How to cook with kids and not go crazy?

In the photographs, cooking with children looks so wonderful - happy children, happy family, bonding and good habits. Reality is usually less spectacular - a mess, petty quarrels, impatience. Is it possible to cook with children at all?

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6 tips for cooking with your kids at home

1. Take time to cook with your kids

If there's one thing I've learned as a mom, it's not to get attached to a plan. I would suggest starting with this. If we want something cook with kids в let's not try to control the whole situation. I'm not talking about letting kids cut their fingers and sprinkle flour on the floor - rather, I mean being open to the needs and abilities of our children. If we really want to cook with children, we must have the desire and consent to do so. everything will take 2-3 times longerthat some of the ingredients will disappear during cooking and that the surroundings will be dirty. Only then can we truly enjoy cooking. Therefore, it is worth planning such a great cooking for a day when we do not have big obligations. Breakfast on a Monday may not be the most meaningful moment, but Friday night and a shared pizza at the end of the week can be a great way to get together.

Healthy and energetic child. Mom's advice from a nutritionist (paperback)

2. Set the rules in the kitchen

If it is difficult for us to persuade ourselves to cook together, we can arrange with the children. regulations. We can write them down to make them stronger. For example:

• do everything in order
• one person is responsible for cleaning and the other is responsible for slicing
• we are trying one new ingredient
• we try to be kind to each other
• we do our best without judging or comparing ourselves
• and in the end we clean up together

It is known that cooking is different for a two-year-old child, and another for a twelve-year-old. Therefore, we must also adapt these rules to who we are and who the children are.

3. Give kids free rein

Small in the kitchen they want to do something meaningful. They want to feel like their presence really matters. So if they have to cut or grate an apple, let them do it. themselves. It will probably scatter a little to the sides, but thanks to this they will have the feeling that the cast iron was really their work. If we want them to mix the flour with the baking powder, give them a spoon and let them mix. There is nothing wrong with showing them how to control the whole process. Let's just let them be independent. If we are terribly afraid of mess, we will try to prepare a mixture of spices together with the children. Let them measure, put in a meat grinder and grind. Then every time vanilla sugar, cinnamon sugar, ginger spice or curry seasoning will remind everyone that this is the result of their work.

Cook With Your Child (Hardcover)

4. Give your child a culinary gadget 

Moje kids love to have In the kitchen something that you own. eldest son joke proud owner of a pancake pan, hand chopper's daughterTo youngest child peeler. Every time I have to use their equipment, I just ask if they would like to help me. Then they cook food with me quite spontaneously. These are short actions, unplanned quick actions like "carrots for the second course." It is useful for children to have kitchen gadgets. These can be graters, vegetable peelers, knives specially designed for small hands, cutting boards. They won't make kids feel like cooking all the meals, but they will signal that the kitchen is their space, where they can cook something. In the end, food is not the prerogative of parents.

5. Review cookbooks with your children.

Little chefs like to know what they are cooking. Stands before such preparation show them the recipe books and let them choose. We can get a book by Grzegorz Lapanowski and Maya Sobchak - "The best recipes for the whole family"; “Lazy dumplings” Agatha Dobrovolskaya; "Alaantkov BLV". Let's not just limit ourselves to children's books. I love watching with kids “Polish cuisine”. For us, this is a way to find out what is typical for different regions of Poland. Usually, after such a finger trip through the book, they get an appetite for some dumplings from another region of Poland. Sometimes we also try to discover the cuisines of other countries - then recipes help us. Jamie oliver i Yotama Ottolengiego. They are quite simple and always come with the right photos.

6. Call grandma for a recipe

In our family the best source of flavors and recipes are grandmothers. It is known that everything is cooked according to the principles of “as far as you remember”, “for consistency” and “by eye”. However, old people's recipes dictated over the phone are magical every time. Children like to cut dumplings “on a diagonal like grandpa”, stir the pies “only with a soup spoon, because that’s what grandma does”. This gives them the feeling that they are becoming confidants of the family recipes.

"Alaantkove BLW. From an infant to an elderly child. Home cookbook (hardcover)

each time spent together it is important. After all, they roll down during cooking. talking about ingredients, diet, suppliers, zero waste and the planet. It may turn out that children want to know us as non-parents, they want to know what we like to eat when they do not see what we like to do when we are alone at home. Cooking with preschoolers, students, and teens is just an excuse to stop and talk together. So let's give ourselves some room for that. Even at the cost of an hour of cleaning and re-eating pasta with cheese sauce.

If you're looking for more home cooking ideas, check out our Passion I Cook.