I made meatloaf, baked potatoes, broccoli and garlic bread for dinner a few months ago; it was a nice night of straight cookin for hours. Meatloaf itself is nothing special; it's a basic recipe I've made dozens of times that's a favorite in the simple-palatesof my grandpa and father, so I figured, what better way to please them? Besides, it can still be entertaining to cook. What I didn't expect was for my little brother, Mattox, to walk in half way through preparing the meal and ask if he could help!
He has done this before, but I never took him seriously. I'd say, "Sure! Go mix that right there!" and he'd take one look and reply with, "Hmmmm, nevermind."
Othertimes, when he seemed more anxious, I wouldn't know what task to give Matt and I'd have to tell him he couldn't help. How could I let an 8 year old that's never been in the kitchen chop onions or sauté green beans? My teaching him to cook never seemed to work out.
Today, however, as he approched me hand mixing a bowl of ground beef, onion, and crushed bread, I thought I knew how he could help. I didn't want to wash my hands, but needed to add more ingredients, so I coached Mattox on adding pepper, seasoned salt, garlic, an egg, and worshishire sauce. Then, as I continued to mix, I had him.make garlic butter.
"Garlic butter?" He had exclaimed when I told him what he was doing. "Why not garlic bread, Dez?!"
"Don't worry, Matt, once we out the garlic butter on the bread and toast it, it will become garlic bread." Boy, did that make him happy!
When I was nearly done with the meatloaf and getting ready to shape it, Mattox asked me for gloves. When I said I didn't have any, he ran away and found some, stating, "You and I are going to switch jobs. I jist wanted the gloves so my hands wouldn't get icky." Well imagine my surprise when me germaphobe little brother stuck his hands into a pound and a half of beef and started mixing it all together!
Once I had him form the loaf, he helped me make a glaze. At first, pouring ketchup, Dijon mustard, brown sugar, and worshishire sauce groassed him out, but as I added a little more of this or a tab bit of that, he asked if he coud pour the ingredients and mix the glaze. Sadly, I couldn't get him to taste the glaze on his own, but at my age I wouldn't have either.
From there the movie Thor came on TV, so I was on my own for the broccoli and such as Mattox went to watch the movie. It was still a lot of fun to see my little brother take an interest in cooking. I hope he keeps it up so he doesn't live off of Top Ramen when I'm gone.
Want to try the recipes I mentioned above? Visit October 28, 2014 Recipes.
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