Bonding while cooking; vegetable fried rice

Today, my daughter and I wanted a quick meal. We decided that we wanted fried rice.

In the picture below, you can see our food being prepared in my  hand hammered stainless steel wok. It’s a nicely seasoned wok. I’ve had it since I was in college, so it’s over twenty years old.

I recently discovered that I could cook with it on our smooth top stove, so it’s been seeing a lot of activity.

Since we didn’t have any already steamed rice, my daughter decided she would steam more rice. She was the pilot of this meal. I was just along for the ride. My daughter is nine-years old, and knows how to cook a variety of meals. I asked if she wanted chicken or beef to her portion, but she said no. She just wanted vegetables, which is all right by me!

While  my daughter was steaming the rice, I set aside the cutting board, and observed as she sliced and diced; garlic, ginger, yellow onion, broccoli, and thinly sliced carrots.  You know, I was going to do that, but my daughter blocked me. Can you believe that. She told me, she was handling it.I just stood on the sidelines… observing.  It seems she wanted to run the show today. My daughter did add a bit of egg to her portion of the fried rice.

Together we added some herbs/seasonings. I’m glad she let me do that much! 😉 Some of the things we added were… cumin, homemade garlic salt, and my daughter said… “You don’t need to know the rest, it’s my secret!” I’m realizing, that my daughter can be a bit bossy when she prepares a meal. And I must say, that it’s nice to see, since it tells me her confidence with her abilities, has grown. It’s now time time for her to show off her culinary skills, and I’m one proud mama, and am I’m thrilled with whatever other job she assigns to me. 😉

I must say the meal was quite delicious. I love cooking, and enjoy passing on that skill to my daughter. A nice perk is it gives us even more time to bond.

Chaka Demus & Pliers: Murder She Wrote