How To Teach Your Children To Cook

PENNY K
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I am helping my young granddaughter-in-law learn how to cook. I know she will come over one of her days off and I think ahead to what she might enjoy eating that would be good for her. I get the ingredients before hand, and when she's settled in for her visit, I suggest we have tea and whatever is the planned dish. Sometimes it's oatmeal raisin walnut cookies, sometimes it's a dinner dish.

I give her simple tasks as we assemble the food, and as I cook from scratch, I explain what I'm doing as I do it, and what are other alternative ways of cooking the dish I've tried over my lifetime, and how it worked out, or didn't as the case may be. She's learning at a mellow pace, which is good, since I tend to overdo 'teaching' and I always send her and my grandson home with something nice, tasty, and healthy, that is slightly different than they would have, just for variety.

All of my grandsons cook well.

By PENNY K from Westminster, CO

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EVONNE MEADER

May 16, 20090 found this helpful

I sure wish I had someone like you around even now I would love to know someone willing to teach like you do.
Wonderful!

lynda

May 18, 20090 found this helpful

When we had more money, I had great success in teaching any child who visited overnight and hated veggies that if they
would trust me, I'd teach them a way they'd love the veggies

from which I gave them a choice. The one thing I coaxed them with was, "You have only tried them canned. They are totally different and you will be so amazed at the flavor of fresh veggies!" I'd always start with beets, washing well, cutting only the greens off, saving for another day. Washing well, then choosing the smallest and boiling whole until the skin can fall off. THEN we cut the stem and root off. It saves the color, flavor, and when buttered and sliced thin, it is lapped up, smacked, and fought over! I hope try this and that you can be so successful that you will then "graduate" to a repeat performance choosine mini-
veggies if you can find them, usually at a Whole Foods Mkt. Remember to add a pinch of sugar to most veggies to enhance the flavor and desire for whatever you choose to cook.

I NEVER condone "frying",messy recipes, sugary things,breads, or pastries first, because I believe the shock factor is better when you go straight to where the child THOUGHT it might "hurt/ taste awful" but is so wonderfully pleased that they can't wait to tell their family members both that they learned how to cook and how much they love FRESH beets.

Don't suggest mixing veggies in one dish until they are teens. Keep hands clean from the beginning, and wear aprons! Emphasize safety, cleanliness, and to focus.

Let them do as much as possible, but not remove hot beets from the pan, or slice the round hot veggies outside of a dinner plate with a paper plate on top to help prevent rolling, falling onto the floor. God bless and help you. : )

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