Teaching young children how to cook,  I think, is one of the greatest accomplishments; not just for your children but for you the parent as well. Children may often look awkward or clumsy stirring or chopping, but that’s okay. It’s a proud site to see as a parent the pleasure and pride they show in their accomplishments.

Today’s guest post is from Kristen Swope. Kristen is sharing the joys of cooking with children and how you can get your kids in the kitchen.

Enjoy today’s post!

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In most households, dinners are approached with great haste—popping mac and cheese into the microwave or ordering pizza. The scenario is common in households where parents have their hands full and can’t bear the time spent chopping onions.

Parents aren’t to be blamed, though. Managing the household is a difficult task—a job that often falls on the shoulders of mothers. With the economy we have today, most families need both parents to work, and there is no one to focus on the house. Because of “home fast food”, we are slowly and inadvertently creating a house full of picky eaters.

To reverse this trend, home managers (that’s you, Mom!) should get their kids involved in preparing meals. Sounds like a daunting task, right? It is, if you think about the mess that’s about to happen, but if you approach this activity with the mindset of helping your kids learn life skills, then things are about to get different.

The Road to Healthy Living

Learning how to cook and appreciating the processes that bring good food to the table pave the way to a healthier lifestyle. In a country where fast food rules, the ability to cook changes the way children see diet. Obesity in children is growing simply because there is easy access to junk food. By cooking with their parents at home, children will discover that nutritious food is not boring, and that with a little bit of creativity, they can make a dish that delights both the eyes and the palate.

When children learn the process of cooking, they will value the way food is transformed from something so basic into something scrumptious. In addition, they learn about food safety by constantly needing to keep hands, food, knives, and utensils clean. If you teach them the importance of hygiene in everyday living, having to be so cleanly in a kitchen will show them how cooking is a part of life.

An Opportunity to Bond as a Family

With all the daily activities that keep us busy, it’s essential for families to wind down and just enjoy each other’s company. Spending time together in the kitchen is a great way to foster healthy family relationships. It’s also a great opportunity to talk to kids and discover more who they are.

Create new dishes together or revive an heirloom recipe. By cooking alongside each other, family members nurture and preserve family traditions that they can pass to the next generation. This is also a great time to indirectly teach values that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk to your children about.

Boost Your Child’s Confidence

Contrary to what most people think, young children love to help around the home. Even if it takes them ages to do a task, the mere idea of completing a job is a great boost to children’s confidence. When children cook, they learn about every little step involved. Measuring, sequencing, and cause and effect are just some of the practical skills that children learn when they help in the kitchen. The life skills they learn from you are things that will help them through when they become adults. In addition, when children help in the kitchen, they feel like they are an important part of a team.

Get Them Involved Today

It’s never too early to teach kids the joy of cooking. You can teach the basics to a child as young as four or five years old, like washing fruits and vegetables. As they grow older, you can teach them the more complicated tasks of slicing, measuring, and heating.

Cooking at home is healthier and less expensive than eating artificial foods or getting take out. Cultivate good family relationships and preserve your traditions by letting your kids help in the kitchen. Things might be a bit messy at first, but the extra hand in the kitchen will someday be feeding you.

Kristen works as a freelance writer for Backyard Ocean, an online store for above ground swimming pools, inflatable pool toys, and accessories. A work-at-home mom, she loves to cook and spend time with her daughter in the kitchen.

The Joy of Cooking

Sometimes, there are days when nothing can absorb my attention and lift my spirits like going into the kitchen, and starting to cook or bake. There is a feeling of accomplishment when I share a wonderful meal I’ve created with my family and friends.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned more and more about cooking; I’ve found friends who like to cook too, and it’s always fun to swap recipes and cook together. Cooking with your kids, begins at home; cooking can take your kids all over the world discovering what people like to eat in other parts of the country like China, Japan, Italy and France. When they learn to cook, they will have a desire to travel and taste dishes that they’ve only read about and they can follow their fork around the world, meeting new friends and sharing the excitement of cooking.

First, before we begin our cooking lessons for kids, we’ll need to go over a couple of things:

The Right Height

It’s very important when kids are cutting, slicing, chopping and mixing ingredients or kneading dough to  have their work surface the right height. The average kitchen counter is a little too high for most young children, so if you have a butcher block cart about 6 inches lower than the counter or even grab a kitchen stool so that kids can stand on it with you close by. Sometimes the kitchen table works too. Just grab a cutting board so you don’t scratch the table.

A kid’s work surface should come to their waist so they have full strength and mobility of their arms and hands to chop vegetables, roll out dough, and knead bread. The butcher block cart pictured above is just the right height for my kids to help make our family’s recipes. If your kids are helping out at the stove, a small stool will work great. Just be sure to keep a close eye on them.

The Friendly Bowl Of Warm Water

Your kids will find their best friend in the kitchen a a big bowl of warm, soapy water, waiting to soak all the kitchen tools and dishes and pans they’ve used to create their recipe. If they dump them in the soapy water right away, they will find it’s much easier to clean them. We all know that if you leave your dirty kitchen tools and dishes lying around, the food gets dry and you have to work much harder to get them clean. A good rule of thumb–If you teach your kids to clean up while theyare waiting for the water to boil, or for something to cool or bake, they will find it much easier when they are finished cooking.

Coming Up Next….What you learn making Vegetable Soup

I’m excited later this week to introduce another chapter to my Back To School Cooking Series.  I feel strongly that cooking and eating together is a great satisfaction that often disappears with the busy schedules of families. Working outside of the home has always been a necessity for most adults these days and enjoying the food we create together is a way of connecting with one another.

Time-Saving Techniques in the Kitchen

My hope for my blog has always been to share with other busy families many mealtime solutions, teaching how simple recipes and timesaving tools and tips make mealtime preparation fun. It adds up to spending more time with your loved ones around the dinner table.

Kids In The Kitchen

Why should children learn to cook? Cooking can bring so many wonderful experiences into their life!

I thought it might be fun to introduce a weekly Cooking Lessons For Kids post. My assumption is that you as an adult will be around for supervision and can use these cooking lessons as a guide to get in the kitchen with your kids and have some fun together. In each post, I’ll share new techniques for kids which are used again and again as they move on in further lessons. I’ve decided to keep the ingredients as simple as possible and to a minimum. We won’t be using any electrical equipment, because touching, smelling, and seeing the ingredients and the ways they change as they’re prepared and cooked teach far more than you might realize-and for young children, preparing food this way is safer. 

We’ll make foods from a simple vegetable soup, to salads, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, even scrumptious cupcakes and brownies. All the yummy foods kids love to eat. Keep it simple. Keep it fun!

 The Rewards of Cooking

There is a mystery in cooking; no matter how many times you make the same dish, it will never be exactly the same. Think how remarkable it is that you can take flour, butter, sugar, and an egg and turn these into scrumptious cookies; or that you can simply stir two eggs together and gently cook them into creamy scrambled eggs.

Teaching young children how to cook,  I think, is one of the greatest accomplishments; not just for your children but for you the parent as well. Children may often look awkward or clumsy stirring or chopping, but that’s okay. It’s a proud site to see as a parent the pleasure and pride they show in their accomplishments.

Here are some previous posts in the Back To School Cooking Series:

Create a Cooking Plan

Kids Snack Recipes

Snacks go very quickly at our house. Whether your on a road trip, school recess, in between classes, or have a break at the office, they are the perfect pick-me-up. Our favorite snacks range from healthy to not quite as healthy. Chips and salsa can be the downfall in our house. This school year, for my cooking plan,  I’m making a lot of our snacks at home. If I make snacks at home, I’ll have better control over what my family’s eating. So, I’ve decided to make a bunch of snacks and freeze them.

Here are some recipes I’ll be making. Some will be for the freezer, others will last in containers on the fridge or counter. I’ve also prepped some snacks for the fridge.

• Hard boiled eggs (Tips on cooking eggs)
• Carrots or other fresh veggies
• Snackin’ Mix
• Honey Granola Crunch which can be used on top of homemade yogurt

Other snacks I pre-purchased which are good are:

• Rice cakes-can be topped with cheese slices, apples, cream cheese or peanut butter
• Pretzels
• Saltine crackers

 For the freezer, I’ll have made:

• Yogurt freezer pops
• Muffins
• Crockpot Applesauce
• Apple Carrot bread (recipe still a work in progress.)

How about you? What are your favorite snacks?

Back To School Week

  I really can’t believe summer vacation is almost over. We’ve officially hit the Back to School shopping frenzy.  Luckily, I prepared myself for a less stressful back to school week by getting a head start on school shopping a bit during the summer.

Now, it’s time to think about a new menu for the week. I created a cooking plan of frugal and kid friendly recipes for school lunches and as always have a simple casual dinner plan that I put together based on items that were on sale at the grocery store. Here’s what’s on the menu for the week:

  Weekly Family Menu

Breakfast:
Cinnamon Rolls, Berry Banana Fruit smoothies, Honey Granola Crunch, Tex-Mex Breakfast Burritos, Toasty Breakfast Pockets, Pancakes or Waffles

Lunch:
Refer to my Back to School Cooking Series; Create a Cooking Plan for lunch ideas.

Dinner:
Taco Grande, Kid-Pleasin’ Lasagna*, Chicken Riddle Soup* (leftovers can also be used for lunch), Sloppy Joe’s Pocket Sandwiches, Cashew Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry, Pepperoni Pizzadillas

*To save time during the week, I’ve pre-made the Chicken Riddle Soup and Kid-Pleasin’ Lasagna ahead of time. I’m preparing the recipes now and will post them later and throughout the week.

What’s on Your Family Menu?