All about kid cooks

So it's no mystery that I'm a fan of Hotbytes, and most of my loved ones know this to be true. But when I speak aloud of my affinity to a non-foodie audience, I get various reactions. Most are flattery and encouragement, but some really take it in.

My VBF has an eleven year old daughter that is an aspiring culinarista (yeah, I made it up). She wants to be a chef someday. She likes breakfast best of all, and one morning when I slumbered at the family casa, I was prepared pancakes without her mamma's supervision (house rule that an adult had to be present - but I was not about to tamper with her science). Bisquick in the cupboard - EMPTY box. No prob, she subs flour. Burns some over-cheesed eggs, toasts bread first so it's good and cold (ice cold butter to boot), sets milk and OJ on table first thing cause we like beverages room temp around here. The flour cakes were funny. Imagine wet flour, griddle fried. Nice and dense.

I ate that breakfast, though, cause I have an iron stomach, and little Miss Maura meant well. I think in spite of her brother and sister's ridicule, she thought she done good.

My topic: what funny foods have kids cooked for you?

My parents tell the story of how my sister made them scrambled eggs. Instead of a tsp. of salt she put in roughly a 1/2 cup or more. Mom took one bite and spit them out. She said she was afraid that eating them would kill her. My sister still hates to cook.

For my Girls Scout cooking badge (I would have been 9), one of my projects was to make a layer cake. Got one of the my cakes out of the pan but the other stuck badly, and entire section crumbed off. ( I was crushed) My mom helped me frost it (as best we could) with one whole section crumbling off the top. Then she helped me construct a road on the top with little toy cars on it and a Danger- Road closed sign where the cake had fallen apart. Looked like there had been a landslide....

We always referred to it in my family as "the Disaster Cake". Thanks to my Mom's quick thinking, I was very proud of it. Thanks, Mom!


Deb

My 4yo daughter loves to "help" when I cook. Mostly measuring and stirring now, but she knows all the ingredients to use in many of my regular recipes. Plus she makes a mean "heart melt" when she gives me a hug from her stepping stool and says "I love cooking with you, Daddy-O".

My 5 year old niece loves to help cook. She likes to crack the eggs, and put the measured ingredients into the bowl. She also loves to help me decorate cookies and cake. We had a ball last year at Christmas, and she's really creative. Blue Christmas trees with sprinkles and green sugar are a-ok in my book!

When my oldest was small, I baked a lot. She often helped with preparing the pans and measuring. I realized we were spending a lot of time in the kitchen when she started calling the refridgerator the "butterator" - "it's where we get the butter for the baking". All my kids are pretty decent cooks, though the youngest tends to microwave a lot.

My first shot at cooking for my parents, I made eggs for a breakfast in bed for Mother's Day. Think I was about 10. I had never actually scrambled eggs on my own, so I was following a recipe that said to "gently lift the eggs" in the pan. I was so gentle, I ended up with an omelet that was burned on the bottom. To top it off, I added salt to the mess before cooking and it was a lot of salt. My mom choked down every bite and did not tell me until years afterward how horrible they were. Mom was not a great cook, she learned the basics and never ventured beyond them. She encouraged my self-taught cooking adventures, and let me practice on my brothers and sister. I do not think she ever really enjoyed cooking, but appreciated that I did.

When I was little girl, my mom would chase my brother, sister, and I around the house with raw chickens. She would also gross us out with the guts extraction, and make oozing, glopping noises. I paid such close attention to it that I learned to make a killer chicken dinner by the time I was fourteen. Lemon, pepper, and butter were my tools, and everyone loved it. What they didn't love was the mess I refused to clean up afterwards, because momma always said, "she/he who cooks, never cleans".