Personal Chefs

As a mother, I believe one of my primary responsibilities is to prepare my children to function independently in the real world. And one of the most important skills they need for that, is to be able to plan and prepare decent meals.

And so, the past couple of weeks, I've assigned each kid one dinner meal that they have to plan and prepare. I gave them a little sheet I made up that lists what they should consider for a balanced meal: a main dish (which often includes meat, but doesn't have to), a side dish (potatoes, rice, something like that), a vegetable dish and if they want (du-uh) a dessert. I had them plan out their meals and then I looked over them and helped them adjust where needed.

This week, Squigs made a tuna pasta salad using tomatoes from our garden with deviled eggs and sliced cucumbers. Sam made spaghetti with homemade parmesan breadsticks (he had planned to also have sliced cukes, but we ran out and I forgot to buy enough), and tonight Ruby made hot dogs with tater tots and sliced cucumbers. My kids really like cucumbers.

Squig did her meal all on her own with me hanging around to offer advice when needed. Sam needed more hands-on because we were dealing with a big huge pot of boiling water, but he did the breadsticks by himself after I showed him what to do and he kept an eye on them and he stirred the spaghetti (I drained it, no time for water burns) and cooked the sauce. I helped him melt the butter to brush on the top of the breadsticks and helped him get the parmesan into the grater, but he put them together. We used Trader Joe's pizza dough--quick, easy and painless. Ruby peeled and sliced the cucumbers herself, put the tater tots on the pan, put the hot dogs in a pot and filled it with water. I did all the hot stuff. She was so proud of herself.

They each had to set the table and had to help serve and everyone helped clean up.

I think it worked well, and I might have them do it now and then during school. Maybe they can rotate once a week so they only have to do it once every three weeks. It's so hard just to get dinner on time once school starts, with all the crazy schedules everyone has. I encouraged them to start with simple meals that didn't take a lot of fancy skills, but teach important things about boiling and simmering, baking, mixing, etc. Eventually we'll move on to baking (actually, Squig could handle that with no problem, she can already bake out of a mix--in fact, she had a friend over this afternoon and they made brownies.) Last week Sam made hot dogs, but he grilled his. Ruby is too short to be messing with the grill, so she boiled hers.

Anyway, we'll definitely be doing this next summer, with each of them doing one meal each week, and we'll do more with them helping to shop, too. I only wish I had thought of this earlier in the summer!