Cheese and Mushroom Omlette - perfect easy cooking for kids

 The boys love to cook, and at nearly 6 and nearly 4 they're quite proficient at doing several things for themselves, such as cracking eggs, so this recipe is perfect for them because they can do every element virtually unassisted apart from turning the omelette over in the pan and serving it.

For a medium omelette each we use two large eggs per person, cheddar cheese grated (a big handful between 4 omelettes) peas (about a cup for four omelettes) and mushrooms chopped into small chunks (about 8 for four omelettes).  Pinch of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of turmeric and anything else we fancy like tarragon also goes into the mix.

The boys do all the prep, then adult help to put the mix into a hot frying pan.  We find using a ladle helpful as it's easy and keeps little hands far away from the pan itself.

The adult then cooks the omelette, turning it over to ensure both sides are cooked and serves it up.

To complete the activity, the kids like to help set the table and prepare any sides such as salad.

Every kid can help with this kind of cooking, given assistance appropriate to their age and abilities.  They can adapt the recipe by coming up with new additions to the mix, for example let them smell things from the spice rack and choose what they want to add.  You could have a taste test - what's better, cheddar or another type of cheese?

Even the actions of breaking eggs, stirring and chopping are skills which many kids are lacking in our culture where an increasing number can swish a finger on a screen but little else, so never underestimate how important these seemingly basic tasks are for fine and gross motor skills. 

It's easy enough to make this one dairy free - just leave out the cheese or substitute for non-dairy.  Not sure I can veganise this one though as I'm not very familiar with egg substitutes.  I'd love to hear suggestions though.



Safety bit: usual sensible precautions.  Hand washing before and after food prep and make sure surfaces are clean.  Discourage kids from eating raw egg if you aren't confident it's free from salmonella etc... or have immune compromised kids.  Check eggs cracked into bowl are free from chunks of shell before adding other ingredients.  Be vigilant with hot pans and make sure kids know not to try cooking without an adult present.  Mushrooms can be cut with a butter knife, making them a good choice for littler cooks.

Differentiated dinners - is it OK to cook separate meals?

 The boys love to prepare meals and are really unfussy most of the time, embracing all sorts of savoury flavours such as olives, sauerkraut and pickled seafood.  The only real bone of contention when it comes to meal times is hot spicy food.  Matt loves it, 3 year old Toby and I like very mildly hot spice, but 5 year old Ollie can't bear it at all.  Even a whisper of pepper or chili near his food sends him running crying for water and causes complete meal refusal.  So we had resorted to spicing Matt's food by chopping raw chilli peppers from our garden over the top of his food.

It occurred to me this week however to slacken my general house rule of 'one meal, eat it or get plain bread and butter'.  Our gorgeous new Ozeri Green Earth ceramic non-stick pans came in different sizes and it seemed simple enough to portion off some of our stir fry into the smaller of the two for Matt, to which I added two nice big chilli peppers for him.  Fruit is to Matt what chilli is to Ollie, so it also meant that I could add sultanas to our big stir fry pan without spending the meal watching him pick bits out of his dinner.

I don't think I have the patience to spend time cooking completely separate meals for different family members, and if we have guests who have something they can't eat, for example because they're vegan, we just make food that everyone can enjoy together.  However, having a smaller pan in which slight tweaks can be made to food which has already been prepared for the big pan was something that proved useful.

I know people can have really strong opinions on any household issues, so it would be interesting to see how you guys feel about cooking separate dinners.  Do you do it?  What are the reasons?  Is it working well or a big extra chore?  I'm always interested to see a point of view from the other side.



My easy mid-week recipe for anyone who wants to try it:

Rainbow stir fry with quinoa
Half a teaspoon vegetable oil (drizzle in pan and wipe out again just to season the non-stick coating)
Quarter of a red cabbage finely sliced
Handful of French beans/fine beans sliced
A leek finely sliced
Two large carrots, grated
A bell pepper sliced and deseeded (any colour, but yellow or red is sweeter)
Handful of cashew nuts
Handful of raisins/sultanas
Chopped chili peppers (I used 2 fairly mild ones in Matt's portion, and chopped them with scissors because I hate getting chili on my hands and this seems to be the safest way to cut them)

Stir fry on a medium heat (if in an Ozeri pan, a bit higher if in a wok) until it is cooked how you like it (some like a stir fry almost raw, others prefer a softer texture).  Serve with quinoa cooked as indicated by pack instructions and drizzle with a little sesame oil.  There's not a lot of extra strong flavours in this one, such as ginger or lemongrass, because leaving them out allows the milder flavours of the fresh veg to star, and the little drizzle of sesame oil is surprisingly strong.  I add it after cooking to prevent fouling the pans with oily residues and because sesame oil doesn't really like being heated too much - it changes the flavour in my experience.

Safety:  Toby is using a small cheese knife, which while just sharp enough to chop beans, is small and has a two-pronged edge which I feel makes it slightly less hazardous than a standard paring knife.  A pair of childrens scissors is a safer option for small hands.  Both boys are closely supervised while using knives or the grater.  I took my hand off the pan handle to take the photo of Ollie, but as he is stood on a low kitchen step stool I  keep one hand on him and one pan while he stirs in case he slips.  Of course use your own knowledge of your kids to decide when they are ready for sharp or hot kitchen tasks and err on the side of caution if you are not confident that they are ready for a task, but I have started letting Ollie have a little bit of a stir while under very very close supervision.  We don't let the boys near boiling water or ultra hot things like jam making though as these are really very dangerous. 

Note: I was sent the Ozeri Pans (full details below) to review for another site, but I liked them so much I mentioned them in this post too.

Details from the packaging: Ozeri Green Earth Pans, 26cm and 20cm diameters, with Greblon(R) PTFE and PFOA free ceramic non-stick coating. Patterned cooking surface helps prevent food bonding for superior non-stick performance and easy cleaning.  Induction stove safe.  Scratch resistant durable ceramic coating.  Comfortable silicone handle.

Fun in the kitchen - easy casserole

Kids love to cook, and confidence in the kitchen is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids.  I'm by no means an expert chef, but this simple oven bake is perfect to make with kids - quick, easy, cheap and results in clean plates all round.

The ingredients depend on what left-overs you have to use up, but it's based around a mashed potato topping, with some kind of mix of vegetables underneath, plus in this case a tin of vegetable soup. 

 We had left over cooked veggie sausages so the first stage (after washing their hands) was to chop these into chunks and add them to a casserole dish.  If we didn't have these, I would have added something like butterbeans.  The trickiest thing about cooking with kids is stopping them eating all the ingredients - I don't always succeed but I find giving them a portion of each ingredient that they are told they can eat helps to prevent the whole lot being scoffed in one go.

We also had a quarter of a bag of kale, so this went in.  Our broad bean harvests from the allotment have been good and we have plenty of bags of beans from this in the freezer, so that was the next thing added. Any quick cooking veg such as peas or sweetcorn would work too.  

The sausages and veg were given a good stir up and a tin of vegetable soup added (again, substitute with anything to hand including left over gravy, a tin of chopped tomatoes or cheese sauce for example).

The mash (allotment potatoes and cabbage plus carrots) was a bit cold and stiff, so I added hot water and gave it a good stir around in order to make it easier for the boys to spread.

 Ollie grated up cheddar cheese for Toby to sprinkle over the mash.  If we don't have two sets of equipment for something, allocating separate responsibilities to the boys reduces arguments.

I put the casserole in the oven on a medium heat (about 180 degrees centigrade) for around an hour. 

The cooked casserole was then served with raw veg (we try to incorporate some fresh raw food into every meal).  On that day I used baby spinach leaves, plus finely sliced carrot, cucumber and Chioggia pink beetroot from the allotment. 

I served it with a simple olive oil and balsamic  vinaigrette (made by Ollie) - just a couple of tablespoons each of vinegar and oil.

The idea of this meal is not to produce high cuisine, but just something that the kids can pretty much do entirely by themselves. This means it is great for their self esteem, as well as all the chopping and mixing being good for fine motor skill development.  You can also increase self esteem by giving them as much choice as possible over selection of ingredients and making an event of enjoying 'their' meal together.


Note: Cooking with left-overs is one good way to reduce food waste in the home, but as this meal is made from left-overs should you have any left I wouldn't reheat it again.

Toby makes hummus

The last post I put up on cooking with kids was so popular judging by Facebook comments I'm going to add recipes as a regular bit, so here's Toby's hummus recipe:

Drain a can of chickpeas and tip into blender.
Add two dessert spoons of plain yoghurt
Shake in some sesame seeds (about two dessert spoonfuls)
Add a good pinch of sea salt. a quarter teaspoon of cumin and some ground black pepper
Blend until it's how you like it (smooth or chunky) then serve sprinkled with paprika

Traditionally you add Tahini - a paste made from sesame seeds but we've run out.  Also it's often made with garlic, but Toby said no to adding it today and chose cumin instead.  If the consistency is a bit too thick, just add a bit more yoghurt.  You can also mix it up with your own twist.  We like lemon juice, olives or sun dried tomatoes for variety.

We served this hummus with salad and wraps.  I like this activity because it's fairly instant food gratification for Toby's fairly short attention span, and offers lots of opportunities for him to tip, shake and make decisions about quantities and added ingredients.

Other great kiddy cooking ideas from my Uber-mum friends comments on Facebook:
Pizza (either with homemade or ready mix dough, or flat breads for the base
Cheesy marmite soldiers (teaspoon marmite stirred into pastry, cut into fingers, sprinkled with cheese and cooked).
Cowboy pies (Jam tarts with baked beans and cheese instead of jam for the filling)
Short biscuits (dough made in blender with flour, sugar and butter,  then kids help shape biscuits using cutters)
Savoury biscuits (made by adding teaspoon of vegetable stock powder to biscuit dough)
Cat and dog biscuits (cocoa powder and honey added to dough and cut out into dog or cat shapes)
3D Dinosaur biscuits (using cookie cutters shaped as parts of the 3D dinosaur)

So many thanks to the lovely ladies for these suggestions for me to try, I think we have many more fun kitchen sessions coming up

Safety bit: watch little fingers on open cans as because of sharp edges sharp edges.  Also requires close supervision when using blender - I unplug the blender completely and move it out of reach if I have to step away even for a minute when using it without the base attachment shown in the picture.

Eggcellent omelettes - easy food prep fun

Ki

Kids love to cook.  It's creative, often a little messy, and there's ingredients to eat and often a cake mix covered bowl to 'clean' afterwards.  It's a way of exploring quantities and measurements, and of experiencing new textures and smells.  It does children the world of good to be put in charge from time to time, even if it's just choosing which filling to put in their picnic sandwiches.  It's also a skill they need if you want to avoid pushing them out into the world as hopeless 18 year olds unable to fend for themselves beyond sticking a microwave slop meal into an oven and waiting for the ping.

We incorporate a lot of raw food into our meals, but with the weather quite chilly as it was today it's nice to pair the raw food with a warm and protein omelette (Americans will be laughing at this point - we just had a little ground frost this morning in the UK).  omelettes are really good for growing bodies too since eggs are a source of omega oils which are important components of our brains, and lutein which is great for eye health.  They do contain cholesterol, but a little cholesterol in your diet from eggs is probably a good thing - it's deep frying pizza that you probably want to avoid.  I also add milk and cheese for the calcium but they're not essential if you're avoiding them.

As soon as your little one is old enough to wield a fork to stir they can help with this recipe, but try to keep that fork out of their mouth as uncooked eggs can (albeit rarely in the UK these days) be contaminated with salmonella.

You will need:
Eggs (we use woodland, free range or organic in the hope it's not just greenwashing and the hens are better treated and the eggs nutritionally superior) - 2 per adult, 1 per child
Splash of milk (nut milks work fine too, or leave it out completely)
Portion of grated cheese per person (lactose free cheese works fine or just leave out if intolerant)
Mushrooms - always a favourite because the boys can chop them with a plastic knife
Mixed veg - whatever you have to use up - we added green pepper and sweetcorn, this part is a good opportunity to let the kids make the decisions

We also added Maldon sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, paprika, nutmeg and a quarter teaspoon of thyme - again the seasonings are a good place for kids to choose, working their way down the spice rack sniffing and trying - I just make sure the hot stuff is out of reach.

Ollie at 4 years old is really good at breaking the eggs himself without getting shell into the mix, Toby at 2 years old is helped to tap and pull open the shells.  I tend to do the grating myself unless I just have one little one helping and can supervise really closely to avoid grated fingers.  Both boys  helped by chopping the mushrooms, adding ingredients to the bowl and mixing them up.  Both boys also helped to eat a lot of the ingredients before they made it to the mixing bowl, in a 'one handful for the mixing bowl, one handful for my face, repeat' manoeuvre.

When it comes to the actual cooking part, I find it safest to sit the boys down at the kitchen table before turning the hob on to avoid accidents involving small people trying to climb up to help and hot pans.  I'm not sure at what age I will introduce stirring hot pans, but I'm erring on the side of caution at the moment.