Cooking: Asian Pie – intuitive cooking (recipe-less)

The other night it was my boy's turn to cook. He had put off cooking dinner until 6 pm, so we were eating his quick-go-to meal of BLTs. As my husband and I were talking about how it would be nice if the kids would branch out more in their dinner menus, my son blurted out, “I want to make an Asian Shepherd's Pie for dinner sometime.” So we talked about what he had envisioned and how to go about creating this less-than-traditional dish. I thought this would be a great way for him to work on the skill of cooking without a recipe.  You'll note there are no measurements listed.  That is the beauty of 'winging-it' or intuitive cooking - you can tailor the amounts and ingredients to fit what you have, what you like, and how many you need to feed.  This is what he came up with:

• Rice (brown, white, leftover, whatever - just make sure it is cooked)
• Chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces. Saute this with a little ground ginger, salt and pepper
• Stir fry sauce of your choice (sweet and sour, general tso, orange, etc)
• Lightly steamed vegetables (we used broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and scallions)

                                             Spread a layer of cooked rice in a casserole dish.

                                            Add sauteed chicken, and stir-fry sauce.

Next, layer on the veggies. We lightly steamed some fresh ones we had on hand, leftovers or frozen would work well also.  

Top with another layer of cooked rice, and bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until heated through.

 This was the end result.  Sort of a one-dish stir-fry meal.  It is a great way to use leftover Asian-style ingredients.  I really liked the slightly crusty rice on top.  

I do like to have my children learn to cook from recipes, but I don't want them to be bound by them.  Encouraging them to add their own ingredients to soups, or salads is an easy way to encourage their creativity and confidence in cooking intuitively.  My son loves to make soups without using recipes, and my daughter loves to experiment with fruit salad.  So once in a while - let them wing it.  After all, I think that fear is one of the biggest factors that keeps people out of the kitchen.  So Carpe Culina!  (Seize the Kitchen)