I’ve got another treat for you guys today while I work on our office move – my friend Elizabeth from Chasin’ Mason is guest posting today talking about one of my favorite things – cooking with kids! I LOVED reading this post, so I know you all will too! Happy Friday!
Hi everyone! My name is Elizabeth and I blog over at Chasin’ Mason, a blog about the adventures in motherhood and daily life with a toddler. I am a true California girl. I was born and raised in Northern California, in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved down to Southern California after I graduated college in 2006. I met my husband in 2006 when we worked together at Barnes and Noble. He was a part-time bookseller (he had a different full-time job, this was just his job for extra money) and I was a Merchandise Manager. We began dating in 2008 secretly since we weren’t technically supposed to be dating since I was his manager {oops!}. We got engaged in September 2009 at Angels Stadium (I thought we were celebrating my birthday! I had no idea!)… We got married in November 2010 and then had our amazing, sweet little boy, Mason, in July 2012. He just turned three years old and is the light of our lives.
Today I wanted to talk about cooking with kids. Now, before I share, I have to admit something. I don’t cook. Now I’ve probably just thrown all my credibility out the window when I said that, but I have to set the record straight. My husband is the cook of the family and I am the baker. And we’ve done both things with our son.
I tried to incorporate baking with Mason at a young age. I started off verrrrrry slowly and with something I knew he couldn’t make too much of a mess doing and wouldn’t be able to hurt him (no cooking, no heat, and no raw eggs). We made Lucky Charms Treats for St. Patrick’s Day. Mason was probably one and a half and I figured it would be fun to try baking with him.
As you can tell, it didn’t go so well since he just wanted to eat the whole thing!
I’ve since tried making banana bread with him but he just wanted to eat the chocolate chips and stick his hand in the mixing bowl as it was mixing (not so safe!) and making lemonade. The lemonade went over better than the banana bread.
And then after that, I kinda of stopped trying. I had seen tons of other moms bake with their kids all the time, and I thought mine was just an anomaly that hated cooking (but obviously loved eating). And then… I decided to try again about a month ago… and it was SO FUN!
We were making our homemade grilled pizzas and I wanted to let Mason help make his. I knew it would probably slow us down and create a mess but Mason seems so interested and curious about things lately that I thought it was worth a shot.
And he LOVED it!
He was actually surprisingly clean about it, like he was really concentrating on what he was doing. Of course all the cheese ended up in one big pile and we had to move the pepperonis around, but I’d gladly do that just to see his face. He LOVES helping and is so proud when he accomplishes something. I definitely foresee many more cooking and baking adventures happening!
And moral of the story? Don’t be afraid to cook or bake with your kids! I’d definitely tailor the activity to the age level, but they will get such a kick out of cooking in the real kitchen (vs their play kitchen) and will love that they get to help Mommy and Daddy! I’m only sad that I waited so long to try again. I can’t wait to cook with him again!
So, now tell me, what’s your favorite thing to cook with your kids? What recipe should we try next?
2 Responses
Thanks so much for having me!
Thank YOU for helping out!