Cooking With Kids

Cooking with children is a rewarding project. My son Daniel became interested in cooking as a preschooler. He would often climb up into a bar stool to help me stir whatever I was making. He was interested in the ingredients, and what they were going to become. At age four, his most requested cooking project was sugar cookies. He loved the whole process of stirring the ingredients together, rolling the dough, cutting out with shaped cutters, sprinkling with colored sugars, and then baking the cookies. 

Daniel is grown up now, and he yet has a love for cooking. He can whip up an entire meal, and he seems to enjoy the process. Sometimes I wonder if he would have this same love for cooking had his experience been different as a child. Perhaps if I had been "too busy" to bake cookies with him, would he have lost interest in the kitchen? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that children love to help out in the kitchen, and they are often learning while they are helping. Maybe they're even developing life-long interests and habits.

Of course, where children are concerned, I strongly recommend common sense and age-appropriate activities. I wouldn't turn a four-year-old loose with my chopping knife, or allow a youngster near a possible burn hazard. But, there are many things in the kitchen that children can do to help prepare the family meals and to learn what cooking is all about. 

When my grandchildren visit, they often help prepare food. Sometimes they want to make something start to finish, and sometimes they only want to help with part of a recipe. I hope they continue to be interested in cooking and grow up with some knowledge of how to put a meal together. You'll often see my grandchildren - Ginger, Charlie, and Landon - pictured on the blog helping out in the kitchen.

When a recipe lends itself particularly well to children, I'll post it under Kid-Friendly Recipes. But you know your child best, depending upon age, disposition, and ability, some children may need more or less supervision than others.

 

Kid-Friendly Recipes

A Cooking Project With Ginger
Applesauce Muffins
Baked Potatoes And Good Intentions
Best Ever Play Dough Recipe
Bone Shaped Biscuits (for dogs)
Butter
Candy Cane Blossoms
Cheese Biscuits
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Pudding Dump Cake
Cooking With Kids
Create Memories with Christmas Cookies
Creepy Popcorn Hands
Crescent Dogs 
Dipped Pretzel Rods for Halloween
Easy Granola Bars
Homemade Goldfish Crackers
Honey-Mustard Glazed Carrots 
Lemon Pie 
Mandarin Blueberry Muffins
Mint Chocolate Pretzels
Orange Balls 
Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies 
Peanut Butter Chocolate Filled Crescent Rolls
Peppermint Snowball Cookies
Pepperoni and Cheese Crescents
Pretzel Peeps
Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins
Strawberry Pound Cake
Time for Halloween Treats
Vanilla Milkshakes
White Chocolate Popcorn Mix