Favorite Cooking Projects, Also Gluten Free??

[kendallina]

Hi! What are your favorite cooking projects to do with kids that the kids actually like?

Also, does anyone have ideas for gluten free cooking projects? Besides applesauce, we did that today....

[Baby Beluga]

My kids adore being in the kitchen. I don't have any gluten free recipes, but I am sure many of them can be adapted to be. Here are a few of the things they have done:

Making fruit salad - I give the children butter knives and allow them to cut the fruit.

Making bread. I use a bread maker so it's super simple, just measuring and dumping but they love it.

Muffins - we make banana and pumpkin muffins as a group. They kids even watch the bananas and tell me when they start to turn brown so we can make muffins, .

Making personal pizzas. I've used biscuit dough, tortilla shells and english muffins as base. The kids enjoy spreading the sauce, grating cheese and adding toppings.

I think more than actual cooking or baking my group enjoys the prep. They have shucked corn, cleaned fruits/veggies, taken grapes off the vine to be cleaned, grated cheese, cut fruits and veggies (with butter knives) etc.

[CalCare]

Guacamole with just: avocados, salt, garlic powder, cilantro and lime juice. They can do every step- easily. You cut the avocados in half and remove the pits. They can scoop avocados out and into big bowl, they can do one pinch of salt with fingers and same for garlic powder (depends on how much you are making but I would obviously do more pinches per more avos), they can rinse cilantro and pull little leaves off the stems and tear them in half before going in the bowl, and they can squeeze limes into the bowl (you pre-cut into thin-ish slices so each child has a slice to squeeze).

You can serve with heated white corn tortillas or easy if you let them just have tortilla chips or serve with quesadillas and of course some might even dip baby carrots or grape tomatoes if served together (with no tortilla, chips, etc).

[Michael]

More Gluten free threads: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=gluten+free

[MissAnn]

Make homemade tortillas or sopes with gluten free masa harina.

[midaycare]

Chickpea cookies. Oh my word! Delicious.

[Unregistered]

Things as simple as spreading butter on bread or toast-there's a learning curve to spreading! Also, just cutting up bananas is a well loved activity.

I love to cook with kids! Cookies, bars and muffins of course.

Every winter I read Chicken soup with rice and then we make chicken soup with rice. They can handle cutting mini carrots that have been sliced as well as thinly cut celery.

We also make individual pizzas.

They love to make make smoothies.

I always do friendship fruit salad in Sept. Each child brings in one or two types of fruit and cuts up their own and we toss it all together.

[kendallina]

Thank you! This is all great! I was feeling so lost now that I have to do gluten free, but yeh DUH, fruit salads...cutting up bananas. Thank you! I like the chicken and rice book and soup idea too...keep it coming!