Guest Author - Pam Garlick

I’ve been hearing a lot about cooking with kids. Probably because one of my favorite channels is the Food Network. Several well known cooks and chefs are proponents of cooking with children, some even have special cookbooks, and a few have other accessories.

Personally, I didn’t need them to tell me how much fun it can be. No, I’ve been doing it for a long time. Both my boys have grown up to be pretty handy in the kitchen, and I proudly take credit for some of that.

Today, I spend as much time as I can cooking with my grandchildren. It was such fun the first time I made cookies with my oldest granddaughter, Rachel. She looked something like a snowman by the time she was finished. Oh but her cookies were delicious!

I’m known as the cookie baking grandma to my youngest granddaughter, Amanda, who’s first experience was to bake special heart shaped cookies for her father to give to the kids as part of his children’s sermon the following day. I guess you realize he’s a pastor.

Our middle granddaughter, Angela, is the daughter of another pastor, and doesn’t live as close as I’d like. However, I know she enjoys cooking from the photos her mother has sent of her helping in the kitchen. I look forward to the times I visit and try to take along a recipe that I can make with her. Last time her grandpa even chipped in and the three of us made monkey paws. (for recipe see the link below).

I have a few tips for anyone who wants to cook with children, but may be hesitant to do so for whatever reason. They’re simple, and probably mostly common sense, but I feel I should share them with you anyway.

1. Pick recipes that are simple when first starting to cook with a child. I started with cake mixes then on to more difficult things. Let the level of difficulty increase as the child grows more confident, and obviously don’t permit them to work over hot surfaces or with sharp knives until you feel they are mature enough to use the caution necessary.

2. I love silicone bakeware. It is not only safer for children to use, it is colorful and comes in all types of shapes. I have purchased each of my granddaughters beautiful silicone sets for kids.

3. Teach them about cleanliness from the start; because by the time they are finished your kitchen will likely be anything but clean. Have them wash their hands often, before you start, after you are finished, and in between whenever you change ingredients that may cause cross contamination. Rachel even loves to help clean up. She actually begs me to let her wash dishes (except knives and large pots), because she is so deprived of the opportunity at home. Her parents have a dishwasher.

4. Remind them to turn their head when coughing and to try to step away if they need to sneeze. Remember when using pepper, their noses are even closer to the food than yours, so they are probably going to sneeze.

5. Teach them to break eggs into a separate cup, preferably a colored one, so you can see better if any pieces of eggshell get into it. It’s no big deal, they can be picked out.

6. I hate to say this but there are some people who do not want to eat something made by a child. If you know you have someone like that going to be at the table, discretely serve a second dessert and let that person know ahead of time you have something made with the help of a child who was closely supervised. However, if they don’t want to eat it, that’s okay, you can always say they just don’t like something in the item the child made. Then the rest of you can rave about the child’s culinary skills.

There are a lot more things I could say, but I think this pretty much covers most of it. I love cooking with my grandchildren. In fact, I can’t wait until baby Alex is old enough to join in. I’m looking forward to some fun family dinners; made all the more fun because of the help I’ll have in the kitchen.

For some great cooking products for kids see below: