Lil' Chefs

I think I may need to make this a segment on here: "Meals with Monkeys".  If you know me, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE cooking and baking with my kiddos. I have fond memories helping my mom in the kitchen and as an adult, I now appreciate the skills and recipes she passed on to me. If cooking with your kids scares you, here are a few tips that might help. First, keep it simple. You don't need to grate fresh vanilla bean or use a gourmet cookbook that requires a lot of ingredients and steps. Kids are happy with just placing pieces in a dish or pouring liquids in a bowl. It's about giving them the experiences and informal training NOT perfection.  Secondly, prepare for a mess. It's going to happen. It can be cleaned up, and the whole cleaning up thing can be a great teachable moment for the kids (you may even find they hate cleaning up so much, that next time they are a little more careful about keeping the ingredients in the bowl and out of their hair). 

On the menu tonite was fresh guacamole ( to compliment our tacos).  Lils likes "smashing" the avocados and cutting the cilantro and Parker likes to mix in the red onion ( and then "cry") and squeeze the lime juice.  Funny thing, they never ate the guacamole until they started making it with me. Now, I can't keep them out of the dish!