Does anyone have any great recipes that they can share for cooking WITH a 3-1/2 year old? She loves to help in the kitchen and I do allow her to help with general things .... shucking corn, breaking spaghetti noodles in half, mixing, dumping, pouring, etc. but I'm looking for a fun recipe that we can do together.
Thanks in Advance,
Any more recipes? Thanks everyone for the comments. I'm actually looking for recipes though. Thanks Denise! that's the kind of things I'm looking for and it's funny because she actually loves to help me when I make chocolate covered pretzels =0) Anyone else have any recipe or recipe ideas that they care to share =0) I went on the suggested website below but it looks like recipes for moms to make for the kids as opposed to making together.
Thanks everyone! I'll definitely look for that book "Pretend Soup" as it sounds perfect.
My 2 year old already loves to shuck corn! One of the things my mom let me do when I was little was roll peanut butter cookies. I loved it! www.Weelicious.com has some cute kid recipies.
I did this with my 2 year old grand daughter and it was fun. Make Rice Chrispy treats as directed on the box. She can help measure and scoop and dump the marshmallows into the pan. you can stir and add the cereal since its hot, but then pour it into a pan and let her take small handfulls and make egg sized balls with it. Then help her dab a small ammount of icing on top of each and sprinkle with decorator candies. We made these for a birthday party near Easter. We layed them on top of green coconut in a small cake pan so they looked like little colored eggs laying in grass when done. They coconut was great and she was thrilled to get to eat a few. They are a bit rich, but so fun to let her make. (you color the coconut by shaking it in a jar with a few drops of foodcoloring.)
Sorry, I don't have a specific recipe, but I do know of a book that might be what you are looking for. I think the authors have several such books, but I only really know the one. It is called Pretend Soup. It's a book of simple recipes that kids (and their parents) can do. One page is written as a normal recipe, the next would be written/drawn for the kids, so they can "read" it even if they don't yet know how to read. If I remember correctly, the authors state that they worked with preschoolers and these are recipes that they would do with the kids.
There is a really fun book that my kids liked when they were younger. It's designed for pre-school cooks and it's called Pretend Soup by Molly Katzen.
J. F.
My 3 1/2 yo loves to help make meatballs! She likes the squish her hands in the meat. (we wash our hands very well afterwards of course!). Homemade bread and pizza dough is fun, too! (and pizza!). Gnocci is also fun with kids a bit older.
My kids help do everything but cut...and even my 7 year old gets to cut sometimes, if it's something we can use a butter knife for :). But they LOVE to do everything. One of their favorite meals to make is Lumpia! If you want my recipe let me know!
T.,
try quickbread-style recipes: banana bread, drop biscuits, muffins etc. My 3yo loves to help me bake. I usually measure out the messier ingredients into smaller bowls so she can add them in, and we count together when we add dry stuff (sometimes I'll use half-cups or quarter-cups so we can count more of these :) ). Stirring is fun, and getting sticky drop biscuits off the spoon was a big hit. We've also made cinnamon balls before (basically chilled and rolled sugar dough) and she really liked rolling the balls.
Hth, and a good question to ask!!
We make cupcake and cookie mixes together. Dumping, mixing stirring they already know how to do. Then i give them a 1/4 c measuring cup to scoop batter and pur into cupcake liners. When they're cooled, I dollop a spoon of icing on each one and let the kids spread it around and put candy sprinkles on.
My kids also like to rip the lettuce leaves for our salad.
Try What's Cooking website.
I've made meatball soup. She helps me out with the meatballs. They are tiny and when we eat them, we all say hers taste better than mine. We have make pizzas and quesadillas. She puts the cheese on the tortillas before I close them up for the stove. She stirs whatever needs stirring.
I also need cooking ideas as I don't cook much, but want to get her more involved when I do.
Melt some white chocolate wafers, get some Nutter Butter cookies and dip the top half into the white chocolate. Place on parchment on a cookie sheet. Put two Nestle mini-morsels as eyes and you have cute little ghost cookies!
My son's preschool did apple turnovers with refridgerator crescent rolls. slice the apples thin, and let her place them on a flat crescent roll then sprinkle cinnamon, sugar put on another triangle on top and bake.
Hit the library and check-out a children's cookbook. If you find one that you really love, buy it as a gift for the holidays, along with her own apron and a step stool!
