- Thanks so much for keeping this site alive (if barely). I love y'all's ideas!
First off, let me say that I think the whole idea of making warm memories by letting your kids cook with you is highly overrated. I'm a fairly low-key person, but Addie and Stuart can have me chewing on my Pampered Chef rubber spatula within five minutes.
BUT, they enjoy it. As long as I view it as Good Training instead of a Good Time, we do fine.
Here are two things they enjoy making:
Parfaits
This is an old kid-friendly standby: fruit and yogurt. I have a safety knife that they can use to cut up the fruit, which makes it even more fun for them. But the real deal with these parfaits is that we add chocolate graham crackers or, on occasion, crumbled cookies. Forget the granola. Put in a little bit of junk, and they'll love the whole thing!
We layer:
* Vanilla yogurt
* Strawberries, blueberries, or bananas
* Chocolate graham crackers or some other yummy crunchy sweet
It makes a good breakfast or a side dish at supper. If Stuart will eat it, you know it's kid-friendly.
Chicken Smorgasbord
Take two chicken breasts and cut them into four pieces. Make a "bowl" of aluminum foil for each piece. Season each one differently: barbecue sauce, Italian dressing, basil and oregano, cinnamon and ginger, dill, etc. Drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it moist. Put the "bowls" into a casserole dish and bake at 350 or 375 for, oh, half an hour (until the chicken is at 180). When it's done, you have four different flavors of chicken to choose from, plus really yummy broth.
Addie and Stuart love choosing their seasonings. My job is mostly to say things like, "Um, that's enough dill!" or "No, no, don't put basil with cinnamon. Probably won't taste good." This dish is especially good with couscous.
-- SJ
2 comments:
What a good idea! So far Kyri is my child most interested in what happens in the kitchen. She was the first to dare to get food out of cupboards and fridge on her own and her brother thinks she's delightful for showing him the ropes. He is of the philosophy that Mama takes care of preparation and he takes his dishes to the sink and we're all good. Hmmmm....
I need to venture out into this form of teaching/learning. After all, I want them to eat healthy when they're in grad school.
The chicken idea sounds very fun. The ducklings are in love with the spice drawer, but I haven't dared to let them make use of it yet.
I have found that the best way for my sanity to survive kids in the kitchen is to keep it down to one at a time. Both of mine are very eager about food, so I need some sort of rotating plan to let them help.
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