Cooking with kids is the best. It’s one of my favourite things to do with my children. My mother NEVER let me help her with the cooking. She had absolutely no patience whatsoever. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of me talking to her back while she stirred, kneaded, sliced and chopped.
Cooking with my children is my way of giving them a better childhood than I had. I have to confess that I’m not the most patient mum and the first few times we cooked together I needed a lie down afterwards (I totally understand mum frantically ushering us out of the kitchen), but we’re in a groove now. We all have our special jobs. I control the electrical devices as well as anything sharp and the stove. The kids pour, roll, tip, mix and lick bowls…the perfect partnership.
It does leave quite a mess. Sometimes their aim is a little off and food ends up on the floor. 5 second rule, right?
Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by EasiYo Yoghurt Maker and Yoghurt Mix Sachets. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.
Cooking with kids isn’t just about playtime or bonding, although both are important. The best benefit of cooking with your children is that they are more likely to eat the foods if they have been involved in the cooking process. My 5-year-old Giovanni is the fussiest child on the face of the earth but the sure fire way to ensure he will try a new food is for him to help me cook it.
These are the recipes we make almost every week. My secret plan is that by the time they are 12 they can cook them without my help, and serve them to me, and then clean up. Yes, one can dream….
Here’s what I love to make when I’m cooking with kids.
Healthy chicken nuggets
INGREDIENTS
400 grams chicken breast
1 cup plain yoghurt
2 cups bread crumbs
½ tablespoon chicken stock powder
Olive oil spray
METHOD
Cut the chicken breast into nugget-sized pieces.
Combine the bread crumbs and chicken stock.
Set the kids up on the dining table or large kitchen bench with the yoghurt in one bowl and the crumb mix in another bowl.
Let the kids coat each piece in yoghurt, then in the bread crumbs, placing them on a baking tray.
Once they are covered from head to toe in yoghurt and bread crumbs (the children AND the chicken), spray with oil spray on top and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until medium-brown.
Munch, munch, munch away.
Optional extra: Serve with a little pile of grated carrot and some cucumber slices. These are the two raw vegies my kids will always eat without fail and it looks so delicious on the plate.
Pizza
INGREDIENTS
4 pita pocket breads
Pizza or pasta sauce
Mozzarella
Olives, ham, zucchini and whatever else you can think of that kids will want to put on their pizzas
METHOD
Sit your children down at the dining table with the ingredients in front of them.
Give them each a pita pocket and watch as they try and spread the pizza sauce all over it.
Instructed them to add cheese then whatever ingredients they wish. They can make a pattern or throw it all over. They must include at least one vegetable. Olives can be considered a vegetable but only in the case of pizza toppings.
Place in a 200 degree oven for 15 minutes or until the cheese starts bubbling.
Cut in quarters and eat.
Optional extra: Instead of cutting in quarters, straight out of the oven roll them up and serve them as pizza scrolls.
Breakfast Yoghurt
INGREDIENTS
EasiYo sachet – your favourite flavour (ours is Greek coconut)
EasiYo yoghurt maker
Room-temperature water
METHOD
Half fill the yogurt jar with water
Add sachet of EasiYo
Put the lid on and give it a good shake. Each child gets a turn at this. Tell them to BE CAREFUL NOT TO DROP IT!
Top the jar up with more water so the level reaches 5mm from the top of the jar. Everyone shakes it again.
Grab the EasiYo yogurt maker and push the red plastic insert into the yogurt maker, filling it up with boiling water to the top of the plastic insert. Make sure the kids step back during this part.
Insert the jar of mixture into the yogurt maker and put the lid on. Leave it overnight.
In the morning let the kids open the yogurt maker. They are always so surprised it has made perfect yogurt.
Serve it for breakfast with whatever topping they like – fruit, cereal…
Optional extra: Use the fruit squirts
Banana Yoghurt Muffins
INGREDIENTS
4 ripe bananas
1 cup vanilla yoghurt
½ cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup oat bran
3 cups self raising flour
METHOD
Ask the children to peel the bananas. Place in a large bowl and give them all a turn at mashing them. Be ready to catch bananas that slip and fly out of the bowl. Also, if children are 5 or under, keep an arm on them because sometimes they mash so frantically they fall over or off things.
Ask the kids to add the Easiyo yoghurt, sugar and vanilla. Stir until combined.
Add the baking powder, oat bran and self raising flour and stir again.
Optional extra: choc chips!
Bake in a 180 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned.
Optional extra: For an added twist, cool, cut out the top in a deep circle, add a tablespoon of your favourite Easiyo flavour, put the top back on and serve. This is so scrumptious I can’t describe it properly in words.
Chocolate balls
INGREDIENTS
220 grams plain, sweet biscuits like arrowroot or scotch finger
½ cup cocoa powder
200 grams sweetened condensed milk
2 cups desiccated coconut
METHOD
Place the sweet biscuits in a food process. Press the on button and watch the children jump up and down screaming due to the loud noise. After approximately two minutes of jumping, the biscuits will be finely crumbed
Tip the biscuit crumbs into a large bowl.
Ask the kids to add the cocoa powder and condensed milk and stir. Let all the kids have a turn but do the final stir yourself because it is really sticky.
Once combined let the kids roll balls of it and then toss it in the coconut. This will make a huge mess but they will have a ball. If you feel very stressed after this make an ‘adult batch’ that includes a nip of liquor. Just kidding…
Refrigerate for at least 60 minutes until firm.
Eat, try and stop at one and FAIL.
Optional extra: Replace cocoa powder with pink Quik! Your daughter will be delighted.
What do you like cooking with kids?
EASIYO YOGHURT MAKER AND YOGHURT MIX SACHETS
With EasiYo making your own REAL Yoghurt is so satisfying, so delicious, so good for you and what’s more, it’s so easy! Just mix an EasiYo yoghurt sachet with water, put it in the Yoghurt Maker and in a matter of hours you’ve created 1kg of the tastiest yoghurt ever.
EasiYo Yoghurts have no artificial ingredients, are gluten free and vegetarian friendly and contain billions of live cultures per spoonful.
EasiYo’s delicious taste and nutritious goodness will have you coming back for more.
You can purchase EasiYo from www.easiyo.com, Woolworths, in-store at Big W, other independent supermarkets or from goldenglow.com.au
Top Comments
As a childcare chef, I can't use chocolate etc. I also aim for savoury cooking experiences that include vegetables. I have done fried rice with the 4-5 year olds in the electric frying pan - they can grate carrot, zucchini, capsicum, onion I usually chop the celery, the kids can add corn & peas too. Vegetable pasties are good too with veggie grating, cutting pastry, crimping the edges with forks & brushing with egg. Making vegetable dips like tzatiki etc is a good quick arvo activity. Baked potato wrapping & helping grate cheese, carrot for coleslaw & allowing them to add their own toppings (this could also be done with tacos) . Fruit salad is an amazing experience too children can see you peel pineapples etc I usually cut the watermelon into thick slices so the kids can dice it, great for young ones to pull grapes off stalks, pull the green off strawberries and cut melon which can be done with plastic knives (we have ikea ones at work) or butter knives even.
Food experiences don't necessarily need to be cooking per se. There is so much value in cooking with them, especially young children for skills and development. Literacy is used reading recipes (or you reading recipes to them), measuring is actually a maths skill, buttering toast and spreading pizza sauce is a motor skill. It most definitely is time well spent on authentic independant skills. Great post :)
Great post from you too! Heaps of helpful info.