My Year of Adventure ~ Week 28

For the year of 2017, I’ve chosen to have a Year of Adventure!  For me that means exploring new places, learning new skills, and apparently, teaching new skills, too!  This week’s adventure is all about my kids cooking this summer.

Life Skills to Learn

Many moons ago, when I was the ripe young age of 18-ish and headed off to college, I discovered very quickly that I really didn’t know how to do much!  There were some life skills that I was sadly lacking in!!  I had no idea how to do my own laundry?!  And, I had no idea how to cook!!

Now, as you can imagine, I do enjoy (even then) having clean clothes and eating!  So, there was a very steep learning curve that needed to happen.  After initially flooding the laundry room, I quickly learned how to do my own laundry.  The cooking skills took a little longer.

I think in college I survived on rice and Ramen noodles!  I didn’t know how to cook much else in those days!  Since those days, I’ve been learning to cook a much wider variety of recipes, and actually enjoy it most days!

Learning to Cook

When we had kids, I knew I didn’t want to send them off to college without certain life skills!  Teaching my kids cooking is one of the skills I knew they would need to know.  You certainly don’t have to be brilliant at it, but you do need to know your way around a kitchen!

Early on, my kids “helped” me cook.  It has never been something that only mom does.  Dad’s in the kitchen a lot.  And now, my kids are in the kitchen a lot!

Last summer, we started having our kids plan out meals and cooking once a week.  It was very successful, so we decided to do it again this summer!  I have to say, I love not having to cook two nights a week!!

Our Kids Cooking

Along with teaching my kids cooking, there were a few other “cooking” related skills I wanted my kids to come away with.

• Reading a recipe

  Once you know how to read and follow a recipe, it opens a whole world of cooking options!  We have had a lot of really great food, when their choices expanded from only what I know how to cook!

• Figuring out a grocery list

  Knowing what’s in the pantry and what is needed from the grocery store is another important piece of the puzzle.  After winding up with 3 bottles of Olive Oil, I realized they didn’t know they needed to check the pantry first, lol!

• Working within  a budget

  Last summer we didn’t talk about the cost of groceries, but with prices continually rising, I knew I needed to this summer.  The first week, the kids’ meals were pretty pricey, but they are getting better at dialing it back when a recipe calls for a lot of odd ingredients.

  

 In the End…

In the end, I am excited that my kids are not only learning to cook, but they are learning to enjoy cooking!  They will leave our house, when the time comes, with several recipes under their belts and an understanding of how to read a recipe.  I am comfortable that they will be leaps and bounds ahead of where I was when I moved out, which is at least part of my goal!

My kids will walk away from this experience knowing how to cook good healthy good on a budget.  And, they will also know how to figure out what grocery items they’ll need and, if they want to try a new recipe, they will know how to read it!

All in all, being able to cook for their selves is a life skill they will be glad they have!  I’m sure the choices in the school cafeteria or pizza delivery will get old fairly quickly!  So, I am happy knowing that teaching my kids cooking will serve them well their whole lives!

Other Articles You Might Enjoy

5 Tips on Traveling with Teens

NO TV Summer?! Unexpected Reasons You’ll Want to Try!

Letting Go – One of the Joys and Agony of Parenting