Record This: Kids Cookin'

About author / Christine Gable

Culinary enthusiast; kids cuisine and slow cooking; magazine recipe developer; professional writer. Her simple recipes are great for family dinners.

Whether or not you are cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year, I’m not going to bore you with details of the best fillings that have graced our tables, of the perfect way to mash potatoes, or the best way to roast the oven-stuffer. Hey, we all hear enough about that at this time of the year—and there are even hotline numbers to call. So I seriously doubt if you need more words of wisdom from me.

Yet are you wondering whether to get your kids involved in Thanksgiving meal prep this year? Or do you just wanna keep the kitchen clear? Well, prep work is ideal for kids to learn (and it helps you out at the same time): from slicing bread cubes for stuffing to rolling out pie crusts, and even grinding cranberries or walnuts, keep your eyes and ears open for the opportunities. It’s in those everyday happenings that the ordinary can become extraordinary. That’s just what happened the other night when the kids kicked off a video-camera-cooking extravaganza in our kitchen.

Don’t know where they got the idea, but when the video camera made its appearance in the kitchen, a whole new level of kids’ cooking kicked in at our house. As I sit here overhearing the action in the next room, I hear a wide array of condiments making the way into each creation. But best of all: the laughter.

After all, what could be more fun than having the run of the kitchen and creating a wacky cooking show to boot? With the Food Network bringing the art of cooking into every home, we now have the ability to peek into the techniques that chefs use behind previously closed doors. And with dynamic television personalities having elevated the everyday to the bigger-than-real-life, it’s not such a stretch to see how the kids got this cooking show recording started in our very own kitchen.

Especially when it’s fun combined with experimentation, right? A little bit of this, a dash of that, the spices, the condiments, the microwave, the blender. Really, just think of the possibilities.

Picture this: What started as a bedtime-breakfast-drink became a series of four short videos that took me through a yogurt-mousse dessert (yes, complete with some old pudding from the refrig) and a blended ice tea-Sprite-milk shake (yes, apparently it was quite tasty) to a chocolate cereal bar-granola-maraschino cherry adventure.

And last in the series was the most zany of all (yeah, it was getting late): a grab-the-condiments (think BBQ sauce to grape jelly) one that both kids proclaimed to be really, really bad. I took their word for it.

But seriously. All this cooking show fun is evidence enough that kids are masters of creativity. Yes, their inquiring minds take them to new and unchartered places—and that’s definitely good news when they start goofing around in the kitchen (Now, I’m not talking food fights, trashing the place or anything of the kind. Nope. I’m just talking about using what’s there and seeing what they do with it in their own creative way). For if they are in there messing around, who knows what grand, tasty delight they may discover next?

But the best part is knowing they’re willing to try new things. That’s definitely a vote for encouraging kids cooking, kids combos and kids and cameras in the kitchen. After all, broccoli and veggies certainly don’t look so bad after some of the combos we just saw. In fact, that cooked broccoli looks pretty darned good.

Now the only question is—are these gonna show up on YouTube?