Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Cook Together - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Cook Together - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

I've had other topics about cooking specific foods together with your kids, but this one is more general. This is to encourage you to have your kids help make dinner. Small kids especially want to 'help' with cooking. The problem is that there may not be a lot they can safely do in the kitchen if they aren't ready or old enough to handle knives or bee near the hot stove.

There is still a lot they can do to help, but you need to think ahead because the non-cutting, non-hot stuff parts of cooking may be things we do without thinking about it in preparation to do the real cooking. For example, my 5 year old loves to break apart the broccoli to get it ready for steaming. Washing vegetables is a great job for small kids. maybe measuring something, even if they need to hand it to you to actually put it into the pot (and you can take a quick peek to double check. Stirring batter is usually safe as well.

Older kids who can be trusted with more dangerous kitchen jobs could be put in charge of a side dish.

I tend to be tired and somewhat cranky at the end of the day when it is dinner cooking time, but when I ask my kids to help out, even though it makes the kitchen crowded, it is always surprisingly fun to cook together.




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