Baby and Kid News
Kids Cooking
supervised kids cooking classes if you want. With the proper approach, you can hand over some of that coveted control to the kids, while they learn the essential skill of cooking and have lots of fun.
Start teaching kids cooking with simple foods that may be safely prepared under your watchful eye. Even a first or second-grader can put together a basic school lunch. So a little mayo may end up on the floor. That's about the worst that can result from making a bag lunch.
All kids love pancakes. Yes, this can be messy, but making pancakes is a great first kids cooking lesson. You can teach them how to measure out the dry ingredients, to wash their hands after breaking the eggs and how to mix it all up while keeping the pancake mix in the bowl. Their reward is a plateful of yummy pancakes. They'll be delighted at their newly learned cooking skills, especially when it's as good as pancakes.
The key to successful kids cooking classes is staging each lesson to teach a new skill. Making butter is another good lesson. Kids usually only see a cube of butter that comes from the store, which is not very interesting. Freshly made butter is a much different story. Find an old-fashioned butter churner if you can. If you can't find one, a food processor will work as well, although not so nostalgic. You start with heavy whipping cream and let the kids take turns, churning that cream into a creamy bowl of butter. This kids cooking lesson looks like a magic trick to a kid.
When you're finished, let your kid divide the butter into portions and flavor some of the portions with herbs. Roll the butter like cookie dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Serve the kids graham crackers with fresh butter now, and at dinner, let the kids spread french bread with garlic butter to go with the spaghetti.
Other great candidates for kids cooking lessons are soup, pie, brownies and ice cream. When kids are old enough to manage using a knife, with supervision, you can move on to dinner salads, fajitas and sliced fruits. Before you know it, kids will be eagerly helping out with meal preparation and maybe even packing their own lunches. As they gain proficiency, you may look forward to a Saturday morning breakfast of pancakes made by them.
Teaching your kids cooking skills will make them more independent and build their confidence. Start with the basic recipes kids love to eat. By the time they leave the nest, these kids will be able to eat well and economically while cooking their own food. Of course, nothing will ever replace Mom's cooking.
We all want our children to grow up to be self-sufficient and confident individuals. There are so many ways to nurture these characteristics, but when it comes to cooking, moms are perhaps justifiably reluctant to let the kids loose in the kitchen. After all, we have so many other messes to clean up every day. However, you can conduct
