John Myers
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Cooking with small children requires serenity
Don’t block your children’s curiosity about cooking, because you might not be able to do it fast enough or the “mess” caused by the little kitchen helpers is too big. On the contrary, ask your offspring to do one or two things for you when they are not interested in cooking. Everything you have to do beforehand: Plan enough space, time, and a calm mind for cooking together.
- The earlier you start involving your child in everyday cooking, the more natural it will be for your offspring to help out later on.
- For example, very small children have fun finding the ingredients they need in the kitchen and setting them out for cooking, or clearing out the shopping bag.
- If something is inconvenient or too high, give it to the child. Putting things together on the work surface is his very personal task – and he will be proud of it later when he sees what they conjure up together.
- Put on the apron and off you go: Then the kids can help weigh the ingredients. If your child is still too young to deal with numbers, then they can at least add some food step by step until you signal that enough is enough.
- Another challenge for very young cooks: washing fruit and vegetables and then drying them. To do this, place a small stepladder in front of the sink and use a dishwashing bowl. The child can then fill this with water on their own and get started.
- With a whisk or – even more, exciting with the mixer, if the power is sufficient for this – quark dishes or cake batter can then be stirred. It’s easier to hold the mixing bowl while doing this.
- The family hit: Bake pizza or sheet cakes. Your child can help with kneading the dough. How natural it will learn how important it is to wash your hands carefully before doing kitchen work.
- Topping fruitcake or pizza is especially fun when patterns can be laid. Let your children try it out, but also show them how you do it.
- Bigger children then want more: pureeing, whipping cream, and whipping egg whites. Even older people are proud when they manage to break open an egg and separate it.
- Gradually, you can leave more and more cooking tasks to your offspring. Your child will not always want to be there from start to finish. Also, allow time off.
- You and your children win if something can go wrong. One thing is always part of the recipe when cooking with children: hearty laughter.
Cut and stand by the stove
One thing is essential when cooking: peeling and cutting vegetables, fruit, cheese, and more. Children can learn this step by step. Sometimes there will be small injuries. It’s not dramatic, but most instructive. Even so, you should always stay close by and monitor the snipping.
- Your child can make the first peeling attempts with a vegetable peeler. Apples can be cut with an apple slicer. Chopping herbs into small pieces with a chopping knife is already possible. Ensure a good working position: your child must be able to push down from above.
- In no time and with joy, your child will produce vegetable spaghetti for the salad or for steaming in the pan with special spiral cutters. This is safe with most devices. In any case, do the first test runs together.
- Get official children’s knives for your children. The motto here: not too blunt but by no means pointed. This means that even kindergarten children can make their first attempts. However, you must stay close to it.
- Because injuries can occur quickly, you should only allow peeling and cutting of ingredients with a real kitchen knife from the age of about eight years – depending on the experience and manual skills of the child even later.
- Your child can learn good dexterity with a knife by peeling boiled potatoes or cutting soft fruit, such as bananas, ripe pears, or tomatoes that are not too overripe, as well as cucumbers.
- You should also be stingy with the space at the stove. Look into the pot, let it stir – no problem. But please do not leave your child unsupervised with boiling liquids (steam) or hot pans (spray fat).
- Inadvertently, your hand has quickly reached the stovetop, which is still hot when the pot is no longer in its place. This can cause painful burns. Be sure to make your child aware that leaning on the stove and the like is not allowed under any circumstances.
The right choice of recipe
If you take turns with your children when it comes to cooking suggestions, then the same thing will not always be served and the motivation for cooking will increase. If you or your child are running out of ideas, we have a few suggestions beyond pizza and spaghetti:
- Vegetable waffles with quark
- Tomato and cucumber salad with fresh herbs
- Cheesecake with cream cheese from the fridge
- Quiche with vegetables and ham
- Vegetable spaghetti from the pan gratinated with cheese
- Stew with potatoes and peas
- Rainbow sponge cake with vegetable colors
- Baked wholemeal toast
- Mixing muesli, possibly also with crunchy flakes
