My kids have always been really interested in cooking. I LOVE to cook, and would love to have a restaurant or catering business. I find myself getting easily irritated though when dinner time comes because I get crowded in the kitchen and end up kicking everyone out of the kitchen because it's overwhelming to have everyone helping me. I am rather particular about the way I like things done when I am cooking too, so having all 6 of my kids underfoot while I am cooking gets very frustrating. So while updating the kids' chore chart, I had an idea for dinner time. 5 of the 6 kids get to help me on their own day, the baby is too young yet. So everyone has an assigned day, and not only do they help, but every wednesday all they pick their menu for the next week from one of the cookbooks so that way when I do my Thursday grocery shopping, I have my list of things to pick up. This is helpful because I have gotten stuck in a dinner rut and dinners have been rather redundant lately. Obviously the dinners need to not cost a lot to buy ingredients for and need to be reasonably uncomplicated and healthy. The kids have been having a blast with this and it's really helped me out because I don't need to rack my brain for creative dinners as the kids are picking them. Plus, the kids are exploring more foods because they are preparing them and they are more apt to try something new if they cooked it. Also it makes dinner prep time much less stressful for me because everyone has their designated day to help so they aren't fighting over who helps me.
I was excited when I had the idea, but a skeptical that it would work out as I pictured in my head, but it's been great!
It is so important to me that my kids learn to cook. I think it's great for families to get kids in the kitchen and active in making smart meal choices. In todays world, it's so easy to run to the value menu because it's convenient and cheap, and obesity is such a problem anymore.
