Cooking with Grandma on Friday's
Hey Maury has Tuesdays, I have Friday's. My 13 year old grandaughter and I have Friday's together and we've been playing together in the kitchen. I love to bake so last week we made pumpkin muffins (a favorite of hers and I happen to have left over pumpkin) and No Bake Cookies (wow. I forgot how good those are).
So I'm looking for some ideas for future Friday. Easy, Fun, sure fire confidence builders.
Ideas?
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20 Comments:
This is great- I had sewing on Wednesdays with my grandma, and I treasure that special time I got to spend with her. What about branching out from baking, since she's getting to the age where she will probably be left to her own devices for dinner once in a while? How about an easy pasta dish or casserole?
Embackus at 2:36PM on 06/17/09
Oh how fun! I remember making chocolate cherry brownies and fresh bread with my grandma growing up. I miss those days!
My guess is that the best way to get a 13 year odl girl interested in cooking is to make simple, easy, delicious versions of the meals she sees all the time- make pizza from scratch with any toppings she likes, try mac n' cheese with REAL cheese, show her how simple it is to make a burger in your very own kitchen!
If you'd rather stick with baking, a cool thing to do is lay out "the basics" (flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc.) and make 3-4 completely different recipes that use them all. chocolate brownies, bread, peaunut butter cookies, cake, and pies-- all from the same plain old ingredients! WOW!
Most importantly document these sacred days-- make a scrapbook/recipe collection she can hang on to forever. I still have the hand written recipe card for my grandma's brownies and it makes me smile everytime I see it- I only wish I had pictures to go along with it!
rdrnr44 at 3:04PM on 06/17/09
I was thinking bread too and yes a dinner here and there would be a good idea. Her mom is a busy working mom of 1 year old twins, the more help in the kitchen the better. They have an awesome chicken caserolle recipe she helps make quite often. So any other delicious, easy one dish meal ideas would be great. The 13 year old is a fussy eater and this might help her branch out too!
Love the reminder to do a scrapbook.. Recipes with pictures DAH so obvious and I would have not thought about that -- brilliant idea! And I use my grandma's cook book (with handwritten notes) quite often and as you say.. what a gem and such a warm hug from my grandmother when I read her comments.
And this is why I post questions such as this, you guys are great! Specific recipes would be quite helpful. Thanks to all!
TeriN at 3:14PM on 06/17/09
How about a roast chicken? It's the first thing my mother ever taught me how to make -- it's simple, delicious, and practically fool-proof. Ours is simple -- just lots of minced garlic mixed with mustard (dijon and yellow), salt and pepper, slathered all over the chicken, and then juice a lemon over it before cooking at 350 for an hour and a half. Make some mashed potatoes (also easy) and dinner is done.
gbania at 3:44PM on 06/17/09
At a very young age, my children spent every Monday morning with Grandpa. Although he could get around the kitchen quite adeptly at any meal, he spent a lot of time teaching them breakfast skills; perfect pancakes, waffles, french toast, biscuits, eggs in all of their forms and...
Thirty years later, and Grandpa long gone, they still treasure graduating from Bacon University...
czken at 3:44PM on 06/17/09
My grandmother and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen together, too, and these posts are warming my heart! How about a simple chicken noodle soup from scratch? Something the whole family can enjoy all year long. don't forget a great marinara or bolognese sauce ... so basic, and versatile!
I LOVE the scrapbook idea!!
alpurv at 4:16PM on 06/17/09
Meatballs are always good....I would think things she would be likely to make for friends as well as family....that builds confidence when your peers are impressed. Lasagna?
Cary at 4:28PM on 06/17/09
I am so jealous! Not only do I miss my grandma now but I have a craving for no bake cookies. Anyway, here are a few other ideas that make me think of my grandma that are easy:
- Magic Bars
- Crazy Cake (the chocolate cake made from scratch that doesn't have eggs. Do you have that recipe?) I like the chocolate frosting recipe from the side of the Hershey's cocoa box to go on top.
- And the best ever:
Pistachio Pudding Bars
- Crust, Mix Together:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/3 sticks margarine
2 Tablespoons sugar
Spread onto bottom of a 9x13 pan. Bake 15 minutes at 375 then let cool.
- Layer one, Mix Together:
1- 8 ounce pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 large container of cool whip
2/3 cup powdered sugar
Spread over cooled crust.
- Layer two, Mix Together:
2 pkg. instant pistachio pudding with 2 1/2 cups milk according to the directions. Spread over cream cheese mixture.
- Layer three: put remaining cool whip on top.
- Refrigerate until set.
The pistachio pudding can be substituted with any pudding like chocolate, but trust me... pistachio is the best!
meem21 at 4:49PM on 06/17/09
Cupcakes are always fun, have diffeent types of frostings and spinkles and candies to put on top. Brownies are a sure bet along with lemon squares. Sugar cookies with different cutters. As far as savory maybe mac and cheese or chicken fingers..
pjracz10 at 6:49PM on 06/17/09
Why not give her the choice to pick out a recipe from a cookbook that you can make with her?
HeartofGlass at 7:23PM on 06/17/09
Chili. Spaghetti Sauce.
dbcurrie at 8:48PM on 06/17/09
Lucky you, and lucky granddaughter that you get to spend time together and make some nice things!
Maybe you pick the recipe one week, and she can pick one the following week. All these ideas are great! If I were granddaughter, I'd choose spaghetti sauce. Maybe teach meatballs 101 while waiting for the sauce to simmer.
Kerosena at 11:37AM on 06/18/09
When I was learning how to cook, I was most interested in learning about the things that, when they were finished, didn't look like the original ingredients. Like, you couldn't look at it and take it apart to see how it was made.
So broiling a steak, eh, I knew how that was done and it didn't interest me all that much. But taking flour and butter and other ingredients and making a batter and then making cookies -- that was really interesting, because it was sort of like learning the magician's tricks.
Mom never baked bread, but if she did, I would have been thrilled. I thought dumplings were completely amazing.
I thought soups and stews and casserole-y things were pretty interesting, too. Spaghetti sauce was a big deal. I mean, I knew what the canned tomato products looked like, but the finished sauce was completely different.
If I was that young today, I'd think that tamales and enchiladas would be more interesting than tacos or burritos. Eggrolls would be fun. Ravioli or even home made flat noodles would be fun.
Hands-on cooking would be more fun than just broiling/baking. So seasoning some meat and roasting it would be a lot less interesting than making mountains of meatballs, or even a meatloaf.
Oh, and teach her how to make a roux and a gravy before she gets old enough for people to tell her that gravy is hard to do.
dbcurrie at 12:17PM on 06/18/09
If you're not limiting yourself to dessert baking, bagels or pancakes can be fun, since you can experiment with add-ins. Same with pizza...playing with toppings is always fun. I also echo the mac 'n cheese, but probably mostly because that was what I remember my grandmother cooking with me.
If you do want to stick to dessert, how about cookie dough pie? Or peanut butter pie? (If that recipe looks too involved, it can be shorted considerably by buying pre-roasted peanuts, or jarred peanut butter to shorten it even more). Another tasty one that doesn't have to involve the oven...let some vanilla ice cream defrost enough to get soft, mix it up with peanut butter, scoop it into a pie shell until it's half full, crumble some graham crackers on top, scoop a layer of chocolate ice cream on top of that, crumble some more graham crackers, and then put it back in the freezer.
cycorider at 12:23PM on 06/18/09
Is there something you cook that you are "known for" or particularly proud of?
One of my favorite memories of Gram was when she showed us her "tricks" for how she got some of her famous Christmas cookies to turn out like they did. Her "tricks" weren't listed in her recipes.
sarajane at 12:25PM on 06/18/09
Whoops, almost forgot Oreo Pie! If you want to make your own oreo pie shell, it's just a matter of combining crushed oreos and butter. No baking necessary.
cycorider at 12:29PM on 06/18/09
Well peeps.. you'll be so proud. She was reading through cookbooks and family recipes last night trying to decide what we would make! I almost cried when I found that out !
Her suggestions: Fudge, puppy chow (chex/chocolate), Fruit Pizza and a christmas cookie her mom likes (which I actually promised to make her in July so she didn't have to wait till Christmas for them!)
My suggestion was Cinnamon Rolls (From scratch) .. not her favorite but her dad loves them, and won't he be impressed when she makes them for his Father's Day Breakfast!
Thanks for all the suggestions.. It seems she is more than capable of finding things.
Tonite we'll be making steak (she loves steak) and Oven Spareribs tomorrow for her to take home with her so her mom won't have to cook Friday night.
This is going to be a great summer!
TeriN at 1:26PM on 06/18/09
I love this. I should have cooked with my grandma every Friday! How about this vanilla cake?
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 4:58PM on 06/19/09
A nice pound cake from scratch in no way resembles the airy blobs sold by Sara Lee. I'd love for her to see what real pound cake looks like!
If you want a great cinnamon roll recipe, try this one from kopycat.com for Cinnabons. It makes a ginormous batch and her dad can share with friends if he likes.
Ask your G-daughter if she wants to make New York Style Black & White Cookies.
I love that you're doing this. I was really starting to worry about the next generation of cooks...Happy to see so many picking up the baton with young family members.
therealchiffonade at 7:25PM on 06/19/09
It was great today. everyone raves over my moms cinnamon rolls, but she makes with frozen bread dough. I make it from scratch, and can soooo tell the dif.
G-daughter doesn't care for my moms, but sure tasted the difference today when we made them with sweet roll dough.
When we made the icing (buttercream) she tasted the sugar / butter mixture and said it has no taste. I said, good, try this and added a splash of real vanilla. Then she tasted again. Her eyes grew wide and she said that is AWESOME. She knows what she likes and has a good palate!
And thanks to a previous suggestion.. I took pictures of her with the finished product!
TeriN at 8:09PM on 06/19/09