Mother Daughters do bond in the Kitchen

My daughter loves to cook. She is pretty good at it too. She isn't afraid to finger the food. She seasons as per instinct. And confidently at that. And she hums and sings and taps her feet to the beat in her head while she mixes and adds and whips. My daughter is FIVE YEARS OLD.

What started out with Cottage Mashed Potatoes, Devilled Eggs and Horseradish sauce/ dip evolved on the way as per suggestions, advice and our mood. My friend Manisha (she who ditched the girls' night out plan) called and said she loved Devilled Eggs - how pleased  was, i felt efficient. Then says "Why isnt there any relish in your Devilled Eggs. I am trying to sound cool. Actually I am panicking. Relish. Do i have any? "okay will get some...." One more thing to buy. Turns out some friend of hers is coming over to meet a possible suitor so she bailed! But now I had relish in my head. So when i stop to buy the cottage cheese, I buy some.

I pick up my daughter and head home. Change into pyjamas and head for the kitchen. And there are somethings i love about Learning to cook. ON MY OWN. I have no Sharda Pargal speaking to me in my head. No Martha Stewart looking over my shoulder. I cook the way I want to. (I don't know why - god knows I need the help.) The other is that I don't have to wash up - cooking makes a LOT of dirty dishes to the uninformed. I am convinced that is the business plan for all take out joints.

The cottage mashed potatoes became just mashys - I didn't want raw onions in my mashed potatoes. I did leave the carefully bookmarked recipe book on my desk in office so i was allowed to adapt. I will gloat for a minute at the NOT A SINGLE LUMP mashys that took no time to put together and 1.5 hours to mash and whip.

The Horseradish seemed to still be in my system and not in my fridge so its is now a dip of hung yoghurt with 3 peppers and salt (paprika, fresh ground pepper and lemon pepper).

The cottage cheese which my daughter painstakingly mixed in with the grated onions and salt, Maggi all purpose seasoning and pepper was looking suspect. To bind I added a tblsp  of the mashys in. (I know its all going to taste the same - and awful) it starts out so well.... I make little cutlets out of these and pan fry very lightly.

I boiled 3 eggs to devil! Manisha wasn't coming. And I am not in the egg eating business till December. But I had bought the relish. So i peeled an egg, which suddenly appealed to Kyra's fancy and washed hands were back to help. I neatly sliced two eggs as i waited for the third to be peeled - smooth on the outside!!! It was so smooth and so perfect, that she popped it in her mouth - whole and what came out was just the second bite. Now with incredulity on my face and her face filled with egg - we both started laughing. You know where it went from here. Anyway after all this, I decided against the relish! and devilled the two eggs i had left.

Once she had the egg dealt with she looks at me with wishful thinking and says, 'I had a dream that we went out for dinner.' YUp. Everytime I get in the kitchen she has that dream. I haven't eaten so will post again.

PS figured out how to email a post. Most thirilled. :-)