Kids Cooking ABC

Age: Kids of all ages love challenges. In the kitchen, you can give small children aged four and upwards small tasks to complete. From the age of eight, they can handle cooking utensils and prepare simple meals on their own. Whatever age they are, however, it's important to ensure that the meals don't take too long to cook because children soon get bored.

Decoration: A feast for the eye. Herbs and sauces can be used to conjure up attractive decorations. Little bell pepper ships or vegetables and potatoes (you can make a face with them) can persuade even the staunchest vegetable haters to try them out. It's also easy to pep up everyday foods with funny names. For example, you can call a vegetable stew a "witches' broth". 

Diet: A healthy diet as a child has a lasting impact on performance, growth and development, and it prevents health problems later on in life. The foundations for a healthy and responsible attitude to the foods we eat are established during childhood. Children need a balanced and varied diet. That's the most important thing, so make sure you prepare your children's meals with plenty of vegetable fats, a moderate quantity of animal fats and only include a few fatty and sugary foods, combined with lots of liquids. If you distribute food intake over three main meals and two interim meals, you can ensure that your children are getting a balanced supply of energy and nutrients over the day. It also stops them snacking between meals. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It should include dairy products, fresh fruit, vegetables and cereal, and it is a source of energy for the entire day.

Hazards: Hot stove tops, boiling water, sharp knives and electrical appliances are all kitchen hazards. Never leave small children unsupervised in the kitchen and always point out the hazards to them.

Handy hints:                                                                                                                 - Never let your children use electrical appliances without supervision.                              - Always unplug electrical appliances before you fill or clean them.                                  - Teach your children to cut away from their body and to use a non-slip cutting surface.

Hygiene: Always wash your hands and tie back long hair before you start cooking. Wearing an apron or putting on an old favourite baggy T-shirt should also be part of your cooking ritual.

Rules: Smell, feel, taste – cooking is a feast for the senses. But here too, you need to establish clear rules. Children like to be given specific tasks to do. Start off by telling your children which one of them is responsible for what and why. Also ask them which tasks they would like to perform. Children have to learn that cleaning up the kitchen and doing the washing up are also part of cooking.

Seasoning: Children have more sensitive taste buds than adults. They hardly need any salt, if any at all, and they dislike powerful spices such as chilli. When you cook for children, try to avoid ready-to-eat meals and seasoning mixes with flavour enhancers. Instead of using salt and pepper, you can enhance the flavour of any kind of foods with soy sauce. The Kikkoman Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce With 43 % Less Salt is an excellent child-safe seasoning.

Time: If you've had a stressful day, it's a good idea to postpone cooking with the kids until you're more relaxed, otherwise you're likely to explode at minor mishaps such as dropped eggs or spilt milk. The saying "practice makes perfect" also applies in the kitchen.