Teaching My Boys to Cook (Eat Well, Spend Less)
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Teaching my boys to cook is a great way for us to eat well and spend less, while they live under my roof as well as after they fly the nest.
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Ever since my firstborn could stand up on a kitchen chair, we’ve encouraged our kids to help in the kitchen.
(That’s he and I almost ten years ago. We were remodeling our kitchen, but that didn’t stop us from cooking up a storm together.)
Now that the older ones are older, I’ve realized that I haven’t done the best job in making them independent in the kitchen. In fact, the older kids have been usurped by the littler ones who want to help. We haven’t moved too far past someone standing on the kitchen chair helping mom.
Only the names have changed.
When Shaina told me last month that her five year old could bake cupcakes unassisted, I realized the error of my ways. In the name of a clean kitchen and conserving resources (ie ingredients flung about the kitchen), I’ve kept my children in the dark, or at least not allowed them to fend for themselves.
This month, as part of my Pantry Challenge and my food goals for the year, I set about to change that.
I just can’t do it all. Therefore, teaching my kids to cook will help us to eat well and spend less while they live in our home. I won’t be the sole cook and bottle washer or as tempted to run for take-out on a night when I’m just too tired. I can call in the reserves!
And teaching my boys to cook will help them to eat well and spend less once they leave our home as young men. They’ll be able to fend for themselves, be independent of restaurant fare, and possibly woo the girl, too.
While my younger three are 7, 5, and 3, and still quite suited to being assistants, my older three are definitely cooking school candidates. At 9, 11, and 14, they love to eat and are perfectly able to make part or all a meal.
If they know how.
So, that’s the mission I’m on. It hasn’t happened in three weeks’ time. No, I think this will be a year-long goal, but I’m hoping that by this time next year, I’ll have some full-fledged sous chefs on my hands.
Here’s what we’ve done so far:
1. Create a recipe book that is easy for them to access.
I enlisted FishBoy11 to help with this project: a family recipe book that everyone could access. My recipes are all over the place. How could they know that some are only online while others are on ratty recipe cards in my grandmother’s handwriting in a binder on the second to the top shelf of the bookcase in the schoolroom?
Yes, I’m complicated.
So, at the beginning of the month, I printed out copies of the month’s meal plan as well as the recipes to go with. He created dividers as well as a book cover, and compiled them all in a binder. Cool.
2. Enlist a child’s help with kitchen prep whenever possible.
A lot of my cooking this month has been hodge podge lately due to the Pantry Challenge. But, one thing that has been constant has been prep work as concerns all the fresh produce we get each week in a subscription box. Everyone is pretty eager to see what each week holds as well as to taste what’s included.
Kitchen prep lessons have involved juicing lemons, making lemonade, washing spinach, peeling sundry root vegetables, and otherwise exploring this world of strange and new fruits and vegetables. What WILL we do with those rutabagas and lemon grass, anyway?
As a result, the kids are learning about the produce as well as the techniques used to prepare it.
3. Offer cooking tutorials often.
As I’m cooking dinner each night, I’ve been more intentional about including a child in the prep work and/or offering a tutorial/running commentary about how to make a certain dish. I’ve given the rice pilaf lecture at least twice in the last three weeks.
I figure that repetition and visuals are helpful to learning and if I’m right there while someone’s stirring the pot, they will become more comfortable in the kitchen.
What’s next?
As the month draws to a close, I’ll be enlisting their input on the meal plan for February as well as their help in a round of freezer cooking. Yes, this should be interesting….
But, I think that teaching my boys to cook and making them independent in the kitchen is a worthy goal for the year and a great way to eat well and spend less!
This post is part of an ongoing series about how to eat well and spend less. Along with some fabulous foodies, organizers, and frugalistas, I’ve been bringing you suggestions on how to eat like a king without becoming a pauper to do it. This month we’re discussing our food goals for the year.
From wasting less in the kitchen to saving money on healthy foods to eating better for baby, we’ve gotcha covered on all manner of tasty resolutions.
Be sure to check out what the other ladies are sharing this week or browse their archives:
- Aimee from Simple Bites
- Amy from Kingdom First Mom
- Carrie from Denver Bargains
- Katie from Good Life Eats
- Katie from Kitchen Stewardship
- Mandi from Life Your Way
- Shaina from Food for My Family
- Tammy from Tammy’s Recipes
I am the mother of a 30 and 26 year old who both love to cook – much more than their mother! And they are way, way better at it. A while back, they both attributed this, at least in part, to “free for all Fridays”. Basically, from the time they were very young, (3 & 7), I turned the kitchen over to them to get their own supper — no supervision of their choices or their mess. Saturday morning was always the deep clean for the kitchen back then anyway, so the mess was well timed. Questions were answered, but no hands on for mom or dad. The stove came later, but the microwave was open. Their choices were sometimes priceless – frozen green pea sundaes is one I haven’t forgotten, and often the older one’s pasta sauces were cleaned off the ceiling! But, imagination ruled and they truly thought they were creating masterpieces. Now, they actually do!
What a wonderful way to be a Yes mom. I’m not sure I have the courage!
This is great–the effort now will totally pay off in the future when you have teenagers that can fend for themselves in the kitchen!
Well, I have one teenager already. I think I’m behind already!
Thanks for the encouragement. BTW-you still look exactly the same as in this pic!
Cooking w/ kids must be a great beauty secet 🙂
There’s a reason why we’ve been friends for so long. You know all the right things to say! I was thinking how very wrinkled I am now in comparison to then. My skin was much better then.
Love your article! Thanks so much for the inspiration. I have recently started making an effort to have my children in the kitchen with me more, but I do need to go even further and teach them increasingly more independence which I know they will love. =)
I have just recently started compiling all the recipes I use into an application called Pepperplate. It’s basically a free menu planning app, but when I began entering the recipes I started to think it would be a fantastic idea to have them all in one place anyway, especially because half the time I can’t remember which awesome blog I found them on either! 😉 It also has the facility to import recipes from some websites and otherwise, you are able to attach a link etc. to the recipe to show exactly where it came from. I have the app on my ipad, but it is also able to sync with your phone and I think computer as well as your account on Pepperplates online data base if you want it to, which means you could access your recipes (and possibly menu plan) from anywhere! You can also share the recipes you have in your list with friends easily. =)
Jessica – thanks for the binder idea! I actually have my currently used recipes organized into one binder, but than I have 2 additional binders filled with recipes I’ve printed off and plan to make “someday”. When I want a new recipe to try I pull it out of the binder – but I end up leaving the recipe lying around or with the grocery shopping list, that gets buried on my desk or the counter – it’s a mess! I’m going to grab a new binder – put the recipes I plan on making in it, along with the grocery list notebook and labeling it “Monthly meals and recipes!” This way I can try to remember to incorporate my own 8.9 yr old into assisting me in the kitchen and learning how to cook on her own! I’ve usually had the rule that the littles can only assist at times when it’s not pressing that I get the food on immediately (baking – never dinner time!) the almost 9 yr old though is plenty old enough to be given tasks and learn how to do things along with being an assistant in the kitchen! Thanks for the reminder 🙂 We may be having pancakes for dinner tonight, but that’s a perfect meal for her to get started on with me!
I’m playing with the idea of getting 1-31 dividers and putting the recipe(s) for each day that way. Not sure if it will work, though.
I bet you could do 4 dividers – one for each week! Then put the recipes in order for each week (without dividing them all up). Also, as you use a recipe you could move it out of the binder (or maybe to the back of the book, in a 5th divided section as in “used”) that way if you are gone from the house and need the kids to start dinner – they could pull out the binder, flip to the correct week and the correct day and start from there!
I heart this so much! I love that it goes beyond baking cookies, and extends into real live meal prep.
I’ll be here to cheer you on!
I LOVE having my kids in the kitchen with me. Since they were little, each of them have had a designated “kitchen helper day.” They are not only responsible for cooking but ALL the kitchen chores that day belong to that child too. I have really enjoyed the time lately with my older three boys who are 16, 14, 12 because they open up and talk so much when we are working side by side in the kitchen, and it is exciting to see them have a servants heart while getting everything together for our family to share our meals together. Every few months I will let each child help me decide on a particular meal they would like to know how to make and we make it twice a month until they can do it by themselves, helping them become more independent and allowing me a little less time in the kitchen.
My boys would think that was a LOOOOOOOONG day. lol
I’ve been working on this with my husband. He had no cooking experience when we first married. I do most of the cooking but I’ve taught him how to do some easy things on his own. I’ve focused on super easy crockpot meals in case something ever happened to me, I know he could fend for himself. Cooking together can be a fun date night activity as well.
Date night! Exactly! We’ve done freezer cooking date nights before. 😉
I might be in the minority, but thought I would pose this question just in case–I’d like to see tips on how to teach husbands to cook. Not being sarcastic at all, our season of life has brought me working full time and school full time and he is working but no extras, so he’s mostly in charge of kitchen duties, but he could use some help, so I’d love to see a series or tips on that (or tie it in to teaching your sons perhaps?) just a thought!
Well, that’s an interesting question. And I get you on the being serious part. My husband cooked when we were dating, but I kinda took over the job once we got married. Probably wasn’t the best idea.
Since then, though he has asked me on occasion to show him how to make certain dishes he didn’t already know how to do. And recently, he developed a new way with tamales that really sped up the process.
I think if a husband is genuinely interested, there’s no reason not to make it a fun weekly activity. How would you teach a fellow mom to cook? I think you would use similar strategies. A few weeks ago, I just left the recipe and explained what needed to be done to make hamburger buns. They were great. I think guys are capable of a lot more in the kitchen than we usually give them credit for.
I have been teaching all of my four boys to cook, and it is so nice! If they are hungry they can make something!
I noticed in your picture you have tile countertops with white grout. How do you keep your grout so clean?
They really aren’t that white. It’s my understanding that grout is supposed to be sealed a few weeks after it’s laid. However, many builders have moved on and leave it to the homeowner to take care of. And if I remember right, it’s supposed to be redone every so often.
None of the tile in our house has been sealed. 🙁 Which means it gets dirty fast. Every once in awhile I spray the counters with bleach and water and let it sit overnight. That usually brings the grout back to white.
That is a great tip! I sit and scrub and scrub mine!