In the kitchen with little time, little money and little people
It’s St Patrick’s Day today, so what better time to have children in the kitchen baking. This Irish soda bread recipe is so simple, my 9-year-old does it completely on her own – though I am on standby to make sure the hot baking tray doesn’t end up on a meltable surface afterwards! You should know, however, that there are endless recipes for ‘proper’ Irish soda bread – probably as many as there are mother’s making it!
Continue reading “St Patrick’s Day Soda Bread Recipe Cards For Kids”
I have a little video of my 8 year old as a 2 year old, making rock cakes of some or other description from a children’s program. I was heavily pregnant with her little sister, and as a mama of two, didn’t have as much time, energy or inclination to help her in the kitchen.
In recent months, she’s been really keen to get involved in the cooking again, and she’s been watching old episodes of Masterchef Australia with her dad most weekends. She’s decided she desperately wants to go on Junior Masterchef next. While I’m not convinced by that one, I decided that I wanted to help her become a confident little chef.
My girls are home educated, and we often learn on ‘themes’ – recently we were learning about Amelia Earhart, and at the moment we’re learning about Frida Kahlo, which involves learning about Mexico, so we included some (fairly simple) Mexican recipes in the ‘lesson plan’. Rather than me making the food to go with the theme, I’ve started making recipe cards that she can use to make the recipe all on her own.
Basically, these recipe cards are regular recipes, but written simply, with less words and in some cases, less faff than their originals.
The recipes also exclude things that I know my kids won’t eat – for example chillies – or substitutions where I think it’ll suit them better or just simplify the recipe.
Recipe Cards for Kids assume that a parent or someone with some kitchen know-how will be helping, so if it’s important to you, make sure your kitchenista knows to only start cooking when you’re with them.
The idea with the recipe cards is that they are printed, cut out, laminated, hole punched and attached to a key ring. This way they’re protected from splatters and are ready and available for next time. Each recipe is tested by my 8 year old before it’s shared, and she always lets me know if something’s not clear, but feel free to let me know if there’s something I missed!
If you aren’t so keen on the cut out/laminate/hole punch routine, you can always just print them off and use them as is. She normally gets to test it that way first anyway, and her second go will be from the recipe cards as you see them here.
While I have, and love, my Thermomix, and my kids can and do use it too, I think it’s really important that they learn the basics of cooking first, so while the recipe cards use the Thermomix as a ‘food processor’, they still whip and whisk and stir and mix by hand, so these recipe cards don’t require a Thermomix.
Also, we’re based in the UK, and we are Thermomix owners, and I learned to read recipes in the South African way – metric – so our recipes use grams and mls, but also cups and teaspoons (5ml) and tablespoons (15ml). You can always Google the conversions and add them to the cards before you laminate them. It’s great to be able to teach kids to use a variety of measuring systems, as it opens up a world of recipes to them!
I hope you enjoy our Recipe Cards For Kids. If you download this recipe card, you are agreeing to be added to the mailing list. You are welcome to unsubscribe at any time and will only be sent emails regarding recipe cards for kids.