Cooking with Kids: Grocery Shopping as a Learning Tool

Posted on March 8, 2010 - Filed Under cooking with kids | 3 Comments

When I was a kid, I had an aha moment at dinner one night. See, my family always spelled out words and names when I wasn’t supposed to understand what they were saying. It’s a good technique … as long as your child doesn’t catch on. As I ate my bread and hid my peas [...]

Cooking with Kids: Make Your Own Couscous

Posted on March 1, 2010 - Filed Under Recipes, cooking with kids, lunch | 3 Comments

One of the most brilliant gifts of motherhood is watching your kids develop their own personalities, likes and dislikes. I am blessed to mother two strong, brilliant, adventurous kids who don’t think anything is beyond their reach. It’s amazing.
If you are a regular reader, you know that both of my kids adore cooking with me. [...]

Cooking with Kids: Chopped Salad Recipe

Posted on February 23, 2010 - Filed Under Raising Healthy Kids, Recipes, cooking with kids, salad | 3 Comments

The kids and I made a Mexican Chopped Salad today. It was awesome, and they gobbled it up. Actually, we gobbled it up. But what was more awesome was our conversation while we cooked.

While making it, I made a last-second trade-out of an ingredient, substituting agave nectar for honey. Will immediately asked me why, since [...]

Cooking with Kids: Black Bean, Avocado and Red Pepper Quesadillas

Posted on February 15, 2010 - Filed Under Beans, Recipes, cooking with kids, lunch | 1 Comment

Things don’t always go the way we want them to. Sure, wouldn’t we all just love everything to go exactly as we plan right down to the nitty gritty details? But then, that would make life predictable … and that’s not good either. So, maybe having things go unpredictably is a good thing after all.
I [...]

Cooking With Kids: Will’s Fruity Salsa

Posted on February 8, 2010 - Filed Under Appetizers, Easy Recipes, Recipes, cooking with kids | 5 Comments

This post would be more accurately titled “Letting Kids Do the Cooking,” but I don’t want to interrupt the flow of this weekly feature (which I totally love, by the way). And besides, this was still cooking with kids, since I did all the prep work and set Will’s mise en place out for him. [...]

Cooking With Kids: Basic Principles of Safety

Posted on February 1, 2010 - Filed Under cooking with kids | 1 Comment

I wish I could pinpoint the moment where my son first entered the cooking life in my kitchen. Perhaps we were whipping up pancakes for breakfast or maybe it was an evening where he used the salad whirler to drain all the water from the lettuce for salad. It’s become such an ingrained part of [...]

Cooking with Kids: Dealing with Failure

Posted on January 25, 2010 - Filed Under cooking with kids | 8 Comments

When I saw the recipe for Glazed Peanut Butter Fudge Cupcakes, I knew it would be our next Cooking with Kids creation. I showed it to Paige, Will and then Shawn. We couldn’t wait to try it. They looked mouthwatering. The recipe comes from Food For Thought From Parents to Children, a cookbook put out [...]

Cooking with Kids: Strawberry-Infused Chocolate Chip Snack Cake

Posted on January 18, 2010 - Filed Under Recipes, cooking with kids, dessert | 2 Comments

Will has an apron with a rocket ship on it. When it comes time to start cooking, he requests it and orders reminds me to get one of my aprons out too. Then he asks where to go. Sometimes, when whatever we are making requires a lot of measuring and stirring, we set up at [...]

Cooking With Kids: Chocolate Butterscotch Cookie Bars Recipe

Posted on January 11, 2010 - Filed Under A Little Help, Cookies, Recipes, cooking with kids, dessert | 2 Comments

In thinking about today’s post, I thought it was a little ironic that I wrote about getting your kids more active on Friday and am writing about sweets today. But irony aside, these things can really coexist. Afterall, raising a healthy family and leading a healthy life is not about deprivation. It’s about moderation, balance, [...]

Cooking With Kids: Chocolate Covered S’mores Grahams Recipe

Posted on January 4, 2010 - Filed Under Cookies, Feeding Kids, Recipes, cooking with kids | 4 Comments

Ever since Will was old enough to stand, he’s been helping me in the kitchen. Paige too. They can spin salads to remove water like nobody’s business. They know how to tear lettuce into bite-sized pieces, measure ingredients and sift. They can mix and fold. Will knows how to add the flour mixture to wet [...]