So, I don’t know how it is at your house, but at ours there live two little girls that have grown more and more likely to use the word yuck when looking at the food being prepared for dinner.  We have been working on the concepts of “don’t knock it ’til you try it” and “you can start saying yuck when you start cooking your own meals.”  Well, that’s all fine in theory.  One too many days in a row and that’s it – “You are cooking Thursday night!!!!!!”  The look on our 7 year old’s face was great.  “But I don’t know how to cook……”

So she says.  As soon as she realized that we were serious, she said that she wanted to make her own mac and cheese.  She put together a list in ingredients and asked that they be there for her on Thursday.  Thursday rolls around, and I look at her and say “Where do you want to start to make dinner?  I’ll help, but you have to tell me what to do – you are in charge of this meal.”

Start the water.. and the oven

Get the heavy pan and we’ll melt the butter

Can you reach the flour?  I can’t get that high

Stir that please, I’ll add the milk

Please get the pasta down

grate the cheese

I’ll stir, you add cheese…. we need to save some for the top too

And thus it went.  Into the oven she placed dinner once we arrived home from our Yoga class.  Then a few minutes later I hear “Daddy – I need help.  Will you get the pot holders out of the oven – I forgot and left them in with the pan.”

Dinner was excellent!

Bedtime rolls around and I am talking to her and let her know that we would like her to cook once a week.  She groaned, but then said “well I guess we will have mac and cheese or pasta with red sauce once a week then.”  I said that was ok, or she could plan other things and we could work together to figure out a new to her dinner.  “Yeah – I could be your sous chef”  Who knew?