As a parent, it’s your job to help prepare your kids for life as an adult. You’ll want them to eat right and take care of themselves. So why not try getting them in the kitchen to prepare some tasty meals? From easy recipes to how to remove ketchup from clothes after enjoying that homemade meal, your kids are bound to learn a valuable lesson or two! Here are three Fun and Easy Recipes to Get Kids Cooking.
Homemade pizza and sweet potato fries
After a rigorous scientific study, it has in fact been proven that kids love pizza. While the takeaway kind is great, it isn’t the healthiest or the most economical – so why not try homemade?
When making pizza, your own homemade tomato sauce will make it taste even better, whilst using a pre-made pizza base will speed up the process. Let the kids’ culinary creativity show by letting them mix up the toppings to suit their tastes.
Tomato Sauce Ingredients
175g tomato purée
5 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (minced)
½ tbsp dried oregano
½ tbsp dried basil
½ tsp dried rosemary (crushed)
300ml water
Pizza Ingredients
1 plain pizza base
200g tomatoes (sliced)
75g broccoli
150g mozzarella (grated)
2 tbsp pesto
Method
Mix the tomato purée and olive oil together well.
Add garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and herbs to the mix.
Gradually add the water, stopping when you reached the desired consistency.
Leave it to stand for a few hours to let the flavours blend, no cooking is required.
Make the sauce in a large batch and freeze any you have left over.
Heat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan/gas mark 4
Put the pizza base on a baking sheet and spread a layer of your homemade tomato sauce over it.
Arrange the tomatoes and broccoli on the pizza.
Sprinkle the mozzarella and pesto over the top.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the pizza begins to brown and the cheese is melted.
Would you like fries with that? No worries, here is a super quick and easy way to make some deliciously healthy sweet potato ‘fries’ (they’re baked!)
Ingredients
2 or 3 medium sweet potatoes (can vary depending on how many you’re feeding)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Paprika or herbs
Method
Chop your sweet potato lengthways into strips, trying to keep them all roughly the same so that they bake evenly. (You may want to be in charge of this step)
In a large bowl, toss them in just enough olive so that they are nicely coated.
Sprinkle with the paprika, salt and pepper to taste.
Get a flat baking tray and line it with baking paper. Then spread the sweet potato strips on evenly and put into a preheated oven.
Bake for around 15 minutes and then flip them over to bake on the other side and get that delicious golden crisp.
Serve with homemade tomato ketchup or salsa and enjoy!
In case of any spills, find out here how to remove ketchup from clothes.
Meatballs and spaghetti
In keeping with an apparently Italian menu, perhaps a pasta/spaghetti dish will go down well with the kids. Meatballs are super simple to prepare, and then all you have to do is pop them into a homemade sauce and add them to a plate of spaghetti. Et voila!
Meatball Ingredients
300g sausage meat
500g mince
1 onion (grated)
1 carrots (grated)
50g grated cheese
75g breadcrumbs
1 egg
Sauce Ingredients
1 carrot (grated)
2 celery sticks (grated)
1 courgette (grated)
2 peppers (diced)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato purée
1.2kg chopped tomatoes
Method
Mix the meatball ingredients together. Be sure to keep an eye on younger children to ensure they don’t “try” the raw meat mixture.
Roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls.
Make a homemade tomato sauce. This step is best done by adults or pre-teens only.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan.
Cook the vegetables for 5 mins.
Stir in the tomato purée, leave for 1 min then add the tomatoes.
Simmer for 5 mins.
Blitz the sauce in a blender.
Keep the sauce warm at a simmer while you cook the meatballs.
Brown the meatballs in olive oil in a shallow frying pan until they are thoroughly cooked. It may be worth cooking them in batches to ensure they are all cooked through.
Pop the meatballs into the sauce.
Cook the spaghetti as normal.
Sausage and mashed sweet potatoes
Ingredients
1 sweet potato
2 tsp olive oil
3 sausages
1 red onion (sliced)
2 tbsp cottage cheese
1 tbsp plain Greek yogurt
Method
Peel the sweet potato and pop it into a saucepan with just enough water to cover it. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until soft.
Fry the sausages in oil over a medium heat, turning frequently for around 10 minutes.
Add the onion and cook for a further 7 minutes.
Drain the water from the saucepan. Add the cottage cheese and yoghurt to the pan and mash the ingredients with a fork until it is to your desired smoothness.
Serve the sausages over the mashed potato.
Now that you’ve introduced your kids to some new recipes to try out, perhaps you will be able to take a bit of a break and enjoy them taking care of you for once!
