Saturday 19 September 2009

Cooking with Children

Mini and Maxi Mad both love helping out in the kitchen, but I am as guilty as others of often not letting them get stuck in due to time constraints or only allowing planned projects.



Today we had no such time issues, so me and MiniMad weighted out the ingredients for a basic pizza dough and popped it in the bread machine:



540g of strong white flour - Lidl do a really reasonably priced one
1 sachet of yeast
1 tablespoon on oil
1 tablespoon of honey
pinch of salt (you can leave this out, but it helps it prove)
350ml of warm tap water.



Maxi Mad then pretty much did the rest.  He rolled the dough out and then made the garlic butter for the garlic pizza bread.  Rather than use the garlic press, I offered him the pestle and mortar and he had so much fun mashing the garlic and butter together.




I let him make the decision on what toppings we should have, out of what was in the fridge and store cupboard and he picked one with ham and sweet peppers and one plain cheese and tomato.   So I chopped the ham and peppers and grated the cheese. 



I also opened the box of passata, but he added the herbs and spices to the bowl and took great pleasure in tasting it and adding a little more back pepper!!



The finished results were wonderful, so tasty and they went down really well.  In fact we are thinking of making this a weekly thing.  I am so glad that I relaxed my attitude and allowed MaxiMad a bit more freedom in the kitchen.  He is capable of much more than I give him credit.  He is a wonderful cook and as MiniMad put it nothing like the angry cooks in Ratatouille!!



4 comments:

dottycookie said...

Looks delicious - we always have fun making pizza together here too. Good for you!

Tim Atkinson said...

Nothing like starting them young in the kitchen... And what great results!

BadPenny said...

well done you ! I HATE baking with children. DD has become a great cake maker all by herself. When I helped out at primary school what did they get me to do ? baking & sewing... two things I'm c**p at !
Maxi Mad looks great as The Topless Chef !!xx

Jen Walshaw said...

Penny - he was very nearly the naked chef!!!!

Both boys love baking, the ingedient measuring appeals to their analitical nature, but I am a bit control freaky with the cooking and the cooker. I am learning to let go a bit. Stand back and enjoy the results.

Dotty - Pizza is yummy finnished it cold for breakfast on Sunday morning

Dottarel - I believe in equality, I have the cleaning too!!

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