Breathe Magazine

As a child, I was raised on macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and spaghetti. I was thrilled to pieces if pancakes and bacon were served at dinner. Now, as a parent, I get excited whenever I see my boys eat a new vegetable or try a new recipe. My oldest son, Benjamin, is unbelievably open to whatever fruit or vegetable I offer—even collard greens, artichokes and persimmons. How did they get so adventurous?

The key to getting your kids interested in food is to get them in the kitchen preparing it. My three-year-old has known the pancake recipe by heart for six months now. One kid mixes and the other flips. And they are incredibly opinionated at their very young ages on everything from which ingredients to put in our frittatas, to how many chocolate chips should go in each pancake.

Here are my top five tips for cooking with kids:

1. Be excited about cooking! Loving to cook is a gift you can teach your kids. It’s easy—if you love it, they will love it as well. Most importantly, they become more interested in what they actually eat when they’ve cooked it themselves. My kids get excited to put their fingers in every dish, smell every pot lid and taste every ingredient, cooked or not. They love to get into the kitchen, chop, oil, salt and prepare.

2. Teach them early… and safely. I introduced butter knives to the children when they were old enough to reach the counter on a stool. We started with vegetables that they could cut and eat right away like carrots, bananas and celery. Both children have been taught the proper way to hold and chop vegetables: first through demonstration, then with Mom’s assistance, and finally, closely supervised on their own. Mom’s job is to operate both the oven and the stove. We use aprons with anything that splatters, and I am vigilant in being present when they are doing the cutting or cooking.

3. Have a plan, but be flexible. On a night when I’m not feeling creative, I ask, “what would you like for dinner?” My son starts pulling out eggs, broccoli, asparagus and cheese. From there, I suggest frittatas as a fun meal that we could make together.

4. Be careful how you introduce new things. When introducing artichokes, I demonstrated how to eat it and used the words “yummy goodness” to get them to try it. Both children are now happily eating artichokes!

5. Let them experiment. Encourage them to stick their fingers in the dough, taste raw vegetables, smell the sauce and basically get dirty. My oldest son now concocts his own meals. We try new things together and it’s a great time for us all to get connected.

A healthy, kid-friendly recipe.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

What you need:

1 package of prosciutto (slices are split in half)

Asparagus (approximately 8-10 spears)

Olive oil (2 Tbsp)

Sea salt (¼ tsp)

Directions:

Drizzle olive oil and salt over asparagus. Wrap ½ of a slice of prosciutto around each asparagus spear. Broil on high until prosciutto looks crunchy (less than 10 minutes). Serve immediately!

For this recipe, since asparagus was new to them, I showed them the whole spear. Then, we bent it to find out where it would snap. Next, I demonstrated how to cut the woody part off the ends of each spear. Together, we placed all the asparagus on the cooking sheet and he drizzled oil all over the spears. I simply directed him as to how much. To finish them, we sprinkled sea salt all over the spears.

On introducing prosciutto, I unwrapped the package and talked about how it’s an incredibly delicious kind of ham made in Italy. We sampled the first slice. His response was, “Can I have more?” I then showed how to gently pull the slices apart and wrap half of each slice of prosciutto around the spear of asparagus. My kid did the rest—along with lots of tasting!

When it was time for the oven, I supervised as he put it in. The light was on inside, so, we were able to watch the prosciutto crinkle under the broiler to tell us when it was done.

Rachel Mickelson found her love of cooking in Italy. She was introduced to fresh basil, sage, pine nuts and wine while cycling through Italy on five consecutive trips. Now, the mother of children ages 3 and 6, she plans to pass on her love of cooking to her boys.