Daddy-Daughter Cooking Challenge

Time to pass on the love of cooking

Random Observation/Comment #868: Hopefully Clembot doesn’t start taking over my cooking hobbies.

//Generated by ChatGPT to show me cooking with an AI daughter

Why this Challenge?

It’s no surprise that I love cooking. It’s a way for me to disconnect and feel extra productive and creative. I do it out of parental love - as a way to provide for my family without a digital layer of widgets and messages.

There’s a whole list of 30 about it:

To pass on this love and some cooking competency to my daughter, I’ve come up with a challenge (and hopefully a life long habit) of cooking together different dishes she loves to eat. Perhaps giving her the space to experiment with food would open up her palette to trying new flavors.

How to Set Up the Challenge

I want to create a Daddy-daughter weekly event to cook a dish she’d be proud for us to share. She should be reading a recipe book, contributing to prep work, and doing the actual cooking. The idea is for her to get comfortable in the kitchen environment and knowing what to add to refine her own tastes. This challenge is likely a multi-week, multi-month, and multi-year journey, but now is a good of time as any to start and use the time to bond.

As a general setup:

• Safety first - Supervision of handling knives, hot pans, boiling water, ovens, blenders, etc

• Autonomy - She’s gets to be “chef” and take charge of simple steps when she’s ready.

• Clean up - We want to clean up along the way so the kitchen isn’t a big mess.

• Swap out recipes or switch it up - I have a rough list (below) of what I think would be good for dishes, but I don’t mind switching it up if she eats something she likes and wants me to teach her how to make it.

• Fun - The focus is fun! We don’t care about perfection here and the mess is part of the learning.

What to Cook

The criteria for cooking is probably the same as a beginner’s guide to cooking (but with more care on safety). I made this list of 30 off of the things she likes to eat, but also off of recipes I think are essential for people to learn how to cook to be a functional adult. I’ve included in this list a bit of thought on the skills learned from each dish. Some of these are super basic, but we’ll work our way up in confidence level.

1. Chocolate milk - Pouring large gallon of milk, mixing chocolate mix, putting things away. I think she can do this already, so this is a good starting point.

2. Smoothie – Acai frozen packet, banana, almond milk, blending, rinsing the blade and drying.

3. Peanut Butter & Banana Toast – Spreading, toaster oven, slicing a banana safely. She may eat a deconstructed version of this.

4. Ham and cheese sandwich - Generally getting things from fridge, proper placement, simple cutting, cleaning up.

5. Homemade Popcorn (microwave) – Measuring kernels, using the silicon popcorn thing, heat safety, handle hot popcorn, adding salt and melted butter, split into bowls.

6. Hot dogs (cooked) - Boiling water, monitoring stove, covering, removing with spatula or chopsticks, cutting a hot hotdog without burning yourself.

7. Boiled Eggs – Using a pot, timing (8 minutes boiling covered), ice water bath, removing with slotted spoon, peeling.

8. Pancakes (from mix) – Mixing batter, measuring water amounts, pouring, stovetop safety, flipping safely.

9. Baking Chocolate chip cookies - Pre-made cookie dough, setting the oven temperature, spreading out on baking sheet, handling with oven mitts.

10. Fruit Salad – Safe knife skills, washing fruit properly, mixing. I probably could split this into varying levels of difficulty like cutting an apple vs cutting a mango or washing blueberries vs strawberries.

11. Grilled Cheese Sandwich – pre-toasting, buttering bread, adding cheese, stovetop safety, flipping with a spatula.

12. Chicken Nuggets (oven-baked frozen) – Oven usage, aluminum foil, setting timers, flipping, oven safety.

13. Garlic Bread – Cutting bread, cutting garlic, making garlic butter, Spreading butter, using oven safely.

14. Scrambled Eggs – Cracking eggs, whisking, using a hot pan, stirring, serving.

15. Rice Paper Spring Rolls – Preparing fillings with soaked noodles and greens, dipping wrappers, rolling. This one is nice because it doesn’t need any fire (but she probably won’t eat it).

16. Mac and Cheese (boxed) – Boiling water, adding pasta, Stirring, straining pasta, measuring milk and butter, mixing.

17. Pan-Fried Tofu Bites – Cutting tofu, drying thoroughly, oily pan (be careful of splatter), seasoning, flipping in a pan, blotting off the oil.

18. Frozen Dumplings (Boiled or Pan-Fried) – Handling water safely, flipping, covering, removing from hot water, dumpling sauce.

19. Sweet Potato or Regular potato Fries (Baked) – Washing potatoes, slicing into strips, oven, flipping, timing, seasoning.

20. Oven roasted corn - Aluminum foil, corn portioning, butter, seasoning, oven usage, timer setting.

21. Mini Pizzas (Tortilla or pre-made dough) – Handling dough, spreading sauce, adding toppings and cheese, oven, prebaking, baking on oven stone (or just throwing it in as a pan-baked pizza).

22. Mini Rice Balls (Onigiri with Cheese or Tofu Inside) or sushi roll making – Cooking rice in rice cooker (washing rice, measuring), cooling rice on tray, sushi seasoning, using seaweed, shaping, pressing.

23. Spam musubi - Opening spam can, cutting into thin slices, searing, putting on rice like the rice balls above.

24. Meatballs - Raw ingredient handling, chopping, adding ingredients into mixing bowl, mixing, making into balls by hand, pan searing, sauce, sauce finish cooking.

25. Handmade dumplings (premade wrappers) - Chopping cabbage, Creating filling, folding dumplings, boiling, removing with slotted spoon.

26. Homemade pretzels - Making dough, handling dough to fold into pretzel shape, oven usage, brushing with butter, salting.

27. Baked fish - Salmon or white fish preparation, seasoning, cutting lemon, oven usage, baking on tray.

28. Homemade Burgers (formed by hand, cooked with help) – Similar to meatballs, mixing, shaping, using the outdoor grill with spatula, toasting the buns.

29. Chicken Mushroom skewers - Cutting chicken, seasoning, preparing mushrooms, using skewer sticks, cooking on grill with thongs.

30. Fried Rice (with Egg & Veggies) – This is much more advanced, but we’d work on prepping the vegetables into small cubes, wok handling is tricky so maybe a pan, adding ingredients by order. Making a scrambled egg, adding cooked overnight rice, soy sauce, yum yum MSG, Stirring with spatula.

~See Lemons Love Cooking with Evie

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