5 Ways to Play with your Food (Go ahead, it’s FUN!)
Cooking shouldn't have to be a chore. Here are some great ideas to bring joy back to the art of cooking, kid style!
Spice Art -- Use spices to decorate a drawing. Glue the spices to your picture using school glue. The spices act like glitter! Take time to smell the spices as you work with them.
Pizza Flags -- Take pizza dough and cut it into rectangles perfect for individual servings. Get creative and decorate the dough as flags of different countries. Use assorted foods as the colors: red bell peppers and black olives for the red and black of the Trinidad and Tobago flag; sliced tomatoes, mozzarella and diced basil for the stripes of the Italian flag. Once you’ve put together your creation, bake and enjoy!
Mystery Taste Test -- Blindfold yourself before a meal. When the plate comes to the table, taste the food and see if you can guess which ingredients are in the food without seeing it.
Yogurt Polka Dots -- Spoon your favorite yogurt into a plastic bag. Cut a very small hole in one corner of the bag. Squeeze dots onto a cookie sheet and place it in freezer. Your dots will be ready to enjoy in about an hour!
Sandwich Shapes -- Use cookie cutters to create fun shapes out of a lunch sandwich. PB&J sandwiches have never tasted so good!
Nicole Furlonge is the author of Kitchen Passports: Trinidad and Tobago (available on Amazon). She teaches English at Princeton Day School in New Jersey and also has designed fun, educational summer writing camps and writing kits for lower and middle school students. For more information on writing camps, writing kits, and cooking activities and tools for kids, please contact Nicole at inktopias@gmail.com.