I started teaching my oldest (7) how to make toast in a toaster when a good friend told me that she was teaching her 7 year old to fry eggs on the stove. I was amazed here, yet again was a creative outlet for my then oldest (he was also 7) that would teach him needed skills. The pride he had when he finished frying his little egg was overwhelming. He quickly moved on to making cookies, spaghetti and other things. I, of course, supervised him closely when he was little. The harvest is great because now he is 23 and he can cook a whole meal for us (when he feels like it and has time)! Â His younger sister can bake cookies, bread, follow a recipe and make cinnamon rolls.
All of the kids have made mistakes, cookies running off onto the bottom of the oven, no salt in the cookies, etc..! In the meantime they have all learned to pay attention to what they are doing. :0) The middle son learned to make pizza crust from scratch. He is rather a particular eater and his interest is being awakened to try new foods. All four of the kids know how to cook basic food from scratch and to follow a recipe.
I would also add that we use regular cookbooks. I am on hand to explain anything so the kids cookbooks don’t work for us. I guess there is not enough volume of food! Having four teenagers or near teenagers it worked best for us to use a regular cook book.
I would suggest that you allow them to cook and then clean up after themselves. Allow them to pick the recipe, if they are interested in the food then they will pay closer attention to what they are doing. Edit their choices a little, if they pick a pastry shop style cake redirect them to a pound cake with whipped cream.
We love the Betty Crocker cook book for its wealth of easy recipes. We also like learning to use crock pot recipes and freezer cooking recipes. We will turn to www.allrecipes.com when we can’t find what we want in our home cookbooks.
Here are some Favorite recipes for young cooks:
Dip for veggies or fruit. (There are many recipes out there and no cooking is involved)
Chocolate Chip cookies, There are so many recipes out there for chocolate chip cookies. Just find one and follow the directions.
Spaghetti with sauce from a jar. Follow the directions on the package for the spaghetti.
Pound cake from scratch. There are many recipes on the internet for pound cake. It is really hard to ruin a pound cake.
Baked potatoes (I have the kids wash, prick and put the potatoes in a cold oven, that way they don’t get burnt. I also take them out if they are under 12.)
After they master some basics I would pretty much let them browse the recipe book, guiding them a little bit and keeping them from exotic ingredients that we didn’t have on hand.
What have you taught your kids to cook?
Talk to you later,
Karen