Every week we have one on one mentor sessions with the kids and often inspiration comes during these sessions. I had a mentor session with Annie a week ago, and felt impressed that I needed to teach her to cook beyond cookies. I usually don't let them help me if I'm not making a treat because I lack patience. Perhaps this is because I don't like to cook. Dinner has been a huge battle for me until recently when we started doing once a month cooking.
So, last week I let the kids help me with a half cooking day. We didn't have time this month to make all our meals in one day, so I split the cooking into two days. Logan was of course allowed to help, even though it was Annie who I felt needed the experience the most. We made eleven dinners and even dessert (because company was coming that evening) while Alex napped. It took longer than usual, but it was a really good experience. My patience lasted and the kids learned a few new cooking skills. I even had Logan doing some multiplication when we wanted to increase a recipe! Our freezer was re-stocked by the time we were done, too, which is always extremely satisfying to me. These pretty pizzas were part of what we made together.
I can't believe how old your kids are getting! I like the idea of once a month cooking. How do you have space to freeze all of the meals?
ReplyDeleteWe have a freezer in our basement that we put the meals in, but you'd be surprised at how little space these meals take up! This can easily be done in a regular kitchen freezer/fridge combo because most of the meals are frozen in gallon sized ziploc bags, AND you can put the first week's worth of meals straight into the fridge. You can make it work on just one shelf of a freezer and one shelf of a fridge.
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