We cook and bake like crazy in our house. My kids are my helpers in the kitchen and the garden. Our favorite summer treat from last year are frozen bananas. We cut them in half, then put a Popsicle stick in the end and freeze for about 1/2 hr. Just before we take out the bananas, melt some choco chips. I also have mini m&m's, coconut flakes, crushed up homemade granola, in separate bowls. Dip the bananas in the melted chocolate, then add toppings. Freeze again. Once they are totally frozen, I wrap each banana in wax paper, then stick them in the freezer. They last a few days. A healthier version that is just as good is to substitute the melted chocolate for yogurt. We also make frozen yogurt pops in dixie cups with Popsicle sticks. Mix fresh fruit, a little orange juice and yogurt. You can also make yummy frozen pops using a layering method. First put lemonade in 1/3 of the dixie cup, then freeze with the Popsicle stick. After that is totally frozen, add blue gatorade to the next 1/3 of the dixie cup. Once that is frozen, add strawberry/cranberry juice for the remaining 1/3 of the dixie cup.
We have pizza night. I make home made pizza dough, then the kids gets to shape it anyway they want and add toppings. Cheap, easy, and fun. Have the kids make pancakes and toss in fruit, granola, cinnamon, etc. It is easy to make everyday foods into something special.
Every fall we have a cookie decorating party at our house. We keep it small at about 8-9 kids. I make a ton of sugar cookies and icing. I dye coconut, and get sprinkles, then turn the kids loose to decorate. They love it!
We also make muffins of every flavor. Apple/coconut, blueberry/lemon, etc. They love it. We get lots of ideas from Family Fun magazine:
FamilyFun - Fun stuff for Kids, Parents - and More Great Family Fun Ideas
If you sew, make your own aprons! We just got the fabric for ours. My son (age 6) picked a John Deere print ('cause it looks like papa's tractor'), my daughter and I picked a fun spring print. So this weekend we won't get much cooking done, we will be sewing.
We live in a rural area and there aren't cooking classes for any age here. We have to make our fun, lol.
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Now I use allrecipes.com constantly. I basically use it to make up a menu each week and cook it, plus the reviewers usually have really good suggestions for making the recipes even better. Here are some kid-friendly recipes I found on the site:
