Hellobee

Like many kids, our two boys have always enjoyed the kitchen. Panda is only five months, so we’ll put him in his high chair so he can see all the action. I will hand him a rubber spatula or rubber spoons for him to gnaw on while I cook and he’s pretty happy.

Lion is 22 months and the kitchen is undoubtedly his favorite room in the house. He much prefers “helping” in the kitchen to playing with his magnatiles or his train set. He can be deeply involved in just about anything, until he realizes I’m cooking and will immediately drop everything, run into the kitchen and shout, “Cook with Mama!” Sometimes he’ll run over to his learning tower, which we keep folded up and in the corner of our kitchen when it’s not in use, point to it and start clamoring, “Tower! Tower!” (we’ve thankfully gotten him to stop trying to drag it out on his own).

We started “cooking” together when he was nine months, but things really ramped up around when my dad bought Lion a learning tower for Christmas; this has been by far the most useful piece of “toddler gear.” There have been a few mishaps, like the day Lion dumped a bowl full of eggs onto the floor. Twice in a row. Or the time that he flung the wooden spoon in the air while it was covered in dry ingredients and got flour in his eye. For the most part, though, he’s gotten much better and is at the point where he’s actually helpful.

While I do sometimes rely on tricks like cutting up vegetables and having him transfer them into a bowl so I can focus on cooking other items that I don’t let him near (like raw meat since I still can’t get him to stop poking his finger in whatever we’re making and tasting it), there are some things that he can (mostly) make himself, at least until we get to the actual stove or oven part. I love that we combine one of my favorite activities of cooking with his development of motor skills, learning to follow directions, counting and more. Here are some of his favorite things to cook:

Scrambled eggs. I will crack the egg gently on the counter, then hand him the egg, and he can break it into a bowl. Sometimes, we do get a few pieces of eggshell in the bowl too, but they’re easily removed with the trick of wetting your fingertip with water before reaching for the shell. He knows all the steps and as soon as the eggs go in, he will direct me by saying, “Milk” then, “Salt,” then “Peppa” (pepper) then “Spices.” I’ll pour it into the pan and take over from there, but he loves to whisk the ingredients together.

Sautéed vegetables in our pressure cooker. We made a great discovery with our Instant Pot pressure cooker (more posts in the future on the Instant Pot, which is definitely one of our most used kitchen appliances). When we use the sauté function on the pressure cooker, only the very bottom of the pot gets hot, but the rim does not. I will cut up some squash or carrots (though Lion is now learning to cut squash) and put it in a bowl. Lion will either dump handfuls of vegetables in, or pour the entire bowl in at once. We transferred most of our condiments to squeeze bottles, so I can hand Lion the bottle of olive oil and he’ll squeeze some into the pot. Sometimes he tells me he wants an onion or garlic, too (man, kids pick up on things quickly!). I will suggest you proceed with caution because, while we’ve never had any problems using our Insta-Pot, it still makes me a little nervous. I’ve worked on explaining that we never touch the pot while it is on because it’s very hot. I also don’t let him anywhere near it if the pressure cooker, slow cooker, or keep warm functions have been used recently because then the rim of the pot is very hot to the touch.

Muffins. We make these great coconut pumpkin muffins, which are pretty healthy and have only four tablespoons of sugar in the entire batch of a dozen muffins. I will line up all the dry ingredients: whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda, and explain how much of each ingredient we need. We’ll count out three scoops of flour, for example, and he dumps it in the bowl himself. As he mixes the dry ingredients, I quickly work to get the wet ingredients mixed in a measuring cup. Then I give him the cup and he dumps it into the bowl, gives it a good stir and then is ready to start transferring the batter into the muffin cups. What’s great about these muffins is that the batter is really thick so it’s easier for him to transfer it into the muffin tins.

The first time we made bread together, Lion was 18-months-old. He was very excited and kept exclaiming repeatedly, “Cooking! Cooking dough! Salt! Flour! Cooking dough.” This activity kept him occupied for a solid 20 minutes.

Four ingredient bread. A year or two ago, the New York Times published a recipe for no-knead four-ingredient bread. I didn’t think to try it because I’m honestly not much of a baker, especially for yeast-breads. One day, Lion told me he wanted to make bread and so I thought I’d try this one since it doesn’t require a lot of kneading and we had all the ingredients on hand: flour, water, salt and yeast. The ingredients were pretty cheap, too, so if it didn’t turn out, I wouldn’t be that disappointed. It turned out to be the best bread I’ve ever made. Seriously. We’ve changed the recipe slightly, adding more yeast and sometimes add a fifth ingredient of whatever spice Lion wants like thyme, rosemary, or parsley. It does need to rise overnight, so it’s definitely not a quick bread, but we like to mix the ingredients on Friday night after he gets home from daycare, then bake it on Saturday afternoon. I love that it’s pretty much foolproof, though. Some days, Lion wants to spend a lot of time stirring the dough, while other times he doesn’t do as good of a job incorporating all of the water and dough together. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, and the bread turns out perfect every time, with a nice crumb and soft interior and a just slightly crunchy exterior.

An overhead view of Lion stirring the dough together. It’s unlike other bread doughs I’ve worked with because it is very wet. It should be a wet, sticky, shaggy mess when it’s all combined.

Here’s the recipe as we’ve modified it:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour (we’ve used bread flour, all purpose flour and a mixture of whole wheat plus bread flour; they’ve all worked well)
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 tsp yeast
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Combine all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and stir. Add in warm water and stir again until it is all combined.  The dough will be very sticky and messy.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap then put a towel over it and let it rise for 12-24 hours. We’ve actually done as little as 8, but have better results with at least a full 12.

After it has risen, pull the dough together on a floured surface. I wet my hands rather than flouring them to keep the dough from sticking because I don’t want to throw off the flour/water ratio too much. Pull the dough together into a loosely formed ball. Our dough is usually quite loose, so it spread out a bit. Flour a piece of parchment paper and place the dough on the paper. Place the paper with the dough into a tall bowl to help it rise into a taller shape.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place a dutch oven inside while it preheats. After the dough has risen again (I’m impatient so usually only do 1 hour, though 2 is recommended), pull the dutch oven out and remove the lid. Place the parchment paper and dough into the dutch oven being very careful not to touch the very hot sides. Place the lid back on the dutch oven and bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove lid and let bake for another 15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and crunchy.

Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes.  Slice and enjoy!

Is there anything better than freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven?  For this loaf, we used all bread flour and added in parsley and thyme.

It’s exciting for me to see how quickly Lion has picked up new words on kitchen items, how he remembers the ingredients for scrambled eggs, and is learning to count and measure. He’s learning precision and cause and effect. It also helps tremendously that he can be occupied while I’m cooking other parts of the meal, while still feeling like he’s helping.