I enjoy cooking with my children. It is great to be able to teach them to cook and encourage them to eat healthy foods. Studies show children are more likely to eat a meal if they help prepare it, so it is a fun way to help them learn about nutrition.
The other great thing is that teaching them to cook when they are young can pay off. Before my oldest daughter went to college she cooked for me at least once a week, which was extremely helpful. Now I am working on teaching my 12 year old son, Robert. He has a few meals that he can make completely by himself, such as making buttermilk pancakes from scratch, which he did tonight. For more complicated meals we still cook together, but I am sure in a few years he will be independent. Boy Scouts is also helpful for this, since the boys do all their own cooking when they go camping.
This year I have been teaching Robert to make more complicated main dish meals, many of which revolve around rice. He had a little trouble getting the rice recipe correct at first, and kept forgetting to add salt to the water when he boiled the rice! Without salt it is edible, but just barely. But he has it down now, and next we are going to learn how to make stir fries to go with the rice. We have rice frequently because it is quick, easy and healthy.
Another great thing about cooking together is that is gives us a fun, useful activity to do together. As my son gets older it is harder to find things we enjoy doing together, since I am not overly interested in video games. But cooking together can be a fun family activity. In addition learning to cook will be very useful skill for him to have when he grows up. The biggest suggestion I have for cooking with children is to start early and make cooking a regular family activity.
To encourage parents to connect with their kids through cooking Uncle Ben’s has launched an exciting new contest called Ben’s Beginners. The prizes look amazing, you could win $20,000 and have a chance to appear on The Rachael Ray show. To enter you need to submit a 2-3 minutes video of you cooking a rice-based dish with your children between the ages of 5 and 12.
Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Uncle Ben’s blogging program, for 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on how you can participate, click here.
