ET Cooks Dinner

Last night my 14-year old daughter made dinner.

The amazing thing was, it was her idea, not mine!

She wanted to make “Crab and Noodles.” This is a dish she really likes but I rarely make it, because her two younger sisters don’t care for it.

It’s actually imitation crab in garlic-butter sauce. We usually serve it with rotini pasta and broccoli. Unfortunately, I used the last package of frozen broccoli a couple of days ago, so I put out cauliflower instead.

Cauliflower is like broccoli’s cousin who sits indoors and stays pasty-white.

Incidentally, I just googled “imitation crab,” because even though I’ve eaten it plenty of times, I’m not exactly sure what it is.

I discovered it is made of surimi, which is basically a fish paste.

Here’s what it REALLY looks like.

Appetizing, isn't it?

It looks much better here.

And, just for fun, here’s a cartoon about imitation crab from burnscomicstrip.blogspot.com

Cute, huh? He’s pretending to be a pirate.

But I digress….

Anyways, ET was cooking.

I had purchased the ingredients earlier in the week, so all I did was put everything out on the counter with the recipe book open to the correct page and let her go.

She has cooked before; it’s okay.

ET had her friend M over too, so they seemed to be enjoying themselves without any help from me.

There was a lot of giggling and banging of pans in there, but I just ignored it.

Later, while doing the dishes, I would learn she’d used every pan we own. LITERALLY.

But that’s okay, because I DIDN’T HAVE TO COOK!

I got concerned when I heard a giant crash and ET yelled, “Don’t come in here, Mom!”

I knew something had broken, but I didn’t really want to see it. I just called for her to clean it up and worked on keeping the twins out of the kitchen.

A few minutes later she said everything was almost ready so I let the twins free and came in the kitchen.

The floor seemed a little slippery.

ET had a can of tomato sauce in her hand. She said, “Will this work for a vegetable?”

“But the cauliflower was supposed to be the vegetable,” I began. Then I stopped and said, “Oh.”

I looked at the counter. She had already put the crab and the noodles in serving bowls.

That meant one of my serving bowls was history.

“Did you already butter the cauliflower before you dropped it?” I asked.

She nodded. Well, that explained the oil slick on the kitchen floor.

Then I looked around again and asked where M was.

ET said, “She had to go home.”

“Before or after you dropped the cauliflower bowl?” I asked.

ET rolled her eyes. “Right after that. Conveniently.”

Hey, I don’t blame the kid! I was the one hiding in the living room when I heard the crash, so I can’t throw stones here!

In any case, I decided to allow the tomato sauce as a vegetable, and ET and I set the table.

In the end, I thought everything tasted pretty good.

Especially since I hadn’t been the one to cook it.

However, GG refused to eat the crab at all, and Boo complained, “It’s too garlicky.”

ET rolled her eyes again. “Well, thanks for all the APPRECIATION, kids.”

I said, “Welcome to MY world, honey.”