I was going to title this post “Cooking with Kids”, but I think that sounds like advice for cannibals. Also, I think kids would be tough and stringy anyway.
I’m sharing this post about ChopChop as part of a program with The Mission List. I received a ChopChop cookbook and a magazine subscription for culinary inspiration; all opinions, including cannibalism being bad, are my own.
I’m a slacker parent in a lot of ways, but I am very adamant that my kids are trained to cook. I’ve made a mistake with One of My Kids and he or she burns spaghetti. It was more embarrassing for me. The other three will not get out of my house with out knowing how to prepare nutritious meals.
Teaching your kids to cook doesn’t have to be a chore. Let them experiment and make mistakes. You never know if Nutella goes with olives until you try. (It doesn’t.)
To write this review, I had to snag the ChopChop cookbook from my daughter’s room. She’s pored over the book and made several suggestions to me on what she’d like to cook. We’re on vacation, so we surprised my dad and step-mom with homemade chicken soup with orzo. It was a hit!
The brilliant part of ChopChop is that you can also subscribe to a quarterly companion magazine with the same name.
Here is my kid sautéing the mirepoix.
Cooking should be fun. Let your kids look through your cookbooks or favorite food blogs to pick out meals they’d like to try. They can help make the shopping list, pick out the ingredients at the grocery store, and prep and measure the spices and produce.
And the best part is, you’ve got built in help for clean up afterwards. I tell my kids they’re my sous-chefs, but by sous-chefs I mean scullery maids.
September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and on September 22, ChopChop partners with the White House to host The Big Picnic, a one-of-a-kind, virtual community picnic in which families across the country will cook and eat together at their own picnics. It’s a fun event with the goal of preventing childhood obesity.
The mission of ChopChop is to inspire and teach kids to cook and eat real food with their families. Currently, 1 out of 400 children under 18 in the U.S. has diabetes, and nearly 1 in 3 is obese. ChopChop’s goal is to reverse this trend by teaching kids and their parents how to create healthy, delicious meals that are easy to prepare and use fresh, nutritious ingredients.
The cookbook and magazine offer simple, healthy, and affordable recipes for children and parents to make together. I loved that the recipes had easy variations and lots of great tips to help beginning cooks. The recipes are as simple as sandwiches, but move well beyond that into cooked entrées.
ChopChop supporters include the American Academy of Pediatrics, The White House’s “Let’s Move” campaign, the New Balance Foundation, Partnership for a Healthier America, and authors Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, and Mollie Katzen.
Check out ChopChop’s Big Picnic on the website and on social media using the #BigPicnic hashtag.
If you’d like a chance to win a copy of ChopChop the cookbook and a one-year subscription to ChopChop magazine, just leave me a comment telling me the first thing you learned to cook. One entry per person, USA only.
hmmm. I don’t know the first thing I learned to cook. Probably grilled cheese or eggs. My mom started us young, too. I like Chop Chop magazine. I read it at the pediatrician’s office.
French Toast. I learned to make it when i was about 8, and from then on, I was in charge of Saturday morning breakfast. I’d make french toast for my siblings and I, and then we’d go back to watching cartoons.
Oh, geez. It’s possible it was grilled cheese, but we did it open-faced and in the toaster oven. That’s how I learned. 😉
I was going to comment anyway because I enjoy you and your blog so much! First time here and I really like it. 🙂 Even your bio is precious. (who wouldn’t love a comparison to Ricky & Lucy??) I think it’s great that you’re having the kiddos cook with you! I bake with my kids a lot, and we also make pancakes and eggs together. I admit I don’t have them do dinner meals with me as much as I should, but now I’m inspired to! I’ve never heard of chopchop before your post. The first thing I learned to cook…hmmmm….I think that was probably pancakes with my dad. 🙂
I’ll be back to read again.
I think you made a good choice cooking food vs. children. So strange how others frown on that whole cannibalism thing!
Thanks for a wonderful post.
Gosh…I think the first thing I learned to cook was toast, grilled cheese, and then eventually spaghetti. I was a very overweight child, but BY GOLLY- I will do everything I can to teach my kiddos how to take care of their bodies through proper nutrition and exercise. With having 7 kiddos it will be and is a chore…and I’m learning right along with them, but it is something they will use their whole life. I’ve never heard of Chop Chop before, but it sounds FaBuLoUs!!!