My Son, the Chef!

A hearty “Way to go!” to challenger AnskySue’s son who took on the task of preparing dinner for the family. We love that the grocery shopping trip was used as a nutrition lesson. Keeping your kids involved in the process of selecting meals, shopping for them and even preparing them is one of the best ways to instill healthy habits in them.

Tonight was supposed to be a healthy version of tuna casserole but then my son piped up and said “I want to make dinner!” I had given him a kids cookbook for Christmas with the promise that he would be responsible for choosing and helping to make one dinner each week. Unfortunately, I hadn’t followed through on that when making my weekly meal plan. We had some extra time this evening so I told him to figure out what he wanted to make and we’d do it. So he picked lasagna and snowman cookies for dessert. Off to the store we went where he helped pick out the ingredients. We talked about the different options for each one – regular cottage cheese vs lowfat cottage cheese, regular pasta noodles vs whole wheat – and tried to pick our healthiest options. He read the recipe to me on the way back home and voila, 1.5 hours later I pulled the most delicious lasagna ever out of the oven. Definitely not the healthiest meal of the week but it was better than fast food! And we met this week’s mini challenge with the lasagna’s cheesy goodness! Bonus – I am so excited that while making dinner my son found a new food that he tried and liked! There was about 1/4 cup of cottage cheese left over and he ate it while the lasagna was cooking. He said he would love to have it for a healthy snack every once in a while if I would buy it for him. I would love to know if anyone has found a kids cookbook with HEALTHY recipes. When I bought this one, there were only a few kids cookbooks at the bookstore and I should have spent a little more time to find something with healthier recipes. Most of the kids cookbooks focus on tacos, hamburgers and mac and cheese. Let me know if you have any suggestions!