Apologies for my absense!! I have been out of the game! Promise I will be back with a new post this Sunday and it will be yummy.

I know that when I was a kid that cooking wasn’t something I could do by myself so I watched my mom cook in the kitchen and was awestruck at all the ingredients and the sense of ease she had. I never really helped too much but I wish I had. I think about the kids who are uninterested and so I came up with a couple ideas that you might find useful.

–Ask the kids what they want for dinner and if they want to help and get them to help. I grew up in a family where I set up the table and did some prep work when I got older, it was fun. I think that by asking the kids what they want and then having them help will get them interested in cooking since they already love what the cooking plan is.

–Make it a game. Most kids like to be active so have the ingredients you want in mind and then have them find them for you by giving them a place and then descriptions. Yes, this might take longer but it will give your kids something to have fun with.

–Teach them the basics. Boiling water is simple, of course you have to go over procedures since they are young and may burn themselves but just keep an eye on them. You can also teach them about using a knife, when they are older, maybe around 10-12 depending on how knife happy they might get, we don’t want any fingers missing!

–Grocery shopping. Take your kids grocery shopping so that they can learn about the things that are going into their stomach. They might surprise you with how interested they might become of their favorite foods and realize that an odd ingredient goes into making it. You can also play a grocery game by having your kids, for example, standing in front of the spice area and having them looking for one specific one. By doing this you are letting them observe a situation and getting to their goal.

Maybe this is overwhelming but I think that as a kid I would have enjoyed all of these rather than racing down aisles with the cart.

-The Mermaid Chef