Tag Archives: kids

do your kids cook?

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It’s never occurred to me not to encourage my kids to help in the kitchen. It’s fun, we get to spend time together, they learn how to cook and what goes into our food, it’s a no brainer. Yes, sometimes they eat more raw cookie dough than I’d like, but that’s not the end of the world.

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My most reliable helper. She also makes a mean PB&J. 

Which is why I was so flummoxed recently when asked about what healthy foods elementary-age kids could manage on their own. Turns out the questioner is trying to help their favorite seven year old friend make smart choices when sent to the kitchen by a parent who has no interest in cooking. None. Like yogurt is a viable dinner. Every once in a while, I get a reminder that not everyone lives in my foodie bubble….

Here’s what we came up with so far (mostly on the fly). We would love suggestions from others whose kids have shown interest in kitchen independence!

I would think anything that doesn’t involve the stove or a sharp knife would be fine. So yes to cereal and breakfast bars (cereal as long as the milk is low enough in the fridge and not too heavy). A bowl of fresh fruit, bag of baby carrots with some hummus or other dip, chips and salsa, pretzels, string cheese, yogurt, that kind of thing. If there is access to a microwave and is comfortable with using it independently, microwave mac and cheese or lean cuisine-type prefab meals could work. Basic things on the stove could work in a year or so, maybe rice or noodles, spaghetti with a jar of sauce or some pre-chopped stir fried veggies with a simmer sauce and boneless chicken? 

the secret to getting your kids to eat what you make…

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Have them help you.

I forget this lesson often, usually when little people are whining and tired and ‘I really wanna watch tv’ and I’m tired too and dinner needs to be made quickly and and and….

Well, I need to get out of that habit. I haven’t made toddler sushi with my nine year old in ages (or with my four year old at all, I don’t think). This past weekend, before I left for a week-long work trip, I made spending time with my clingy daughter a priority, to hopefully make those ‘please don’t go, Mommy!’ pleas not hurt quite as bad. And because we needed to use up the two pecks of peaches I bought mid-week with a neighbor, peach pie was on the menu. Yum.

This time of year, fresh local peaches are ripe, delicious – and easy to slice with a table knife. Perfect for a helpful little person not particularly good at watching her fingers when slicing peaches:

Color-coordinated bathing suit optional, but recommended.

Measuring and dumping is also easy for kids (we even successfully grated fresh nutmeg while not grating any fingers), with different colors of stuff going into the mix to jazz things up. Giving input to the pattern on the top of the pie – a wobbly star, this time – also added to the fun.

Here’s the end result of our peach weekend: pie, peach bourbon jam, and peach halves canned with local honey syrup.

This process of encouraging help might have worked a little too well. After eating almost all the jam that didn’t fit in a jar…

…she still had enough room to put away two pieces of pie. Great! She’ll eat what she helps to make! I have succeeded as a parent (especially one who doesn’t mind if her kids eat pie for breakfast since I know there’s a ton of fruit and not much sugar)! I left for my work trip secure in the knowledge that this life lesson was a good one.

And then I offered a slice of pie to a friend, who contacted my husband to sort out the pie delivery details on facebook:

Lesson learned: next time, make two pies.

hanging with the kiddos

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Mother’s Day is the one day a year where I can reasonably expect to get help in the yard from my family without (too much) complaint. This year I plotted to get the most effective use of my eight year old’s time before he declared himself ‘boo-oooored,’ though the rain thwarted some of my plans. This got me thinking about what’s worked in the past for keeping my stubborn mules interested in food:

  • Get your kids involved in planting. The best way I’ve found (so far) to get my kids to try to eat something is to enlist their help in planting seeds and managing the plants. Even if they out and out refuse to eat a pea or tomato from the store, they’ll snitch straight off a plant.
  • Look for recipes that will keep their interest. One year, the Easter bunny brought my picky eater a kid’s cookbook, and we picked a recipe from the book for our low-key meal (I’ll bet you’ve never had chili cheese dogs for a religious holiday). He helped make the meal, we talked about from-scratch cooking vs. processed, and he’s been more involved in meal planning ever since. We’re also in love with ‘Chicks and Salsa‘ by Aaron Reynolds, a book that’s part picture book and part recipe. Both of my kids enjoy reading the silly story about the escapades of farm animals inspired by cooking shows, and the Hog Wild Nachos recipe (what the farm animals create over the course of the story) is GOOD. Like, it’s what we serve on Super Bowl Sunday good.
  • Throw in some creativity. I recently schlepped the kids to the Union Project, a local community space with a ceramics studio in the basement, for a Garden Marker Party. It took the kids a while to warm up to the process, but in addition to my traditional peas and carrots signs, we also have princesses guarding the weeds and a warning against alien ‘abducshun.’
The overarching way I’ve found to get and keep my kids involved in the garden is to give them ownership. That’s *their* plant, *their* recipe, *their* artwork. Hey, whatever gets them sticking around long enough to help with the weeding is fine by me.

Pigs have rights, too!

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(or, what to do when your seven year old refuses to eat today what he gobbled down yesterday)

Mmmmm, bacon. Meat candy. I know vegetarians who make exceptions for bacon, omnivores who gobble down pounds of it at a time, no one who doesn’t love it. We’re lucky to be able to purchase locally raised heritage pork in bulk, but even bacon that’s not locally produced is pretty darn good.

Which is why my husband was so shocked when our son flat-out refused to eat bacon for breakfast one morning this past winter, when he had happily eaten it the day before. I got a phone call at work requesting me to discuss the problem with my son – who was so upset about the situation he was crying, and then had to get off the phone because he got a nosebleed – which left me scratching my head as well. Apparently we had been good at instilling in him the need to question his food’s sources, but not so good about discussing the particular options for responsible food choices.

So, as my pedantic brain is wont to do, I started thinking of the conversation to have with him and ended up with a flow chart (you have been forewarned of my geek factor).

The conversation continues – it’s not just a one-time and you’re done thing – but the big issues and questions that arose were important ones. Why do you think pigs have rights? Should we stop killing all animals for food production? What would happen to us? What would happen to the animals? Should we just make sure that pigs while living live like pigs should live? Why don’t we do that as a matter of course?

So yes, I’ve discussed food systems planning, factory farms, free range animals, the state of animal domestication and husbandry, the pros and cons of vegetarianism, processed versus non-processed food and their relative costs, and overall nutrition issues with my second grader. He swore off bacon for a couple of days but doesn’t mind eating it now that he knows that the pig from where it came lived a happy, mudwallowing, grunting life at a local farm. He also further understands why we don’t like him eating school lunches, and will look at food labels in the grocery store to avoid things he can’t pronounce.

Hopefully, I’ve helped to inform his decision-making. If he decides one day to become a vegetarian, I’m ok with that, as long as it’s not a knee-jerk reaction. And in the meantime, we’re doing our best to make sure pigs have rights AND we have meat candy.

planning ahead

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A few weeks ago, I realized that our garden area (such that it is) mirrored my son’s garden diorama from school. I use a closeup of it for my header, but here it is in all its fabulousness:

This was the first ‘alternative’ homework project he’s worked on and enjoyed making. We planned the diorama first before we built it, he was in charge of background decoration, and we decided on and produced the vegetable garden beds together (which is why the tomato leaves are yellow like the flowers). He was excited to do something different for homework, I was excited to get him involved in an art project, and the topic of gardening was cool to both of us.

Little did I know that our relatively unplanned garden ended up mirroring this diorama. I hurriedly planted peas on St. Patrick’s Day after dark with the floodlights on. We decided to make raised beds for the ten tomato plants I had purchased with a neighbor after I had already purchased them. And I threw some carrot seeds into the mix after I remembered the cover of this book in my mother’s gardening repertoire (which I now have – the 1975 version that’s officially older than I am, that is). Yet, our garden is shaping up just as he and I planned:

(The carrot seeds have just been planted, so no pictures yet.)

He brought the diorama home on his last day of school this week – when I get home, I want to reinforce his great plan with what’s happening outside. An art project in the winter is yet another way to get your kids connected with the garden – whether or not you realize it at the time.

getting the kiddos involved

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I have many fond memories of childhood in my grandparents’ yard – balancing along the tops of the walls, ‘helping’ my grandfather mow the lawn with the tractor, climbing the sad apple trees at the back of the property. It’s where I remember tasting my first green bean off the vine, and where I remember winding through the pine trees built as a buffer between their house and the neighbors.

I also remember how much I hated to weed. And how much my mother made me weed, whether or not I hated it. But that was made up for by the fresh raspberries picked off the bushes right next to the back door. More or less.

I say all this because I’m thrilled – THRILLED – that my kids seem to enjoy puttering in the garden like I do. The kids are fascinated by the deer that hang out in the yard (though I hate that they’ve munched an apple tree seedling to hell and back repeatedly this year). My preschooler knows the names of all the flowers that have bloomed so far this season. Both loved digging in the dirt in the new raised bed and getting the tomato seedlings settled.

And, perhaps best of all, my second grader loves ‘garden class’ at school. I suspect that he may have a crush on Farmer Audrey, but if that gets him thinking about where his peanut butter and jelly sandwich ingredients are sourced, I’m ok with that. He’s getting his garden education not just from me – because, honestly, who listens to their mom? – but from people committed to educating kids about where their food comes from. Grow Pittsburgh‘s curriculum is based on the successful Edible Schoolyard model that has been replicated across the country, and he’s lucky to attend a school with a GP garden. And in this interview, Farmer Josh announced that GP was fortunate enough to receive funds to work on more gardens in the schools. Here’s to making sure that more kids know ketchup is made from tomatoes, potatoes grow in the ground, and that you can grow what you cook and eat. Even if your mom makes you weed.