Getting through weeks of staying at home with your family requires patience, love and nutritious, fun meals for the whole family. Keeping everyone happy and satisfied is a challenge we want to help you tackle. Check our our four tips to get your kids involved in the kitchen
Keep the kids more interested and excited about meal time. Allow them to set the table and plate the food so they feel involved. If the kids are old enough, ask them choose recipes and help plan your weekly meals – let them pick accompaniments like veggies or starches to go with your proteins, or a fun snack. They could even try shaping and forming cookies and doughs and adding artistic decorations.
You may feel an urge to bake or eat more comforting food during these times. It’ s a perfect time to get the kids engaged and excited about baking. Let them come up with search terms for treats they would like to bake and scroll through Cookidoo® to find something they are excited to try out! Then, roll up their sleeves, and get baking!
Let your children discover the spices of life! Experimenting with new spices won’t break the budget, so they are a great way to get creative. Cook a simple ingredient like a steamed vegeteable or plain pasta and serve it with 3 different spices! Try paprika, Italian and curry powder for example. Let the kids try each sample and encourage them to give you tasting notes and their likes and dislikes. In return, share the history or origin of that spice as a fun lesson!
Get the kids fully involved – use all 5 senses! Try out fun recipes like bread doughs, custards, cookies or dips and encourage them to get hands on, taste test when possible, use different utenstils to compare sounds, and get up close to smell and examine new ingredients! Try actions that keep multiple senses busy at once:
• Touch - close eyes and touch sprinkles, doughs, frosting
• Taste - cake (sweet), lemons (sour), coffee (bitter), nuts (salty)
• Hearing - popcorn, carrots, steak sizzling
• Sight - dough (rising), cookies (spreading), chocolate (melting)
• Smell - sweet, salty, bitter, sour
