Tag: kids cook

Foraging for mulberries

Today, when we went back to our car after a few hours spent at the beach, we saw three young girls rushing away from a front yard with something that appeared to be very precious in the hands.  They were mulberries. The careful attitude had a lot to do with avoiding having blackened hands and squashing the fruits! This did it for us, it was time to go and check our neighbourhood trees and go foraging for mulberries!

Mulberry Trees

Mulberry trees are not an Australian native tree species and because of that, many councils have simply cut the mulberry trees over the last five to ten years.  In our area, this has not yet been the case.  The tree we went to is quite large, the season is just starting.  The fruits this year do not appear to be very big but there are plenty.

mulberry tree

 

A child’s adventure

This foraging expedition is best shared with children.  The children love it!  They get really excited, so I got them to gather our “kit” and we were ready.  We took boxes and a stool and off we went.

The first berries are easy to get to…

Then, a bit more strategy and skills are required…

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The other solution? Shake gently one branch and gather the fallen fruits, it is quite effective.

Now, our rule is to gather just what we need and no more.   It is a lot of fun and a great adventure!

After that, when we got home, we washed the fruits and removed the stalk. As a result, we did end up with fingers very purple, most of it has not washed off.

Mulberry Pie

The end purpose of collecting mulberries was to make a mulberry pie.  It is after dinner now and the left over of our pie is standing on the dinning table not far from me, I can smell its distinctive fruit and buttery aroma!

The full recipe can be found on its page HERE.

mulberry pie

mulberry pie

mulberry pie

 

 

Kids in the kitchen

Kids in the kitchen is where it all starts. Although this is not true for all, I know some people who are great cook but ate a lot of boiled vegetables and canned and microwave meals as kids.

This page has a photo gallery that may give you some ideas on how to get the children involved in cooking. There are also generic topics and references.  Be patient, it is building slowly, if you have a question, send me an email, I will be more than happy to answer.  If you are after some cooking experience for a group of children, I am happy to provide that (definitely).

Simple tasks you can give the children are for example:

2 to 5 years old

  • Fetching ingredients (if reachable and not too heavy)
  • fetching tools
  • Mixing
  • Breaking eggs
  • Buttering cake tins
  • Pressing buttons on equipment (as long as safe)
  • Cutting ends of beans for example (teaching and constant supervision required, my 4 y.o does that next to me and I make sure she does her bear paws and overall acts safely)
  • Decorating cupcakes, kids biscuits or larger cake
  • helping with seasoning
  • Rinsing fruits and vegies
  • Doing the dishes (some of them)
  • Turn the salad drainer
  • Help setting the table

6 to 8 years old (in addition of the above)

  • break eggs
  • Separate egg white and yolks (use additional container to do one egg at the time)
  • measure ingredients
  • Follow a simple recipe
  • cut / prepare some fruits and vegetables (instructions given)
  • Clean and prepare the salad
  • Prepare a vinaigrette (under instruction & supervision)
  • Use the micro wave
  • Set up the table
  • place dough in cake tins/prints
  • Some of the bread making steps
  • Folding egg-white

9 and over

From there, some use of the oven and hot plates can be taught. Also from that age , they can easily reach out for most ingredients and equipment, read and plan a recipe and carry out simple recipes.  They can also graps a bit of techniques, and would be quite clued on balancing a diet and choosing treats.

 

Gallery clip

 

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