Kids cooking with Dad

Most people including the little ones in our lives we like to call our children love meatballs. I've found that my kids love meatball hamburgers with cheese. Making the burgers with them is half the fun. I have to admit that I love the million and one questions that they seem to have a never ending curiosity about the process of cooking.

Same drill as before, everyone washes their hands as if going into surgery. Kids need to learn this little life long lesson early and what better time than the present to do so. You want their hands clean because they will be mixing the ground beef up and making the hamburger patties.

To make about eight burgers you need three pounds of ground beef. You decide the fat content but I usually get 85-15% at the old supermarket. Dump the beef into a big bowl and add about a quarter teaspoon of salt. Let the kids measure it out or just sprinkle it in from the salt shaker. Same amount of pepper. Same amount of Celery salt and Garlic powder. If you have minced garlic from the jar you can use a tablespoon. Adjust the quantities to taste as you see fit.

Everyone gets a turn mashing the meat to smitherenes. Grab a stool for the really little ones and let them have it too! Let them make their own burger patties. Kids appreciate the learning time with Dad or Mom and cooking with the kids is always a great time. Make sure they all wash their hands after the patty making process! Mom or Dad will not be to happy if they find raw hamburger on the couch... been there... done that.

Dad or Mom can toss the burgers on the grill or in the frying pan with a little butter on low heat and cook them for about three minutes on each side. Let the kids peel off a piece of American cheese and hand it to the cook for placing on the burgers. Serve up on hamburger rolls with whatever toppings you know that they will eat and watch them gobble it down.

Be prepared for the unexpected and children asking for a second burger!

Papamoka

Kids and Sauce Pan Scrambled Eggs

Cooking eggs should never be boring. Bring the step stool over to the stove and let the kids have at it with this recipe. It's a slow cook and the rewards are simply delicious. Email us at Papamoka@hotmail if you want further instructions but here it is.

Making a big breakfast for the family on the weekend is always a treat for the kids. Let them see how to multi task in the kitchen. Start off with cleaning and making sure the work area is as sterile as an ICU. Get all them kids into the bathroom or at the kitchen sink and wash those little hands with tons of soap. We are making food and not cooking germs here.

We are serving breakfast so we start with the bacon that is cooked in the oven. Take one of those huge cookie pans with edges and line it with tin foil. Saves time on the clean up after all the kids have eaten and lost interest. Layout your bacon strips and put in the oven at 350 degrees. This is a slow cook method for bacon but as it fills the house with the aroma of bacon cooking it also adds to the kids appetite while we all cook the eggs.

Here we go with the fun of cooking with the kids. Take a large sauce pan and put it on the stove on very low heat. Low heat is the key to this recipe. The higher the heat the more chance of burning the eggs to the pan so go with low heat for the entire process. It is going to take some time to cook but the reward is the kids are occupied and the end result is delicious. For every person have the kids crack two eggs. Supervise and scoop out any shells. Have the kids beat the day light out of the eggs with a fork or whisker. I use a fork because the whisker eventually gets loaded up with cooked egg. Add salt and pepper for taste. Add about 1/4 cup milk for every four eggs. Add 1/8 inch slice of salted or unsalted butter for every two eggs. Let the kids beat the daylight out of it in the sauce pan non stop. Turn the light on for the stove and repeatedly tell them to check the bacon. Ask them if it is browning on one side? Let them know that they are the cook and you are just supervising.

The bacon will take about fifteen minutes to cook on one side. Mom or Dad needs to take it out of the oven for the flipping of the bacon. I would not recommend that you let the kids do that! Bacon greas splatters and we do not want any of the little people burned. Drain the grease and flip the bacon strips over. Back into the oven they go and have them check for bubbling of the bacon strips or your own preffered crispy texture.

The eggs will start to congeal and form little clusters. Stirring at that point is more important than ever. Scrape the bottom of the sauce pan to make sure it is not burning to the pan. If brown specs appear then your heat is to high. When they start to coagulate it is time to start the toast. Work in teams stirring and buttering toast. Of course keep an ever vigilant eye on the bacon. The eggs are cooked when there is just a mass of solid egg droplets and not a sauce appearance. Some folks like to drain the eggs from the excess water with a strainer after the cooking process but we just serve it up with a slotted spoon.

Drain the bacon of grease on some paper towels and serve up the eggs, bacon and toast as the best breakfast the kids have ever made with Mom or Dad. Enjoy the time with the kids and praise them for a job well done.

Papamoka