Little Chef Night

My kids love having something to look forward to.  Some weeks are so jam-packed with activities, visits and special events that we barely have time to look ahead before the next thing rolls around.  Some weeks though, we welcome a slower pace. We have nights, maybe even two in a row with no plans to speak of.

As much as I enjoy the calm of those nights, I love when my kids have something to look forward to.  Especially when what they are looking forward to is spending time together, as a family.

 

So I came up with a plan.  Mondays at our house are ‘Little Chef’ nights.  It combines a few of our favourite things and it gets the whole family involved.  The kids got a cookbook out of the library and they get to pick the recipe.  We make sure that we have the ingredients on hand and then they get to work.

Last week we cooked up our own version of chicken fried rice.  The prep work was their favourite.  The kids cooked the rice, chopped the veggies, and did all the mixing.  My favourite was they they gobbled up every last grain of rice.  Or actually, maybe it was seeing the pride on their little mugs when Dan walked in and they showed him what they’d been up to.

Teaching the kids to cook has so many rewards.  Not only will they be able to whip me up breakfast in bed in a couple of years, they will learn a real appreciation for food and what goes in to making a meal.  They are less likely to push their plates away uninterested in dinner, if they were the ones to make it.  It also creates a completely different relationship with food.  If they are doing the cooking, they may be a little more interested in trying something that they may otherwise turn their nose up to.

So far, in week two (tonight was kind of a cheat – pancakes – but I was feeling absolutely terrible and they still did all the cooking and had a blast anyway) Little Chef night is a complete success.  I have two little people who a super keen to get involved and that is all I can ask for.

Do you cook with your kids?  Have any fabulous recipes to share?