooking.  Move over, mud pies, and make room for Leo's nature salad!  He cooks this up so much that he even wrote a recipe for it:

Nature Salad:
1.  Get some rocks,
2.  Get a piece of bark,
3.  Get mulch,
4. Get leaves,

Take the bark put some rocks on it.  Then put mulch on it.  Put the leaves on top.  Done.

(What are you waiting for?  Get cookin!)