Posts
10.26.2008
Cooking with Kids
My two year old loves to dump and scoop EVERYTHING. So, he really likes to help me in the kitchen. Mostly we make cookies because that involves a lot of measuring and dumping (another good way to learn to count!). What I'm wondering is what else do you cook with your kids? What do they like to cook themselves and what are fun foods kids might enjoy cooking? I get worried if he wants to help with something over the stove, so sometimes I don't know how to let him help, but he always wants to be right where I am. I really want him to learn to enjoy to cook and see what a fun and rewarding experience it can be.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
personal pizzas are tons of fun. You can buy the premade dough in the cans or Boboli or even make it from scratch. Then they can design their own pizza (perhaps with a face) and then eat their creation. You could do a halloween slant and create jack-o-lanterns or monsters etc.
It is fun to have a little helper in the kitchen, but it is hard for them to find enough safe things to help with! The IKEA kids knives have been a lifesaver for us, because they're dull enough they're find for little ones to use. I can set up a cutting board by mine and let our girl cut away at the discarded parts of vegetables or little pieces of cheeses, etc. She's also getting big enough now I let her grate things and peel carrots under close supervision. She gets so excited to cook with me and she's even dubbed herself "sous-chef" just like from Ratatouille. Now trying to cook with both kids at the same time is what I've got to figure out!
My older boys love to peel potatoes and carrots. They all love to roll out the pizza crust. When I make bread, I give them each a small ball to play with. Occassionally I will bake it, but usually it's so gross and dirty, we just throw it away. But they love to do it. I let my boys make their own PB&J's for snacks and they feel all grown up doing it entirely by themselves. We also let the older ones stir something on the stove if I'm in the kitchen. Getting ingredients out of the fridge/pantry, measuring, mixing. Or boys have just figured out how to use the hand mixer, but that makes me nervous. I always vowed I'd teach my boys to cook, who knew they'd be so eager to learn?
Mayli loves to help me cook too. She's always right there in the kitchen with me. It's cute but sometimes more work than help! :)
On FamilyFun there are some great kids recipes and a whole section on cooking and baking with kids. I've also seen cookbooks at Target that are "cooking with kids" cookbooks. They look really cute but I don't have one.
The one thing we do over and over again is the peanut butter sushi which is just bread flattened with a rolling pin or something similar then peanut butter on top and a banana. Then roll it up and slice it into bite size sushi pieces. My kids love that one!
Post a Comment