The New Chefs

Campster's Gluten-Free, Butterfly-Shaped, Pepperoni Pizza

My kids have always liked to help out in the kitchen.  Now that I am done with my chef job, and back to my full-time mommy job, I decided I'd like the kids to do more of the cooking.

Cooking is the perfect unschooling medium.  It involves planning the menu and writing it out, reading the recipe, shopping for the ingredients, economizing the purchases, coordinating the time it will take to cook with the time it will be served, measuring ingredients (fractions!), time and temperature, safety training, nutrition. . . I'm sure I've missed some, but you get the idea.

We have conversations about why eating only mac & cheese for three meals a day would not be good for your body.  We talk about carbs, proteins, fats and sugars.  We categorize foods into meats, dairy, grains, vegetables and fruits.  We pick fresh produce from the garden.  And we butcher our own chickens.  Lots of botany and biology going on.

For now we have settled on Sher-Bear cooking breakfast, Campster cooking lunch, and Jor Man cooking dinner.  They plan the menus out a week in advance and help with the grocery list and shopping.  I encourage them to think ahead a couple of days and see what they might need to either defrost or to prepare in advance.  For instance, on Sundays we always have a potluck lunch after church.  So Campster needed to prepare the pot roast (crock pot overnight) and the brownies the night before.  And Jor Man is making Coq Au Vin for dinner Monday night, so it will start cooking Sunday afternoon.

This morning, Sher Bear cooked scrambled eggs and bacon for us.  I supervised, but she did most of it herself.  Before we eat, we all say "Thank you" to the chef, (who is beaming) and then we give thanks to God for the food.

Wish you were here!