"Before causing her brother bodily harm..."

I have two great kids. The six-year age difference gives way to low sibling rivalry and minimum squabbles over toys, etc. But, if they are going to have at it, it will be between the hours of 4p.m. and 6 p.m., usually when dinner is being prepared.
The evening started off decent enough. The big kid even helped peel carrots for recipe #1, Baked Carrots in a Bag on page 214 before causing her brother bodily harm resulting in the....oh, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back to the carrots: As long as you can plan ahead for their hour cooking time, they are kind of fun to pull together, especially if you have kids to help. Like I said, the older kid helped peel the carrots and put all of the other ingredients into a tin foil made bag. To go with our carrots, I bought some cod fillets and decided to make a Simple Cheesy Mustard Sauce (pg.266) to go with it. It seemed that with minimal effort I could knock out two recipes on a weeknight. The sauce is simple and easy to make and requires just a few ingredients: parsley, mustard, brandy, heavy cream and Parmesan or Cheddar Cheese. However it does require a bit of babysitting, which meant that I didn't have time to watch my own kids who were wrestling in the living room. (Note: I left out the brandy and "catching fire" part of the recipe due to a friend's escapade with the fire department and some beef bourguignon. If she can't do it, not sure I can.) So I added some olive oil and the English mustard to a hot pan. After it got nice and hot I added the parsley and the cream and brought it to a boil. I'm skeptical of boiling cream so I'm watching it very carefully at this point. The sauce is almost done and the buzzer is going off for the carrots and cod.
This is when all hell broke loose in the other room. I hear the two year old SCREAMING and the big sister yelling, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Apparently she wanted him to come to her, he wouldn't, and as he was walking away she grabbed his ankles and naturally he fell and face planted, knocking his head on the step on the way down. Husband and I run into the room and I yell at her to go to her room. Instantly, a large goose egg is appearing on his forehead and I'm sure the sauce is totally ruined by this point. Husband tries to bribe the baby to put ice on his bump and I try to salvage the sauce, add the cheese but I know it must be ruined. I serve dinner to a whimpering kid who has come down from her room with her tail between her legs and a baby boy that looks like he's grown a horn and his face is red from crying so hard. He's still doing that thing where they are trying to catch their breath after crying so much. We put a bit of the sauce over the cod and I think how impressive and fancy it looks. It would be a good thing to have when company is over. But still I'm convinced it must not have survived the nights’ events. Husband tastes it first. "Wow! This is really good!"
THANK YOU JAMIE!!! Your recipe withstood family trauma.
Recipes cooked: 71
Recipes left: 102
Days left: 123