Grace's Favorite Meal

It's amazing how much longer it takes me to do simple tasks since I lost the use of my left arm. Typing, getting dressed, taking showers, but nowhere is it more evident to me than when I'm cooking. I think I've mentioned before that I do most of the cooking when it comes to dinner. I've learned that meal preparation takes me twice as long as it should normally. Simple tasks that I wouldn't think twice about now suck up a lot of my prep time (skinning carrots and potatoes!!). Also, there are many cooking tools out there that are meant to be operated with two hands. Can openers, pepper grinders, cheese graters, egg beaters with a hand crank, just try doing all your cooking one-handed tonight and you'll see what I mean. Unless you're eating a microwave meal, you lazy, unhealthy piece of crap.

So, I cooked Grace's favorite meal the other night, which also happens to be the most labor intensive for me. Like any kid, Grace has her list of favorites. Favorite color, favorite food, favorite toy, favorite place, favorite sport, favorite game, favorite parent (me, obviously), the list goes on. So, it should come as no surprise that Grace has favorite dinners: spaghetti and Chinese omelet parcels. Those omelet things come from a kids' cookbook she got a few years ago. You can see what the end product is supposed to look like in the picture below:

Grace is supposed to be able to do this herself, yet she always gets out of it

The most difficult part is food prep on all the produce. I have to start fairly early in the day so I can work on it at my own pace. The first ingredient is bok choy:

This is bok choy.

I don't recall ever eating bok choy as a kid--thank you for contributing to my bok choy ignorance, mom. So, I honestly had to be directed to it at the grocery store and look up how to cut it online (thanks youtube 'How To' videos!). After a considerable amount of time--or maybe it just seemed like it--here is the prepped bok choy:

The leaves are edible too

Next, I needed a zucchini. This is a veggie I'm familiar with:

They look like this, right?

It needed to be cut into narrow, 1-2 inch strips like so:

Wait, what's that empty bowl at the top of the picture for??

After this, the recipe called for scallions, which I've learned (after making a fool out of myself at the store) is another name for green onions:

The blue band is NOT edible

After some quality time chopping those up, I've got a respectable amount:

Oh, that's what the bowl is for.

The recipe also calls for black bean sauce. I have an easy way to make this. Empty a can of black beans in the Vitamix, run the blender, and voilà - black bean sauce:

At least I think that's black bean sauce

Now, the cooking begins! Fry up the aforementioned vegetables (only use a few tablespoons of the black bean sauce) in peanut oil with garlic, cilantro, and bean sprouts:

What did you have for dinner, you fat slob??

Then, in a smaller omelet pan, fry up individual eggs to wrap the vegetables in:

Nine out of ten of these have huge holes or got too browned when I cooked them

Finally, it's time to wrap the vegetable medley in your egg. I tell myself this would look a whole lot better if I could do it with two hands

Look back up at the first picture and try to tell me I didn't nail it!

My most important audience doesn't give a crap whether my Chinese omelet parcels match the photo and requests it constantly, especially on days I really don't feel like cooking, so I call it a success!

Put enough soy sauce on it and it doesn't matter what it looks like!