Ever wondered what happens when you let a teenager loose in the kitchen to plan a Sunday Dinner? Read on and I’ll tell you…
Last weekend it was Mother’s Day here in the UK and my two lovely children decided they were going to treat me to a Sunday dinner cooked by them.
Two very quickly became one as Master Frugal was lured away by his Xbox very early in the planning stages of the meal and didn’t emerge again until the Yorkshire Puddings were ready to be taken out of the oven.
Which left Miss Frugal who, despite being older, is probably the least capable of my two in the kitchen. Her specialities are Fajitas, Supernoodles and those Pasta and Sauce packets that you just add milk or water too and throw in the microwave.
So, I’ll admit that I did have a few minor concerns about how the meal was going to turn out (we’ll not tell her that though, hey?) when she said she was going to cook and plan a Sunday Dinner with NO help needed from me. Those minor concerns escalated when I saw her shopping list.
There’s more on that list than we have for Christmas Dinner! Let me explain a few things…
- Potato doorfin mwah = Potato Dauphinoise and she doesn’t really think it’s spelt like that (I hope) but she didn’t know how to spell it so she just wrote it how she heard me say it. 😂
- Aunt Bessies were her Yorkshire Puddings back up plan.
- The herbs and spices were to flavour the roasties because ‘that’s what Gordon Ramsay does’ but she didn’t know which herbs and spices she wanted. She ended up with garlic salt and mixed herbs.
- I’m particularly proud of her for adding wine and lemonade to the list and my favourite Gallo wine at that.
- She bought (and peeled) enough potatoes to feed the street because mash is her favourite part of the meal.
We had a no phones in the kitchen rule while she prepped and once the meal was cooked so I can’t show anything that happened next which I suspected was her plan when she suggested it. I realised too late that her suggestion for a technology-free afternoon so we could spend time together actually translated to ‘I’m fixing it so you can’t actually document the dramas I’m going to have this afternoon or the meal itself’. Clever!
She started with the Yorkshire Pudding mix and to my horror, she ignored the family heirloom recipe that’s been passed down from my Nana (it’s actually just the one in the Bero recipe book) and went with some sort of new-fangled recipe from the BBC website! I know, who even is she?
Then she popped that in the fridge to chill and got ready to put the meat in the oven. She’d bought (with my money obviously) a Silverside beef joint because it was half price and made some sort of fancy basting concoction with olive oil, garlic and herbs and then popped that in the oven.
She then had a break with a glass of wine before starting to peel the mountain of potatoes that she ending up and please don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say ‘mountain’ – we had to cook in two batches. These potatoes went on to be mashed, made into roasties with enough leftovers to feed us for the next couple of days. She left some as just plain old boiled potatoes to remind us of my Dad as he used to love them served just like that and when the kids went for tea, that’s what they’d have with whatever they were eating. They call them Grandad potatoes and every now and again, they’ll ask for Grandad potatoes for tea.
Next up, she got out the rest of the veg and the stuffing – she’s bought fresh carrots and broccoli but the cabbage was ready prepped in a tray that you just put in the microwave and the cauliflower cheese was in a foil tray to go in the oven. No cooking from scratch for my girl! 😂
She managed to prep and cook everything she’d planned although her timings are a bit off with some things being ready way before others. She takes after me with this though so luckily we have this Lazy Susan Food Warmer type thing (affiliate link) which I bought a few years ago for occasions just like this! It literally sits in the garage gathering dust for most of the year but I bring it in when there’s a big meal on the go and it’s just amazing!
Despite me laughing at some of her cooking techniques and skills, her meal was amazing and the effort that she went to actually made me a little bit emotional. She knows that Mothers Day isn’t my favourite day of the year and she really made it special.
Oh, and her new-fangled Yorkshire Pudding recipe? Please don’t tell her but it’s better than my Nana’s recipe!
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