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!!