Sep 14, 2010
Ten-Word Tuesday: The Early Chef
The other night this little peanut, who belongs to Bossy’s brother and his wife, spent the night. Bossy awoke to the sounds of pots and pans, and then more pots and pans, and then the sound of a spatula in a pan, and then the brief smell of something smoky, followed by the smell of something yummy.
Bossy descended the stairs to discover that Bossy’s daughter had prepared a batch of scrambled eggs for her cousin. By all accounts they were delicious, but Bossy couldn’t remember when her daughter learned to prepare scrambled eggs. Then Bossy saw this:
Bossy made this scrambled eggs recipe for her daughter many years ago using images because Bossy’s daughter couldn’t yet read.
In Bossy’s own youth, the first thing she ever prepared herself was Macaroni and Cheese.
Next Bossy became adept at making her morning cinnamon toast and hot chocolate. Or maybe the toast and hot chocolate came before the Mac and Cheese.
And then Bossy began really cooking, including dinner because Bossy’s mother was sometimes out of town. Bossy remembers her earliest food experiments resulted in goulash, which Bossy’s father seemed to enjoy.
Bossy can recall her earliest cooking ventures in this way: Figured out sautéing onions and garlic saves what comes after.
Which is what today’s Ten-Word Challenge is all about. In exactly ten words, can you tell Bossy and her council about your earliest cooking experiments?
And be sure to check back later today for the best young cooking on the web.
If you missed last week’s Ten-Word Challenge, click here to read the many different recountings of the first day of school, in ten words, of course.
Warm rice turns to mush when fried. Must use cold.
Bowl+milk+cereal=breakfast. Sugar+butter+Wonder bread=lunch. ACK!
My earliest cooking, I remember, was with my grandma making bread pudding. The earliest I remember, on my own, was making Lemon Squares out of an old “Peanuts” cook book. I think they were called Lucy’s Lemon Bites.
“Fried” lunch meat (lunch meat warmed in a skillet). Blech!
tortillas hot off the comal. (with our bare hands, gasp!)
–>Chocolate chip cookies from scratch. Now buy dough and eat raw.
Microwave “cakes”: flour, sugar, milk, egg, canned icing, yuck.
Even a screwed up omelet still gives you scrambled eggs.
Meringues, because they had only two simple ingredients: eggs, sugar.
Seven years old. Four course family dinner. Timing way off.
Boil in the bag chicken ala king on toast, Yum!
Thought tsp was TBS. Very salty chocolate chip cookies. Booo.
Curry dressing on the salad. After numerous times, parents rebel.
Burnt Bake Sale sugar cookies. Five dollars from Mom instead.
chef boyardee pizza in a box. salt overload! loved it.
Oh! Boil water! Then start timing 3 minutes for eggs…
I cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast every day in 1974.
Brownies, brownies, brownies, from the red Duncan Hines box. Chewy.
Best friend’s recipe used canned chicken. Not an eater, her.
Frozen waffles in same toaster oven. So much butter, syrup.
What happens if whole egg is cooked in microwave? Explosion!
turkey with trimmings, indeed! innards in plastic still in turkey!
1/4 tsp. versus 1/4 cup of salt = BIG difference
Second grade. Played hooky to make homemade bread. It sucked.
Tried melting butter on stovetop in glass baking dish. Explosion!
Friend’s mom teaches us how to debone chicken. Unnecessary fun.
Age 12. Kraft mac-n-cheese plus a can of drained tuna.
Mac and cheese. Didn’t drain water, instead got mac soup!
Scrambled eggs laid that morning in our family hen house.
Bossy’s mom stuck family recipes on 3×5 cards. Still used.
So where was BossysMom sometimes gallivanting off to, anyway? Hmmm.
True confessions: loved Miracle Whip on white bread: “mayonnaise sandwich.”
Felt superior, Home Ec class. I knew to stir cooking spaghetti.
Popovers. Thought they failed because they were hollow. Threw out.
Make that, just-dumped into water spaghetti. Wouldn’t clump then.
Scrambled eggs with milk – when fluffy – done. Taught by grandpa.
7th grade home ec, egg in a basket, still make.
Totino’s pizza rolls – snack or dinner! Many a burnt tongue.
Older sister and I made cakes in Easy Bake oven.
Boiled pasta, butter, salt and pepper = comfort food, even today!
Onion Grass Soup. Didn’t tell anyone what was in it. Oops.
Chocolate + flour + water = pudding? Grandfather ate it with appreciative smile!
4th grade vegetarian chili and cornbread. still a favorite.
Kraft Mac and Cheese and scrambled eggs fluffified with milk.
Do not store that bag of potpourri in pan cupboard.
French toast needed recipe book for lil sisters lunch GAH!
First learned two recipes still used today: coffee and bacon.
(No! Not as a single dish!)
Toll house cookies or was it on-the-stove popcorn?
Betty Crocker cookbook for kids – banana, pineapple, cottage cheese salad!
Could not cook anything without burning it. That’s really it.
Aroma of chocolate chip cookies baking made dieting mom cry!
Tuna casserole…hmm now I want some…
cheese melt. Galtee cheese. Brogan’s bread. Dairygold butter.Bliss.
12 yrs old. fried chicken. burned outside. bloody inside. ick.
Blueberry Jiffy Muffins – still make ‘em. Son now makes too!
Ooops, forgot light bulb cooked cake. Easy Bake Delish!
Christmas cookies with Mom. I got to add the sprinkles.
Heating up Spaghettios and adding black pepper totally equals cooking.
Oh Bossy’s Gah, she forgot about Chef Boyardee ravioli. Stovetop.
Quiche made for 7th grade French class, hold the French.
banana bread from a box or was it cranberry bread?
I served my sisters rare sausage patties. Ipecac was involved.
I blew up an egg in the microwave. Shell everywhere.
This may explain my aversion to breakfast foods even now.
Lasagna in a glass pan exploded too. Temperature? 400 degrees.
Someone once said to me, “What is this, rubber chicken?”
My first batch of coffee? Whole beans in the filter.
Please don’t ask about the first attempt at fudge. Please.
Before microwave ovens (mid 1950s?): Jiffy pop stove top popcorn.
Bisquik egg milk butter skillet more butter syrup yum yum
French toast.
Cream of Mushroom soup w/ Chicken Livers & rice…………NICE!
Soup. Made from everything I could find in the kitchen. On the first day my mom let me stay home alone while she went to work. Thought I’d surprise her with dinner.
Later that year mom taught me to make spaghetti sauce.
granddaughter made red jello with peaches, cinnamon, chocolate sauce. ouch
1/4 tsp salt vs 1/4 cup salt. It matters in cookies.
i remember that quiche Bossy!
Easy bake oven for Christmas, many little cakes and pies.
Easy Bake Oven cake FTW!
Must drain water before mashing potatoes.
Toddler me makes tea by dropping teabag into electric kettle.
Scrambled eggs. Had (unoriginal) recipe published in Girl Scout’s cookbook.
learned meatloaf at girls club-brother fell on floor retching
me crying brother is jackass with meatloaf instead of brains
snickerdoodle cookies learned in home ec jr hi.
and totally forgot about those cookin’/boilin’ bags-o-meat!
several attempts at birthday cake; forgot baking soda, forgot eggs.
Hershey’s Cocoa plus cold milk does not equal chocolate milk.
Pop-open cinnamon rolls every saturday morning with gooey icing!
1 week later forgot Cement pies behind garage in kitchenware. Mom Maddddddddddd