During these unprecedented times, most of us are cooking more at home then we ever did before. Some of us are enjoying it and others not so much. Learning to cook is a skill that takes time, patience, and energy. If you are new to cooking you may be surprised at how much effort it takes to put a meal together, especially for a family.
Cooking starts with planning. Maybe you saw a recipe on the internet that sounded good or you picked up a cookbook you’ve had for years but rarely looked at. So now that you are inspired, you make your list and head to the store (with mask and gloves of course). Recently I wanted to make risotto, but when I got to the grocery store-no Arborio rice. At first this seemed odd to me. Who thinks of making risotto in the middle of a pandemic (besides me)? Of course, some of us are working from home and have some extra time, and others unfortunately, may be out of work altogether. So I suppose many of us have time on our hands so we might as well make something time consuming. Something we would never think of making on a weeknight.
Back to the rice, I decide on short grain Japanese sushi rice. It’s the closest thing I could find to Arborio, the Italian short grain rice . The important thing to remember here is to find similar ingredients. Don’t stress if you can’t find the exact item the recipe calls for. Do your best at finding a good sub. Consider it a fun experiment.
The next thing I went looking for was the parmesan cheese. Out of luck again! But I did find a pecorino romano, which is also a dry hard cheese, and it looks very similar to parmesan. If you wanted to make the risotto even more kid friendly, you could use a mild cheddar. (no, not typically used for risotto, but sure sounds yummy!). I already had an onion, olive oil, butter, and the vegetable stock, so the only other thing I needed besides the vegetables was the wine (mostly for me and a little for the risotto). I settled on a Sauvignon Blanc.
Now, what to put in my risotto? I love brocoli and asparagus, but to make it more kid friendly I opted for the broccoli. Finally after picking up a few other things that I needed I headed home. Once in the door, I washed my hands. Next I set everything out on my counter and separated the packaging, wiping things down with a paper towel drenched in alcohol. Anything that wasn’t perishable or I wasn’t going to use in the next 24 hours I placed in the garage.
Prep is next. I roasted a chicken to go with the risotto, so that took a bit of time. While the chicken roasted I cut up my vegetables, warmed my stock, and finally finished my risotto. It came out great, given the fact that I subbed 2 main ingredients. Everyone liked it, including the kids!
The not-so-fun part, at least for me is cleaning up the kitchen. And finally all the leftovers need to be put away. So, even for me, the whole process of making a home cooked meal can be time consuming.
Now I know some of you are enjoying this process. You are finding that cooking can be a fun and creative outlet that even kids can share in, however most of you are over it by now. It’s exhausting even when you have time. Internet recipes rarely turn out and if you are not versed at cooking, it’s hard to tell which recipes are good and which are not. If you fall in the later category, I suggest you call (not text) a good friend and ask him/or her to share a favorite family recipe. I think you will end up with much more than a good recipe, such as much needed human interaction, maybe a few good laughs, and hopefully the desire to give it one more try!