Here's how you can get your dinner cooked for you and feel good about it.  All families are busy these days and more and more pressure is being put onto parents.  So why not teach the kids to cook!

One of the best ways we have found to assist with running our busy household is getting each of our 3 children to cook a meal once a week each.

RECIPES

Aria Farm Wraps- Stir Fry - Quick Curry - Easy Stir Fried Aria Farm Chicken Strips
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Childrens Own:

Elies Creamy Chicken Strips
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Starting Out   

Choose an evening each week when it fits in with the children’s after school activities.  If for some reason something comes up on this evening, it is the Child's responsibility to swap.

Our roster usually changes each term or sometimes more often.  As a rule leave the children to themselves, don’t keep interfering unless they ask for help..  Yes you will get a few mistakes but children learn by mistakes.  We have been doing this for 4 years and only had 2 meals that were inedible.  One when a cup of chicken stock powder was used instead of liquid!!!

Why is this so wonderful for children?  They learn:

• to cook and serve a meal
• to plan a balanced meal
• to be creative with the ingredients available in the house
• follow a recipe and improvise where necessary
• they enjoy it and grow in confidence.
• They get a sense of achievement when they prepare a meal they like and it all works
• it is a basic life skill and a great one to have
• they eat what they cook

For parents it means:

• a chance to have a 5 minute breather when you get home rather than cook a rushed meal
• you don’t have to think what to cook
• a chance to do other things while the meal is being cooked
• its great to eat someone else’s cooking
• when it is your turn to cook it is more enjoyable as you’ve had a few days off
• save money by not going out and buying takeaways when you are too exhausted to cook!
• a much healthier meal than takeaways

I suggest you start with your eldest child (it makes them feel important) and help them choose:

• something they enjoy eating
• something simple and easy
• you will need to help and guide them for the first few meals or when they want to try a new idea
• Get the cook to do the complete meal and do all the dishes. We found this worked best because the cook ensured there weren’t too many dishes and kept the kitchen tidy.  It also seemed to eliminate arguments (over cooking!).
• Ensure from the beginning children learn about serving a healthy meal which means including meat, veges and carbohydrate.
• Depending on the children – our boys started when they were 13 and our daughter when she was 11.

Here’s how you can start out:

1. 1. Discuss the idea with your children, get them to tell you what they enjoy eating.  Make the idea of cooking a meal achievable.
   2. I have listed a few ideas below with simple steps, for more ideas see our recipe page
   3. Make a roster
   4. Set a start date
   5. Offer a reward for the end of a month’s successful cooking eg. A movie voucher
   6. Make it fun and achievable for your children…..We recommend using Aria Farm Chips as your meat.  It doesn’t need to be chopped up and its always tender.  And for the child who doesn’t plan, it can be cooked from frozen.
   

RECIPES

For more recipe ideas go to the Recipe Section of our website

COMPETITION

Any children who send in a recipe they enjoy cooking with Aria Farm products will receive 2 complimentary movie vouchers when their recipe is published. Plus we require a note of how often you are cooking for the family at home. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it