The kitchen is a classroom
May 20th, 2009 | 
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This has become a very obsessive topic for me as I am a chemical engineer and also a chef. First time this link between food and chemistry became obvious to me when watching a show about UK’s top chef Heston Blumenthal and his egg and bacon ice cream with liquid nitrogen.
Inviting kids into the kitchen and teaching them in the kitchen is not that easy. Kitchen furniture, kitchen lighting and kitchen design play an important part in turning your kitchen into a cooking school. As busy parents we do not get much time to spend time with our children but if we can turn our kitchen into a classroom, we get to spend more time with them. We can help them with their homework and teaching them about cooking as well. Cooking in the kitchen for us is a habit or a nature, we dont have to think twice, it just happens step by step and great dishes are created.
When we invite kids into the kitchen, for them its nothing less than a science lab. Their learning resources and learning activities are limitless. Its all a surprise how things are done, how you measure, how that baking powder works, how does that muffin rise, how does that tasteless flour turns into a tasty cookie. It also becomes one of the most valuable classrooms in your house, colors shapes and numbers are all there waiting to challenge your child each step of the way. Soon your kids will pass up their best toys every time for a chance to help you in the kitchen science lab, if you can explain them and teach them about every experiment you are doing in the kitchen. As dinner is cooking, talk about the smells, sounds, textures and appearance of the food being transformed. Your children will then taste with a new appreciation, especially if they’ve had a hand in making dinner.
Keep reading:
Why you should cook with kids?
Here’s some cool sites to get into the classroom.
Kitchen chemistry
Virtual kitchen, where kids can really learn and play
Kitchen chemistry book written by Ted Lister in collaboration with Heston Blumenthal
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Posted in Cooking with kids, kitchen is a classroom | 
Tags: appearance of food, bacon, baking powder, best toys, books, busy parents, chemical engineer, chemicals, chemistry book, cooking in the kitchen, cool sites, egg and bacon ice cream, flour, food and chemistry, furniture kitchen, google, heston blumenthal, homework, kids, kitchen, kitchen chemistry, kitchen chemistry book, kitchen design, kitchen furniture, kitchen is a classroom, kitchen lighting, kitchen science, Learning, liquid nitrogen, meal time, muffin, parents, school, science lab, script type, smell of sound, tasty cookie, tasty cookies, teach, ted lister, text javascript, texture of sound, textures, top chef, toys, uk, virtual kitchen
Having kids in the kitchen during meal preparation is usually a bit of a hindrance, because parents have to find a way for the kids to be useful without over-measuring, under-stirring, or adding unwanted ingredients. There are several complete meal kits that provide a decent-tasting dinner, and they are simple to prepare and make.
Betty Crocker Complete Meals
If parents set out the cooking supplies and take care of oven duties, kids who can read, measure, and follow step by step directions can make this meal. Most 10 year olds could do this, and they would like the opportunity to help in the kitchen.
The meals have the same basic elements:
a can of progressive soup-like meat and vegetables
sauce/seasonings/toppings
the pasta/bread component of the meal
Kids can easily follow these directions. For example, with the Betty Crocker Chicken & Buttermilk Biscuits meal kit, kids need to be able to do the following:
preheat the oven
open a can with a can opener
pour the contents of the can into the baking dish
heat and measure a cup of water
cut and open the seasoning mix
mix the seasoning mix into the baking dish
measure 1/2 cup of water
cut open biscuit mix
stir water and biscuit mix
drop the biscuit mix onto the contents of the baking dish
Parents should put the dish into and take the dish out of the oven. The precision does not have to be exact; if the biscuits get a little too much water, or the seasoning gets lukewarm water, the meal is forgiving. The biscuits do not have to be perfectly lined up; they can be dumped in and it still tastes like chicken and biscuits.
Rosa Mohamed
Thanks for your comment Rosa. I do not deny that kids will not be in your way while in the kitchen. That’s why I said we have to be patient with them. If we get angry at them when they are in the kitchen, kids will not come back in the kitchen. For kids to develop interest in the kitchen, will be a gradual process and we can teach them about weights, measurements under supervision before asking them to do it themselves. Also thanks for the suggestions from Betty Crocker. Please keep writing back, your comments are very valuable for us and the other readers.