Teaching children to cook

There are many days when, after either breakfast or lunch, I look around my kitchen, and wonder why on earth I let my children cook. It is not uncommon to have at least four or five different things being prepared. For breakfast, if J. hasn't baked something, people will fix eggs in a variety of ways, toast things, make bull's eyes, fry some rice, or do some combination of the above. For lunch, the variety of food being fixed can include soup, ramen, fried potatoes, sandwiches, quesadillas, tuna salad, or, something else. P. cooked herself some lentils the other day.

Of course, all this cooking means that each person uses the appropriate cooking pots and utensils. Rarely does each child make something that reuses a pot or pan that someone else used. This means that the dishwasher is always full, always running, and there are dishes all over the counter waiting to go into the dishwasher. (Oh, how I miss our double dishwashers!) I'm thrilled they can all prepare food, but I am also constantly drowning in dirty dishes... even if they masses think to load them into the dishwasher. It's just impossible to keep up.

But there are moments where all the dirty dishes are made up for. Like today. Homemade rolls are a huge part of our Thanksgiving dinner. Dozens and dozens of rolls. It can take a while to make between six and nine dozen rolls, depending on how many will be at dinner. Today, though, the rolls are nearly all baked, and I did not lift a finger. D. has taken over the roll baking, and is currently working on his third batch. He really does have it down, and even my supervision is not necessary.

Tomorrow, M. has volunteered to bake all the pies... pumpkin, pecan, apple, and we're trying a cranberry pie this year. I will happily work on cleaning and organizing the house for Thursday and let M. have the kitchen. My effort towards the pies will be to grind a bunch of soft wheat for pastry flour, so M. can make the pie crusts.

Yes, the mess is ultimately worth it. Not only do I have help fixing big dinners, but I also have children who will never look at my pantry and moan over only having ingredients. They know what to do with them and how to feed themselves. I also will never believe any of my children who might text me asking how many minutes to cook a large turkey in the microwave. They all know better.

But I do miss that second dishwasher...