Cooking class – a free intro!

My boys love helping me in the kitchen – whether it’s cooking or baking. I try to relax and let them help without worry about the mess we are making, but sometimes…it’s hard.

When I saw a free kids’ cooking class sponsored by our local hospital – I was excited to sign up! (It turns out it was good idea to plan ahead on this one, as the class filled up quickly. I also mentioned it to my sister, who signed up my two nephews as well.) This class was geared for ages 3-7 and was advertised as making healthy snacks with kid-friendly tools. The class was at a local kids’ activity center that offers a variety of kid-centered classes from music, to Spanish, to science-themed to cooking! The boys were excited to go and I was too.

Our first intro project was peeling hard boiled eggs – great for working on those fine motor skills. They were welcome to cut up or eat the egg after that – but my boys surprisingly did not (they actually love hard boiled eggs!). The class had three other “food projects” planned for the rest of the hour-long session.

All four boys, ready to begin!

Wyatt cutting his egg.

Colton cutting his egg.

The first project was a breakfast kabob – made with whole wheat waffles, sausage, watermelon & banana (with maple syrup for dipping & powdered sugar for powdering). The kids got to choose what they put on their kabob and started out with whole pieces of each. They were each provided a kid-friendly knife, to work on their cutting skills & to cut each ingredient up into bite size pieces to assemble together on the skewer. This was definitely a learning experience for my boys, but all four of them did great. I helped get Wyatt & Colton started with their knives (holding the food with one hand, running the knife back & forth) & I saw improvement in each’s skill level just between the first & last project!

Colton assembling his kabob.

Wyatt cutting up his waffle.

Cousin "N" cutting up his banana & sausage.

Cousin "I" cutting up his watermelon.

"N"'s kabob!

"I"'s kabob!

Colton's kabob!

Wyatt assembling his kabob.

Wyatt's kabob!

The second project was a veggie/hummus roll up – made with whole wheat tortillas, spinach, cucumbers, shredded carrots, peppers, ranch & hummus. They kids also got to choose what they put on their roll up (yes, Colton only took the tortilla on this one!) and also got to use their knives to cut up the veggies (or tortilla, in Colton’s case). Wyatt declared this project his favorite of the day, which actually surprised me. Cucumbers were his favorite ingredient to cut & eat, he said. He also started snacking on the spinach, slightly dipped into his cup of ranch and even went back for a second helping of spinach!

Colton cutting up his tortilla.

Wyatt cutting up cucumbers.

The last project of the morning was a mini “fruit pizza” – made with a cookie base, home-made frosting, strawberries, blueberries & kiwi. This was a fun idea but the boys actually enjoyed all the ingredients separately. They did have good cutting practice cutting off the tops of the strawberries though. Neither of my boys were fond of the home-made frosting (it was cream cheese based & oh, so yummy!) and only ate about half of their cookie (which was fine by me, as they had eaten a lot of food at this point).

Cousin "N" spreading his frosting on.

Wyatt cutting the tops off of his strawberries...and eating them right after!

Colton enjoying his plain cookie.

"N"'s "finished" cookie!

Wyatt enjoying his molasses cookie.

We cleaned everything up, played a little bit, said thank you to the owner/director…& now can’t wait to go back!

(The center also offers a 3 week paid class coming up at the end of September that I signed the boys up for. It meets one time a week for about an hour. After this fun Saturday morning, we are very excited for class to start & have more cooking/baking adventures!)