Cooking with Kids.

Kids in the kitchen is one of those things I often wonder… is this worth it? The mess, the risk, the extra time. To be honest, the jury is still out! 🙂 Sometimes when we finish a cooking project, I think okay that wasn’t terrible and other times, literally, I ask everyone to leave the kitchen in the middle well before anything has been cooked, baked or prepped. But my kids do love being in the kitchen — clearly, they get that from Sean and not me!

Here are four little cooking projects we’ve done recently that they each saw through from beginning to end. 🙂

Eggs: Javi’s been a picky eater for years now. But we recently discovered that his hate for eggs is nonexistent if HE cooks them. (Funny, because I much prefer when other people make me food!) He loves everything from cracking the egg open, to whisking and pouring and then scrambling the eggs on the stove and adding a pinch of salt and pepper. The best part: he eats his meal.

Lasagna: Eva had a lot of fun preparing lasagna one night for dinner. I cooked the meat without her, but once she heard the noises from the kitchen, she was pasted on me asking if she could grab the stool to cook. She loved all the parts of assembling the lasagna and went a little rogue when it came to the layers of pasta, meat, sauce and cheese. But she enjoyed doing it! This was a great meal to prep in the early afternoon and then cook later. Now, did she eat it? No. 🙂

Tortilla Soup: Another night for dinner, Lola helped me prep chicken tortilla soup. Soup is right up her alley because she loves to stand at the stove and stir, stir, stir. She helped chop veggies, shred chicken and pour the stock! And when Sean came home from work, she took all the credit for the meal! 🙂 This was really tasty — but none of the kids ate it.

Waffle Station: A true crowd pleaser has always been a waffle station on Saturday mornings. Whoever is up first makes the batter, and then the table is set up with all the necessary tools for them to make their waffles independently. We have a few mini waffle makers and they love to choose different shapes, but the heart is definitely a favorite.

We’ll have to see what the new month brings in terms of cooking! I sense there might be some baking for Valentine’s Day in our future.