Geerthana Uthayakumar This year my five-year old daughter made her first New Year Resolutions. One of my daughter’s resolutions was to learn how to cook and since she has made that resolution I have made attempts to include my little girl in the kitchen once a week. You can read about how I planned to incorporate my five-year-old in the kitchen here.
Truth be told, I thought after one or two times with her mother in the kitchen, my daughter would get tired of the whole thing and move onto something else. But let me tell you, this child of mine is one determined kid (she probably inherited that from me). My daughter has spent time patiently washing vegetables, peeling carrots, and more even though she cannot reach the kitchen counter without a step stool. She has accompanied me to the grocery store and enjoyed putting bags and bags of groceries away with me. She has even come up with balanced meal ideas on her own.
Here are some of the dishes that we have cooked in the past month of January:
The first thing we made was this Alfredo linguine with carrots, peas, cauliflower, parsley, and homemade chicken meatballs. If you cannot see the cauliflower, it is because I had to cut them really small — that was the one vegetable my daughter doesn’t like but promised to eat.
The second week of January, my daughter and I made the following meal which was high on both flavour and nutrition. We made rice with peas and carrot, lemon-garlic roasted potatoes, grilled herbed salmon, sautéed peppers, steamed broccoli, and a parsley salad with cucumber-dill salad dressing. The occasion? My husband who is rarely home for lunch was home that day, so we went all out and had a nice family meal. The kids did not eat the salad, but my daughter did eat some of her sautéed peppers instead of picking it out of her food like she normally does.
The third week of January my daughter caught a cold and so we missed out on cooking together. Last weekend we made this soup inspired by the infamous Italian Wedding Soup. I had homemade meatballs and homemade chicken broth in the freezer so this was a fairly simple dish to put together. We used orzo pasta, carrots, red pepper, baby spinach, fresh basil from our home, garlic, and lemon in addition to the meatballs and chicken broth to create this filling soup.
So far this whole experience has been nothing but positive. Although with my five-year-old in the kitchen it takes about twice as long to make a meal, I oddly don’t mind. We spend a lot of time talking about all sorts of things and I am happy as is my daughter. The best part about this is that my daughter is learning about healthy eating and she is willing to eat things that she normally wouldn’t. My son is also making less of a fuss when it comes to eating especially if he knows that his beloved sister helped prepare the meal. What more can I really ask for?
I will be back with another update in a month or two, so stay tuned!
