Boys Make Lunch

My boys decided to make Naan bread and spicy chicken for lunch so I decided to take some pictures. We always spend a lot of time in the kitchen on Sundays (Mondays, too, on long weekends) and today was no exception. G and D made the Naan together, starting mid-morning with the flour, yeast, salt, and water. They stirred that to make a sponge. Some 40 minutes later, they added olive oil and enough flour to make a good dough. It rose until about lunchtime. We preheated the oven and the pizza stone to 500 degrees. As soon as the rolled out dough hit the stone, they switched the oven to hi broil.

You can see how the bread puffs up. The boys have always marveled at the puffing — when they were tiny I had a hard time keeping them from putting their hands into the oven. It was hard to imagine then that this day was coming. G likes to make spicy chicken; he got the recipe from our good friends. I’ve stayed out of it so I don’t know the specifics — except that it involves Tony’s Creole seasoning, a hot pan, and some butter.

Richard and I typically eat something else when the boys have spicy chicken; they often make it because we are eating something they don’t like. In this case, Richard was making a quick omelet with leftovers. He threw in the end of a batch of aloo gobi masala. So, here are G and Richard standing at the stove together. To take these photographs, I used Richard’s Nikon D200. I am trying to get more comfortable with it — which brings me to the other thing I am having to get comfortable with this weekend: I am without my computer. For various reasons, Richard decided we needed to take all the software off of it and re-install windows and then the other software. Various things went wrong and now I am without my machine. Richard loaded my email manager onto his computer so I’ll be using his for the time being.

For years, our mantra to the boys was: “We’re working toward independence.” More recently, it has become: “We’re working to be flexible.” I guess I have to be flexible, too. Other items cooked in our kitchen today: tomato and butternut squash soup, macaroni and cheese, macaroni and tomato sauce, marinara sauce, and chicken pot pie. We’re starting the week with a full fridge.