Last Saturday was a kid’s class at SK Culinary Studio! Kids’ alongwith the culinary team enjoyed churning out some yummy yet healthy dishes including nachos, mac n cheese, cookies, chocolate ice cream and the likes. I was wondering, children’s stomachs have a limited capacity, but at the same time their energy demands are high. Moreover, I had read somewhere that children are a pain in the neck when around and a pain in the heart when not! Both ways loss is ours! Now that the summer vacations have already begun, kids demand tasty foods after playing for long hours in a sun-baked playground. To keep up their energies high, it becomes essential that children are fed every three to four hours.
It is the responsibility of parents to develop healthy food habits in their growing children and these have to be inculcated in the early years of life. However, treating kids with their favorite food items twice a week should be included alongwith nutritious meal. Besides, the age of two is a good time for your child to start eating meals with you at the table. Preschoolers these days are smarter than we think. No amount of convincing them that ‘drink milk and you will become big’ or words to this effect can make them drink up the milk. They have to be served everything that is tasty and if the environment around them is non-fussy about food, the child too will respond positively. Moreover, as the child grows up his/her tastes change. It would do the child good to have everything that is cooked for the family. There is no reason to cook differently. The trick to win over the palate of the young ones is to present novel foods that are nutritious too.
Get creative with staple dishes! Some of the recipes I suggest to get creative with are:
Dal Puri
It is a common thing in a Punjabi home to take last night’s moong dal and knead a dough for paranthas in it! That’s a nourishing breakfast ready in a jiffy. The same idea has been used here except that the dal is freshly made and I made puris as they are more kid-friendly breads.
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| Dal Puri |
One pot pasta
Call it a boon, especially on a lazy day! My kids love all types of pasta and they are not finicky about it being al dente! This recipe is handy for Alyona when she gets the request for something fast, yummy and nice (read junk food!) but she knows pasta is a welcome treat always!
Apple Crumble
This is one of the easiest and tastiest desserts ever and children are simply going to lap it up. You can give this conventional dish a little twist by adding a little oats to the crumble mix to give it an interesting texture and at the same time making it more nutritious. My elder daughter Rachita likes a sprinkling of powdered peanut chikki on the top.
Who doesn’t love mangoes? Mostly all kids love chilled stuff much to our chagrin! This smoothie is thick n sweet, I have replaced ice with frozen mango so it’s as good as it’s yum!Mango Smoothie
Try it out today and let me know they turn out!
Happy Cooking!
Happy Summers.
From My Kitchen 