Cooking with kids

The best way to inspire kids is to involve them.  Let them cook with you, it makes a mess it's hectic and they love it.  Eat together, if your kids see that food is something to celebrate they join in the celebration.  

By all eating together you have a more varied repertoire and they get to eat what you like.  As an antidote to this our kids have a weekly Little Chef night where they get to cook whatever they like and ideally shop for the ingredients too. The kids use the Usborne kids books lots, and love them, they have an ordinary old fashioned one, a world food one and their baking one.  I had a proud moment the other day when I asked my eldest daughter to get the Nigella Lawson cookbook and she responded, "How to eat" or "Feast". It made me laugh but I was impressed, we use both of these cookbooks really regularly and both have kiddie recipes.

My kids have also learned from their failings, the boy made a marble cake but mixed both batches together to make a chocolate cake.  And both have learnt that you need to follow the instructions and not just read the ingredients.

Tom's new book, The Fabulous Baker Brothers has some great recipes to inspire kids.  We have made the fish fingers, the burger and their baps and the demon chocolate cake.  My kids love to bake and recently baked a loaf when they had friends round, because hopefully they are realising it's as much about the sharing as the eating.