The reality of cooking with kids

Love or hate cooking with kids, the reality is it’ll be a situation you’ll encounter sooner or later as a parent. Children love to cook, fact. Or, rather, children love to “help” to cook (by which I mean, in my case, making a mess and walking away before it comes to washing up time).

I’m going to lay my cards on the table here and say that, unsurprisingly, I’m not a huge fan of cooking with kids. I do it regularly, because they love it, but as soon as they ask to “help” I have an inner sigh of desperation because I know what lies ahead. Namely, utter chaos, much hilarity from their point of view and me, an hour later, still cleaning up.

Still, we do it, because my children enjoy nothing more than getting involved in the kitchen. Seriously, they’d choose cooking over play doh or any other messy activity any day of the week. Which is why I love it when my mum (above) gets the kids involved in the kitchen because it gives me at least a couple of days breathing space in my own home!

If you’re a novice to the mayhem of cooking with kids or if, like me, you’ve been there, got the t’shirt AND had that same t’shirt covered in flour and flying egg debris, then this is the post for you. Organix have come to the rescue for desperate parents like us with some very handy tips for how to survive and – quite possibly – enjoy cooking with kids.

Here goes:

It’s good to see I haven’t failed completely at the cooking with kids thing. I mean, we always manage to create lots of mess, plus the kids enjoy dressing up with their aprons and chef hats. Having mini utensils is also a good way to avoid the often calamitous situation of little toddler hands trying to wield adult sized spoons. We also tend to choose what to make together (Frog is often keen to try to recreate something really ambitious from some random YouTube video she’s seen – which I then inevitably spend ages trying to find online, to no avail).

Things I’m not so good at: the planning. This is a biggie. For a completely successful kids cooking session you need to be a pro at organisation. Considering much of my cooking with kids scenarios happens on the fly, this is something I fail at big time. I don’t pre-measure ingredients, I never have the key items prepped and ready to go, which means I end up trying to multi-task while two small, impatient people bark orders at me and I get more and more flustered. This is often when flour goes flying or eggs go breaking. Oops.

Watch this if you don’t believe me. Actually, this is a great example of what NOT to do if you want to achieve success when cooking with kids…

Ultimately though, it’s all about having fun – which is something I definitely need to remember. It’s about the PROCESS rather than the end result. The memories, the experience and the laughter, rather than the Pinterest-perfect, Instagrammable foodie creations which just don’t happen in our house.

 

 

For more ideas, advice and recipe inspiration, check out the Organix website.

 

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Thanks to Organix for working with me on this post. I’m an Organix ambassador and will be working with them throughout 2017 to share fun, real and creative ways to get kids involved with eating good food. Check out my Work With Me page for more information about how I work with brands.