Great article on cooking with Children, it includes the tips: Get in the right frame of mind If you’re over-tired, irritated and pressed for time, forget it. Cooking with children requires energy, patience and a tolerance of mess. Open up recipe selection Give children a bit of control by allowing them to choose the recipe. Parents do need to assess the complexity of it but “go in with an open mind”, advises Victoria Mackechnie. Be organised Getting halfway through the recipe and finding some vital ingredient is missing is a serious blow to any child’s enthusiasm, so make sure you have everything before you start. Shop together Once a recipe or two are chosen, get them to write the list of ingredients needed and ideally go off to the shops together to pick out ones you don’t have in stock. Pay attention to presentation Children want their creations to turn out just like the photo in the recipe book so props and a little styling may be required – as well as cheerful assurances that they’ll taste just as good even if they don’t look quite the same. They love “mini” versions of staples such as shepherd’s pie, quiche and fish pie, which can be made in ramekins. Grow their own Even if it is only a pot of herbs outside the kitchen door, try to grow something with children that they can use in cooking – “it drives home the ‘farm to fork’ idea,” says Mackechnie. Set ground rules Insist they always wash their hands before they start and, ideally, have their own aprons on. Smaller children need something safe to stand on. Be time aware Mackechnie’s cut-off cooking time for a recipe is 30 minutes – so that you can get in and out of the kitchen within an hour. “Any longer than that and you’ve lost the children,” she comments. But that is in a classroom – at home, children could go off and amuse themselves with something else while the dish cooks longer in the oven. Keep your hands off Suppress your inner control-freak and resist the temptation to jump in and do some steps for older children. Mackechnie understands the nervousness about, say, letting them use sharp knives but if they are taught how to chop things properly from an early age it’s a skill learnt for life. Enlist them in the washing up It’s a matter of principle not to let them scarper out the door when it’s time for the washing up and/or loading of the dishwasher, even if it sometimes seems more bother than it’s worth.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 11:03:58 +0000
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