Kids in the Kitchen

I love teaching my girls to cook or at least to love trying new foods. If they choose not to love preparing food, I hope that they will understand and appreciate the fine art of good food and all that it takes to prepare a meal.

Yesterday I offered to let my daughter prepare supper, which she excitedly accepted. I had her sit down with recipe books and decide what she’d like to make. She found one recipe in a book, and the other one she found online by searching Google. We live in a new era, don’t we?!

Next, I had her make a grocery list and then check it against what we already had in the refrigerator and cupboards. Then we looked at what was on sale this week and headed to the store. She shopped for the ingredients, did the preparations, made the meal, served everybody, and then helped with clean up. She did a fabulous job!

She made a sausage and cheese Stromboli, which is a fresh bread baked with meat, cheese, and seasonings inside.

She also made stuffed green peppers topped with cheese. The recipe she chose had hamburger, rice, onion, garlic, tomatoes, green chilies and cumin. I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but you get the idea.

Not only did we talk about life skills like shopping, budgeting, and healthy living, we also got an opportunity to do math, science, and most important in my book, sanitation. We talked about handling raw meat, washing hands, and sanitizing the kitchen during and after cooking.