One of my goals for my kids this summer is to have them feel comfortable in the kitchen and prepare a meal that the family can enjoy. I wanted to have them cook once every week but that has not been achievable but I’m hopeful they will do it at least once more before they go back to school (which is too soon IMO but that’s another story).

Two of my children really enjoy cooking, one just tolerates it and enjoys the fruits of the labor. 😉 But they all worked together this past weekend and made dinner and it turned out really well and they had it on the table in an hour!

My son checked out three kid cookbooks from our library (of his own accord, not coerced by mom) and flagged a few recipes that he wanted to try out. In the end, we ran out of time to prep the recipes early enough during the day so we found a recipe online that met my criteria of well-balanced (must have a veggie!) and tasted good. Both recipes are from Giada de Laurentiis and I’ve made her recipes before and they have always turned out well.

The only modifications the kids made to the pasta recipe was that they used elbow macaroni. Here is the link for the recipe.

We made a few substitutions to the stuffed mushrooms recipe due to not having the exact ingredients. We subbed almond flour for the bread crumbs, we used freshly grated Parmesan cheese instead of Romano, we omitted the parsley (didn’t have any) and subbed basil from the garden instead and we used baby Portabella mushrooms instead of white mushrooms. Here is the link for the recipe.

I think you’ll find these recipes doable with your kids; the kitchen of course was a complete disaster between prosciutto grease, cold starchy pasta water and pots and pans galore but I still would highly recommend it. 🙂 Let me know if you try it! Enjoy!