"Cooking" with Kids

It's no secret I despise cooking. In order for any sort of recipe to even be considered being made in this house, it has to stand up to my five rules:

1) No putzying allowed
2) No elaborate ingredient lists
3) Most steps can be done with just one hand (the other hand is generally either holding a baby or entertaining a toddler)
4) No steps can require complete concentration. The words, "stir constantly" is an instant disqualifier
5) Preparation must be able to withstand an indeterminate amount of interruptions lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a good 20-30 minutes.

How I am related to my mother and all of her culinary expertise is beyond me. She also does math. Maybe I'm adopted.

But I hit a new low the other day. I was craving hot chocolate, so I put some rice milk on the stove and continued playing with the girls in the living room while it warmed up. It was beautiful outside, so we headed out to the deck - leaving the forgotten pot still on the stove. Some time passed, during which our cat was going bananas and neighbors walking by peered up at us with perplexing looks on their faces, but (sadly) this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Then, every smoke alarm in our house seemed to go off at once. Our security system went off as well - blaring a siren for everyone within a 10-mile radius to hear. I quickly herded the cat out on the deck so he wouldn't go deaf, reassured the kiddos that the end of the world was not coming and headed back in to open more windows. At this point, I wondered how sad it was that I had this routine down to a science. The steps to take care of a smoke alarm seemed automatic. (sigh). Needless to say, we didn't have hot chocolate that day, and we now have one less pot to cook with.

But the worst part was yet to come. Jeff came home 20 minutes later with a smile on his face and asked if we were going out to dinner. "The whole neighborhood smells of burned toast, what happened?" Feeling a bit hurt, I asked why he would automatically assume it was OUR house that was the source of the smell. "Ye of little faith," I told him. He instantly started apologizing, which made me feel even worse, so I told him the truth ... "It wasn't dinner I burned, it was our snack."

[Photo: Making bread with a 3-year old. Here is a typical example of how things turn out in this house. It takes certain skills to mess up bread in a bread machine! If anyone wants to trade these skills for useful ones, let me know!]