Chef Colin

Ever since we moved to New Jersey I can't find any take-out pizza that I can stomach.  I grew up on mid-Western pizza, and frankly prefer deep-dish Chicago style pizza if I can get it, so NJ pizza was never going to cut it for me.  The slices are giant, the crust is thin (and tastes like cardboard), there's almost no sauce, and the standard way to eat it is to fold the piece in half (which I assume is done to keep the ocean of grease from dripping down your arm).  Bottom line: ICK.

So I eventually gave up and only eat homemade pizza.  Which really is a good thing because I use fresh ingredients and make my own crust which I bolster with herbs and home-ground grains, so I can pretend that it is a healthy meal instead of a decadent fast-food dinner.  I do, however, use a short-cut: I use a bread machine to make the dough.  So all I have to do is throw everything into the machine and an hour later the dough is ready for me to roll, bake and devour!

Last week I was putting the ingredients together for the dough and Colin came into the kitchen, extremely curious about what was going on.  And since I want to encourage any potential culinary inclinations he has, I picked him up so he could "help."  I let him observe the noisy grinding of flax seeds and quinoa.  Explained to him as I added yeast and olive oil to the water.  Then it was time for the herbs.

   Me: oregano
   Colin: oh-wegg-a-no
   Me: basil
   Colin: baaay-zoo
   Me: garlic
   Colin: gaa-wick

It was priceless!!!

This morning he stood on a step-stool and watched intently as I made scrambled eggs.  Eggs... eeehgs.  Cream... cweeem. BEAT! BEAT! BEAT! BEAT! BEAT!  Not surprisingly he liked the beating part the best.  And after all - why not make cooking fun?

My goal is to have him making the Thanksgiving turkey in a few years.
No problem, right?