Cooking lessons for an 8yo!

[dangermom]

I know that in theory I'm supposed to happily include my kids in the cooking, and they'll naturally come to enjoy cooking and bonding with mom over the cookie dough. :glare: It turns out, however, that when I'm cooking I hate having the kids in to help. I have to constantly suppress the urge to grab the tools out of their hands and shove them out of the kitchen. So while I try, it's very difficult for me to let them help when I'm trying to make dinner at the end of a long day.

 

But I've been trying to teach my 8yo to cook anyway. She can do eggs and french toast and some other things, and she loves it. As long as it's a Cooking Lesson and not Dinner Prep, I seem to be (almost) OK; I just have to think of it as a lesson that we happen to be going to eat and remind myself that it's about her learning, not my dinner.

 

Well, I recently realized that I'm going to have to get very serious about teaching her to cook. She has serious food allergies, and is going to have to be a good cook before she leaves home. No surviving on burritos and bagels in college for her! (Yes, I am a dope for not having thought of this before. She was little before, though!)

 

So, everyone, give me your tips, your favorite kid cookbooks, your successful cooking lessons. I need all the help I can get.

[Mel in K-zoo]

My parents are very supportive of my homeschooling. I asked my mom if she would be interested in teaching my daughter and she said yes. She has had a hard time finding much material for a 7 year old, so she has ended up making her own. Sorry I can't be more help.

[lmrich]

Watch cooking shows with them! My kids have enjoyed watching something on Food Network and then trying it. Allow about three times more than you need for it - I would say weekend night or even a Friday night at home. It is nice when they can cook a little on their own.

 

Linda

[dangermom]

Thanks for the suggestions. I never thought of watching cooking shows. I do have a book or two--I like Cooking with Children.

[The Governess]

:lurk5:

 

I need some ideas as well. :001_smile:

[Tap]

I am the same way. And it is funny that I was thinking the same thoughts today. I love to cook, but don't like to talk while I cook. When I cook I am in a zone. A complicated, multitasking zone that is not kid friendly.

 

I have to make myself be nice.

 

One thing I have noticed it that I am much better with older child, ds14 than dd10.. I think it is a maturity issue with him. I can go over a recipe with him, describe the details he will need to know, and then he can go on his own with just a few comments along the way. Dd10 still needs prompting at every step. Like today when we were making cookies...we were out of cinnamon so I told ds, who was making pumpkin bread to combine the measurement of cloves and cinnamon and substitute pumpkin pie spice instead, he did fine and figured out a few other changes on his own too. Dd10 is still learning how to level a measuring cup of flour and to not put the mixer on high with dry flour in the bowl. Every step is a lesson or... three.

 

I like working with ds now that he is older. Maybe you have that to look forward to, too. :0)

 

BTW. I am the same way with most things in life. I don't want to talk while I clean, put on make up or do anything creative. I have to be in teacher mode to make a project work for the kids.

 

 

Sorry, no suggestions but just know your not alone.

Edited December 22, 2008 by Tap, tap, tap

[keptwoman]

My boys are enjoying making recipies from this site:

http://www.jamiesministryoffood.com/content/jo/home.html

Each recipie has a video showing Jamie Oliver making it with a full shopping list etc.

Each recipie aims to teach a certain type of cooking. For instance casserole or stir fry. It's been really good.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

When my daughter showed an interest in cooking I let her help for a while. After a while we went to the library and checked out some cookbooks. We'd check out one, keep it till we'd cooked all the recipes we wanted to try, and then switch it out for another one. Most of them didn't really teach, they were just cookbooks. I had to teach her about how to chop, grate, et c. She's really motivated to cook. She loves doing it. She cooks for the family now a couple of times/week and has for quite a while. I do love cooking with my daughter, though. It's one of my favorite things. So, for someone who just does not like cooking with the children, I'd suggest letting them check out some cookbooks they like, go over some techniques they'll need, then set them free in the kitchen with you supervising the hot and the sharp.

 

Otherwise, why do you dislike cooking with her so much? If it's just b/c it's the end of the day and you're tired, try cooking in the morning and reheat it for supper or start with a few crockpot meals. If it's b/c this is the family's meal and it has to be just right, maybe you could let her just do side dishes for a while or keep some food on hand in case of a flop: canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches are okay once in a while.

 

Now, if you don't like to cook with your daughter b/c you are a control freak . . . I beg you to reconsider! My mom can do it all: bake bread, can, sew, you name it. But, my mom is a control freak and always shoo'd me out of the way when she was at it. I didn't learn to do any of that stuff and now I would give anything to learn it. I'm struggling along. I've learned to bake bread. I've learned to can a couple of things but I have way more failures than successes. My sewing projects have caused me nothing but heart ache! Your daughter will be a grown woman with a family to care for and she'll need these skills. Is there any amount of teeth grinding you could do that could get you through this? Just let one day be the day. Pick your day and let that be it, success or failure. To be honest, in all the time I've been cooking with my daughter, we've only had one failure and we just didn't like the food enough to eat it. It was the recipe, not us. We've made things that we decided never to make again but still they were okay. We've made things that went on the permanent rotation. There was never a crisis, melt-down, now we're going to starve cooking event.

 

It will be okay.

 

You can do it. so can she.

[LisaKinVA]

Look for the simple recipe cookbooks (like Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals). Lots of fresh ingredients -- pretty quick to the table.

 

Also, Deceptively Delicious looks like it can be a lot of fun for adults and kiddos alike.

 

I know what you mean about feeling like you just need to get the kiddos out of the way (I feel that way too); however, as I was making cookies yesterday, I thought about how this was my FIRST time making them. My mom always did. She did all of the Christmas baking/cooking alone. I have zero memories of making anything with her as a youngster. We were just in the way. Kind of sad, when I think about it.

 

I learned to cook on my own. I learned to bake by spending a summer at my grandma's house (which is why I can bake bread from scratch, have a knack for using recipes as inspiration, and can do a pie crust better than my mom... :lol:)

[kewb]

I feel your pain. I hate cooking with my kids which is why I signed them up for a 6 week cooking class. Having someone else show them how to hold the knife and measure and do other assorted things is helping our cooking at home. I still have to resist the urge to send them away and just do it myself but it is a bit better. I have been working on this because I realized they need this skill and the reason they could not do more than make themselves eggs and pancakes had to do with my control freak tendencies.

[Jenny in Florida]

We DVR the show, and he'll watch re-runs, even. Alton has become an honorary member of our family, it seems, and gets appealed to frequently (as in, "What would Alton say about that?").

 

It's definitely inspired my son to learn some kitchen stuff, and he's constantly begging for more. In fact, he's getting cooking implements in his Christmas stocking this year.

 

So, cooking shows, definitely.

 

Also, I wanted to mention that there is a chain called the Young Chef's Academy that seems to be national. They have cooking classes for kids.

 

http://www.youngchefsacademy.com/

 

If it makes you feel any better, my daughter is 14 and can't do much more in the kitchen than use a microwave and a toaster. And you're right to plan ahead for college. We're vegans, and my daughter finds it nearly impossible to eat in the college dining hall. We try to keep her supplied with quick-prep things she can microwave, and she has a toaster and rice cooker in the dorm, but she still has a rough time keeping herself properly fed. There is a full kitchen in the dorm that she could use if she wanted, and I've tried repeatedly to encourage her to learn to do more, but she has no interest.

[FriedClams]

I have a 7 year old DD who really likes to help in the kitchen. It takes a lot of effort but I figure when she's 12 and I can take a night off from cooking - it'll be well worth the time spent now, LOL!!

 

I recently saw this cute idea on The Crafty Crow for making picture recipe cards for kids. I am making a book for my DD and she's loving the recipes and making things "on her own". So far she's made peanut butter blossoms (which were yummy - though I used a different recipe than shown on Crafty Crow) and a french silk pie. I made the crust for her, but other than that she pretty much made the whole thing. I'll be adding recipes along the way and she can practice and bake / cook with what I put in there. Today I am adding Pumpkin Spice Muffins (spice cake mix, 1 cup pumpkin, 3/4 cup water - mix, scoop and bake 20 minutes).

 

I would recommend starting with some mixes. The basic cheap muffin bag mix usually requires an egg and milk or water. That's pretty easy and won't take forever.

 

We also make:

pancakes

brownie mix (pretty much solo, minus the oven)

bread in the machine (dough, then shape later)

salads (great for cutting skills)

pasta

basic pasta sauce

muffins

pizza (dough in machine, then dress and bake)

fish in foil packets in the oven

 

Like an earlier poster said - expect it to take a LOT longer. Have your ingredients laid out (I think that helps a lot), have pans ready, oven ready, etc. It is actually really fun and the more you work at it the more the kids get really helpful. Some cookbooks that I think lend really well to cooking with kids -

 

The OLD Betty Crocker kid's cookbook (funny!)

Any Pampered Chef cookbook - they are so easy and use lots of prepared stuff that make it go faster with kids

America's Test Kitchen - just becuase I think their books and recipes are the BEST

 

Have fun!! :)

[hornblower]

We've been doing cooking lessons for years.

Watch cooking DVD's - my kids really like Julia Child, on her own & the series she did with Jacques Pepin. I don't have cable so I don't know all the new shows there but I'm sure there are lots of good ones.

 

We take out lots of cooking books from the library, even though I have a bunch here. I find having new books is inspiring & the newly published books are often very rich with photos which is interesting to the kids. We were given a couple kids cookbooks but frankly they suck. Many of the 'recipes' are so inane they'd only be appropriate for toddlers IMO. My kids leapt right into regular cookbooks.

 

The only 'kid' cookbook which has got lots of use is this one: Anne of Green Gables Cookbook.

 

Each week, one child gets to pick a recipe. This year they need to let me know by Sun night. Cooking afternoon is Wed. The days in between are for me to gather up any odd ingredients needed. I adjust the days from year to year depending on our sched.

 

I help them with prep; when they were young I did a lot more of the chopping - they were OK with it because on the good cooking shows the chef has all the stuff pre-chopped too so they felt like real chefs!

 

Doing it as a lesson is not as stressful as having them underfoot when you're tired and trying to get a meal together. This is an extra thing, and may have nothing to do with our meal plans for that day......It's fun, it doesn't matter how it turns out. We usually eat whatever they make for a late lunch/tea if it's a savoury, with just a leftover nibble left for dad to taste when he gets home. If it's a dessert thing, we have a small sample at tea time & the rest after dinner.

 

Oh and watching Ratatouille may get even a reluctant kid enthusiastic about cooking and baking.

[PariSarah]

When I wanted ds10 (then maybe 7?) to do more serious cooking, I decided to teach him all soup all the time. Soups are pretty forgiving (you don't need perfect measurements or technique), and they're tasty and kid-friendly. They also usually have a long period of simmering time when you can have the kids help tidy up, or maybe even send them out of the kitchen and have a relaxing cuppa!

 

The Joy of Cooking Soups book is a great tool, because you start off with really simple broth-plus-something-else soups, and get more complicated as you go along. Plus, there's lots of pictures! You could sit her down and say, "Pick two from the first chapter, and when you get really good at those two, we'll do two from the next chapter. . . " or some such.

 

When she's first learning, you could just get some of those refrigerated biscuit cans and do that along with the soup. Later, maybe move onto homemade quick breads that go well with soup--cornbread, biscuits, cheese biscuits, puff pastry breadsticks, whatever.

 

One thing I will say is that I don't like chaos in the kitchen--is that maybe what's contributing to your not liking to cook with her? I went alpha-male on ds, when he was first learning, and said that he did it my way or he could stay out of the kitchen until he was thirty. Otherwise, he would have been trying to slam-dunk the broccoli into the boiling pasta water, KWIM? I'm very strict about following the rules in the kitchen. It's not at all lovey-dovey, sweetly bonding over frosting and chocolate splatters. I don't know whether that's your issue or not, but if it was, I just wanted to say that my son, at least, still begs to cook, even though I'm quite strict with him in the kitchen. So you don't have to be afraid of setting some pretty firm ground rules. It doesn't have to be "fun" for them to enjoy it.