I've been experimenting in the kitchen lately, which means my son has too. We've been making whole wheat bread, various soups, pumpkin muffins (from a box), and roasted pumpkin seeds. My son usually helps dump together the ingredients and stirs. His own menu usually includes strange concoctions of whatever I'm willing to sacrifice from the cupboards and the fridge: yellow split peas, almost old green beans, grape tomatoes my mom left here, half a jar of ground cloves. He usually cooks in the sink, and the big bowl ends up sitting there until I dump it out.
I've been trying to think of ways to let him explore cooking without it driving me batty. So yesterday at the grocery store, he got to choose some ingredients that will be just his. He chose rice, black turtle beans (chosen for the name, I think), and mini marshmallows. Other than not being allowed to roast the mini marshmallows on tiny sticks, he had free rein.* He dumped and mixed, and seemed to be having a good time. And then he asked for more ingredients.
So now our sink has a rice/beans/marshmallow/warm water concoction in it (he didn't want the moldy bread I offered). And while he had a sense of ownership, it was not as much fun as really getting to explore in the kitchen, even with a bunch of "no"s along the way.
*While I was typing, I realized I didn't know if the expression was "free reign" as I first typed it, or "free rein." It does refer to horses, not kings and queens. See bottom of this page.
2 comments:
How did the bread turn out? I've been wanting to go down that road. I've heard breadmakers are the way to go . . .
And my kids have the same cooking style as yours do!
The bread turned out great this time. My oven cooks hot, and I managed to get the bread out before the crust got too thick.
Breadmakers are certainly easier, but I'm partial to making bread by hand. I end up sacrificing a day and staying at home to do the little tasks that come along in the process, but I get 5 loaves at once.
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