The Spunky Coconut

Gluten-Free ❤ Dairy-Free ❤ Paleo

You are here: Home / Lifestyle / Kids Who are INSPIRED to cook! (a new series)

Kids Who are INSPIRED to cook! (a new series)

By

Last week Zoe asked me if she could start making dinner once a week. Umm… yes! My goal as a mom is having kids that are happy, healthy, and passionate about what they do. Cooking real whole food is essential to their health and happiness.

On the importance of teaching kids to cook, Jamie Oliver (who I adore) says, “Cooking skills are as important as reading and writing.” I completely agree.

Not only did Zoe want to begin cooking dinner one night a week, but she already knew what she wanted to make first: Chicken Fondue. And she wanted the fondue to be marinara sauce. She envisioned dipping cooked bites of chicken in her homemade marinara sauce. Love it.

InspiredToCook_Zoe

Zoe’s favorite way to eat chicken is breaded, so she and Ashley breaded the chicken before baking it. (I helped Ashley and she was thrilled to participate.) They dipped the cubes of chicken in egg, then a blend of 2 cups of almond flour and 1 tsp Herbamare to coat. It baked on a broiler pan at 450F for about 20 minutes.

While the chicken was baking they blended the marinara sauce (in place of cheese fondue sauce) and heated it on the stove. Zoe wrote down the recipe. (The sundried tomatoes are 1/4 cup):

Ideas for inspiring kids to cook:

1. Be an example.

2. Let them see your Pinterest board (or mine), and cookbooks that are inspiring. Introduce them to Josh’s blog.

3. Help them make their recipe ideas come true! It can be something simple, like THESE pretty fruit pops.

4. Give them a notebook for writing down (and drawing!) their ideas and recipes. They can also use it to cut and paste recipes from magazines.

5. Get out a chalk board so they can announce the recipes they create.

Look at those proud happy smiles 🙂
Ginger liked it too!
♥, Kelly
Share this:

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. There’s nothing that creates a bigger mess – I mean memory bank – than cooking with kids. I agree that it’s an important skill. Both my husband’s and my parents didn’t learn cooking from their parents, and instead were convenience food assemblers/heaters. That stops with us. We learned, and our kids will learn.

  5. My younger son used to come to me with meal ideas all the time. I would jump at this chance to expand his very small repertoire of foods (he is SO picky). But, he ended up not liking most of what he asked me to help him make (he was very young so I let him do some things, but not all). I am sad that I stopped encouraging him when he came to me. You have inspired me to get him going again. I’ll definitely get him a notebook and start encouraging him. Thank you!

  9. OMG those hearts for the i dots are adorable! I love it that your kids are inspired to cook from you! My 7 year old son is starting to get into it too! He made me a pesto pizza with toast as the crust:)