LEARNING TO COOK IN OUR LARGE FAMILY
is part of the Write 31 2017 Challenge.
Read 31 Days of Life in a Large Homeschooling Family for more posts.
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In our large family, there are many, many opportunities for the children to learn how to cook. Sadly, none of them were ever interested. Perhaps the badly ventilated kitchen was partly to blame? Entering the kitchen during dinner prep is like having a free sauna most days.
Learning to cook is a non-negotiable
But even if they did not like it, learning to cook, like learning to swim, is a non-negotiable. My grand plan was that they had to learn how to cook before they left home. I did not want them to suffer the same fate as me. I only learnt how to cook when I got married! And I had to learn how to off reading books and tv shows (no Youtube videos back then)!
So, I planned to teach them to cook as early as possible. But, as with all good intentions, they died.
Will they burn the house down?
My excuse? I had many small children underfoot. And I did not trust them to not burn themselves or the house down. And so for many years I prepped and cooked all meals by myself until the children were about 10 or so (I can’t remember!).
Start with food prepping
Then I slowly got them to help me out in the kitchen with simple tasks by washing the rice, cutting the vegetables, etc. It was slow going. But fast forward to today, I have 5 children who can help me with food preparation. And two who can cook passably well if instructions are given.
Finally, a cook!
But after many years, I finally got myself a dinner cook! My 17-year old can handle any meal I require. And I am grateful!
Ever since she completed her Grade 12 work with Abeka, she has been tasked with cooking dinner. I still handled breakfast and lunch. But when I fell too sick to even get out of bed a few months ago, she cooked lunch as well.
She likes to bake as well although it is something I really do not like to encourage as it only means more sweet stuff in the house!
I now plan to at least get the 12 year old to get more involved in food prep and simple cooking since she is on a long school break until the end of the year.
Slowly but surely, I am getting more and more children involved in cooking, not just to relieve me but for them to acquire this important life skill.
Cooking for a large family
But I must say that cooking for a large family makes learning to cook all the much harder. You have to cook double, if not triple the amount an average family eats. However, once that is mastered, cooking anything for any amount of people is a breeze. I mean when I had to cook for just 4 of us the other day, I was marvelling at the ease of both cooking and cleaning up.
Don’t be held hostage
Why is cooking a non-negotiable? If one can cook, then one would not be held hostage by the poor food choices out there. A simple meal can easily be rustled up instead of always resorting to ordering fast food or takeout food. Now if one chooses not to cook because of laziness, or a preference of MSG-laced food, then that is another issue to deal with. But one should not be held hostage just because one does not know how to cook.
Clean up too!
Now the bigger challenge is to remind them that cooking includes cleaning up the mess created. Dirty pots and pans need to be washed up. Spills and grease splatters also need to be wiped up. Then is the job completed.
A resource
Now if you are also like me, wanting to teach your children how to cook but are not sure how to, here is a resource from Katie that you may want to check out. She has a eCourse called KIDS COOK REAL FOOD.
Choose from Beginner, Intermediate of Advanced Courses that is appropriate for your child/ren.
She offers over 30 basic kitchen skills, up to 24 Weeks of Lessons at your own pace, over 200 Pages of PDF Downloads, and recipe books made just for kids (but with real dinners wayyyy beyond chicken nuggets and French fries)
*I am an affiliate for this course which means I will be paid a small commission if you should decide to purchase it at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping to keep the blog ad free and for supporting us!