Sample From

8 Tips for Stress Free Cooking With Kids

Tip #3: Have all the ingredients and supplies ready and organized before you start

Sometimes it seems like I�m only doing �damage control� when cooking with my kids J. So, to keep my sanity, I developed a few tricks.

Before we start on a recipe, I get all the ingredients and set them out on the counter.
Then, I have the kids sit at the table with the bowl in which we�ll be mixing the ingredients.
Then, I take the first item � maybe flour - from the counter and over to the table. One of the kids measures and pours the flour in the bowl; and then I take the flour container and put it back. If necessary, I can do a quick swipe to clean up, but normally I just wait until we�re done assembling the ingredients.

Preparing recipes in this manner actually solves two problems:

First, the mess tends to be smaller because they can use the optimum space for that ingredient
And secondly, I�m not having to nag about staying out of the chocolate chips or whatever. Kids automatically want to dive into whatever excites them, so measuring flour with one leaves other kids wanting to taste those goodies just sitting there begging to be opened!