Take a night off and let someone else fix dinner – easy meals that your kids can make themselves.
You’ve cooked for them all their lives (mixing pesto into pasta counts as cooking, right?) so isn’t it time to put your feet up and let the little scallywags take a turn in the kitchen? You too can live the dream!
The key to getting them trained up is starting them early – mashing bananas into a muffin mixture, washing salad leaves and other veggies, beating batters, squeezing lemon juice over fish and even stirring sauces under close supervision. By the time they’re learning their times tables they’ll be useful little sous-chefs scrubbing carrots or new potatoes (great fun if you get some of those abrasive gloves that make the job safe), and cracking eggs once they’ve got the knack (be prepared to sacrifice a few in the early stages, and it’s a multi-egg recipe, crack each one individually into a cup before adding it to your carefully calibrated cake mixture).
Now they’re ready for their first solo mission!
Scrambled eggs
Cracking and whisking eggs is a deeply satisfying process, and since scramblers are cooked over a very low heat, there’s no chance of hot fat bubbling and splattering over your precious offspring, making this an ideal first foray into full-blown cheffery. Constant stirring – coupled with the fact that you can see the egg transforming before your very eyes makes this feel like proper, interactive cookery, and you can turn the result into a gourmet experience by letting them grind pepper (be prepared to prise the grinder out of their excited fingers if they get carried away) and tear a few pieces of smoked salmon or fresh herbs into the mixture.
Potato jackets
Bake some spuds, then when they’re cool, get the kids to scoop out the innards and mix with butter, cheese, tomato, sweetcorn or anything else their little hearts desire. Put the mixture back in the skins, top with more cheese and then re-bake until molten.
Spag bol
This will involve hot pans and bubbling water, so don’t go off and answer the phone at the crucial moment. The meat version includes the fascinating moment when the mince turns from red to brown in the pan; this doesn’t work quite the same way with quorn or lentils, but the kids will still enjoy concocting their rich bolognese by adding a jar of tomato sauce and a few sprinkles of herbs. Snapping the spaghetti in half to fit it into the saucepan is fun too. As is testing the pasta’s readiness by flicking it on to the wall and seeing if it sticks. Be prepared to draw a line if it looks like supper might end up as designer wallpaper.
Cauliflower cheese
Get them to invest in their least favourite vegetables, and they’re much more like to go down the hatch. Carefully assembling a cheese sauce (make a roux paste from melted butter and a little flour, then gradually add milk and bring to boil; simmer until thickened, take off the heat and add grated cheese) to pour over cauli, broccoli or even some finely chopped cabbage works wonders. Throw in some frozen peas, too.
Pancakes
See ‘scrambled eggs’ for the joys of whisking; see ‘spag bol’ for the joys of throwing food around the room. Put them together, add sugar, syrup, and more sugar and syrup, and you have child-cook heaven.