(add to Household)

Get a culinary clue

by Cindy McDermott

Many times in SALT we have advocated children helping around the house. One reason is so that they can learn how to run and maintain a household before they move out and establish households of their own. Because of the learning process, the results are not always, well, good. This may be hard for some families to take. It is especially scary when the novice is the one who is cooking your dinner. We've decided to share with you some of the kitchen disasters we have lived through in the hopes that you won't have to suffer the same. Perhaps you would like to share this list with your child the next time he ventures into the kitchen. In fairness to our children we'll admit that not all of these were committed by the minors in the family. (That just shows how long the learning process takes!) Here follows are our culinary clues:

1.Eggs and microwaves are a tricky combination. It's best not to put a cold, cooked egg in the shell in the microwave to warm up. It will probably blow up.

2.A little goes a long way. It doesn't take much flavoring or seasoning to achieve the desired effect. One night Jim decided to spruce up our hot chocolate by adding some mint. He put the entire bottle of mint extract into about a gallon and a half of hot chocolate. I like the taste of mint, but even I had to admit it was a bit overpowering. Our toddler said it tasted like toothpaste. Our son said, "My mouth has never felt cleaner."

3.Make sure you understand the difference between cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons. The batch of brownies made with the ¼ cup of salt (instead of ¼ teaspoon) wasn't too tasty.

4.Baking soda and baking powder are not the same thing. Biscuits made with soda resemble hockey pucks.

5.Baking powder and baking soda are always in small amounts in recipes. Cookies made with too much soda sizzle in your mouth.

6.Baking powder and baking soda are always in small amounts in recipes. (This bears repeating.) If you put one cup of baking powder in biscuits, and then increase the rest of the ingredients proportionately, you will be eating biscuits for a long time. We know.

7.Always use the tools that are appropriate for your task. After going through a couple of small hand-held beaters, one child confessed that another child (some confession!) used the beater to mix chocolate chip cookie dough. Well, that explains it.

8.Write down unwritten recipes. We like coffee flavored milk, and it takes about ½ cup coffee and 1 cup sugar to a gallon of milk. It didn't work well when our son added 2 cups coffee and 3 cups sugar to about ½ gallon of milk. No one slept well that night. (To put it mildly.)

9.Find a recipe. Jim decided to make sweet-and-sour broccoli casserole with no recipe. He says himself that ws the worst thing we've ever eaten. Our daughter now tells us she hid hers under the table.

10.Plan ahead. Part of the problem with #9 was that the frozen broccoli didn't get cooked all the way through.

11.Read the recipe carefully. After our son had made his first pie, Jim had a hard time cutting it. It took seventeen minutes to serve. (Our daughter kept track.) The crust was tough, but at the same time it didn't seem done in the center. The next time he made a pie, our son noticed that he hadn't put shortening in the first one. The crust was composed entirely of flour and water – you know, the stuff you make pinatas with.

12.Read the recipe all the way through beforehand. That way Dad won't get stressed when he goes to the store for one forgotten ingredient.

13.Don't frost warm cakes. You'll end up spooning your frosting over the top of each individual piece.

14.Boiling vegetables doesn't mean boiling until the water is gone. The vegetables don't taste too good and it leaves the pot a mess.

15.Be specific when giving directions. If you ask your brother to turn down the burner, make sure he knows which one. That way you won't be eating burned rice.

16.Check all ingredients carefully. The homemade chicken soup with the old rotten green beans wasn't worth the risk.

17.Make sure the oven racks are in the proper position. Shortcakes rise and will get batter all over the top oven element.

18.Trust me: a little egg yolk in the egg whites will make a lousy meringue. I didn't take my mother's word for it. And my children aren't taking my word for it, either.

We hope thatby sharing our little mishaps you will have better results when your children begin to cook. By the way, would you like to come over for dinner?