1.1 Article: “How the Comparison Trap Almost Ruined my Homeschool”
1.2 Cooking Skills for the Family
1.3 Flavors, Baking, and Life Skills
1.4 Sous Chefs
1.5 Culinary Artists
As homeschoolers, we ensure our students learn every academic subject as well as life skills. One life skill we can teach and incorporate in just about every other subject is cooking. These resources might be an excellent introduction to the wonderful world of culinary arts.
1.1 Article: “How the Comparison Trap Almost Ruined my Homeschool”
In this article, Misty at Finding Joy in the Journey, exposes her struggle with comparing her homeschool life to that of her friends and acquaintances. She encourages us to not fall into the trap of comparison.
http://www.findingjoyinthejourney.net/comparison-trap-ruined-my-homeschool
1.2 Cooking Skills for the Family
Learning to handle, store, and prepare your food properly is foundational to great culinary skills. The Food Safety website by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services can help you teach your family the best practices for food safety. You will find detailed information on cleaning, separating, cooking, and storing your food as well as food recalls and alerts, and information on food poisoning.
www.foodsafety.gov/keep/basics/index.html
Knowing how to use a knife safely is a necessary culinary skill. You can use these seven tips to teach your students how to use knives.
www.eatyourbeets.com/kitchen-tips/7-tips-for-teaching-your-kids-how-to-use-a-knife
You can spend some of your summer having a cooking camp for your kids. You will find kitchen skills by age, easy recipes, suggested kitchen tools for kids, as well as links to recipes to help you get started.
www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/kids-cooking-camp-home
A simple way to get everyone cooking is to have a pizza night. With a simple premade crust, pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings, the entire family will be cooking in no time.
www.thejennyevolution.com/cooking-with-kids-pizza-night
1.3 Flavors, Baking, and Life Skills
Cooking is all about combining flavors and textures to create a tasty dish. You can introduce your preschooler to cooking with this tasting game.
https://eatingrichly.com/tasting-cooking-games-for-kids
This exercise mixes math and number and letter recognition with baking. You can involve your preschoolers from mixing pretzel dough, which incorporates a lesson in measuring and fractions, to shaping the dough into numbers and letters. Then just bake and eat.
www.whatdowedoallday.com/cooking-by-numbers
Who doesn’t love bread fresh from the oven? With a little help from an adult, your children can make this bread in a bag recipe.
www.yourhomebasedmom.com/bread-bag
Even the smallest student can learn cutting techniques. This Montessori practical life activity gives you step-by-step instructions to teach your preschooler to cut a banana using a butter knife.
http://rhythmsofplay.com/cutting-a-banana-a-montessori-practical-life-activity
1.4 Sous Chefs
This kitchen worksheet will help your children learn the names of common kitchen appliances and tools.
www.kids-pages.com/folders/worksheets/Home/page8.htm
You can teach nutrition, math, science, history, geography, and language arts in the kitchen. The resources at Teach Beside Me can help you to incorporate almost every subject while cooking.
http://teachbesideme.com/cross-curricular-kitchen-lessons
Studying geography and cooking go hand in hand when you use recipes from different countries. These resources from Little Family Adventure include suggested books to read and recipes from six continents.
www.littlefamilyadventure.com/cooking-with-kids-international-recipes
You can continue your study of geography and cooking with the books on this list. You will find a short description and age range listed for each book. While the book titles are linked to Amazon for purchase, you might be able to find one or two at your local library.
http://worldforlearning.com/cookbooks-kids-learn-food-from-around-the-world
After some instruction, your students could independently make any one of the 30 recipes on this list.
http://mylifeandkids.com/cooking-with-kids-30-simple-recipes-kids-can-make-themselves
Building this solar oven can bring a science element into your culinary pursuits.
http://mamaguru.com/how-to-make-a-solar-oven
Your students might enjoy this lesson on the science of pancakes since it culminates with a pancake feast. The lesson plans include a little science and a little math.
www.pbs.org/parents/adventures-in-learning/2014/03/pancake-science
Another way to incorporate math skills into cooking is to use this idea to measure, cut, and cook refrigerated dough.
www.whatdowedoallday.com/practical-life-kitchen-geometry
1.5 Culinary Artists
Your student can take his cooking to a new level with these food science resources. You will find the lesson titles, “What is an Emulsion? A Cook’s Guide,” “The Science Behind Brining,” and “The Science Behind Pressure Frying,” among others.
https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/food-science-101
Whether it’s a party or lunch, you can turn it over to your teens with these fun recipes.
http://diyprojectsforteens.com/fun-foods-for-teens-kids
Aspiring chefs might find the instructions at My Domaine helpful. In the article “Important Cooking Skills to Master by Age 30,” you will find instructions for grilling a steak, roasting a chicken, cooking fish, and cooking pasta the Italian way, among others.
www.mydomaine.com/how-to-cook-turning-30/slide3
Your teen might benefit from these recipes that were standards in culinary repertoires just a few decades ago. Unwritten recipes prepared from memory would have been passed down through demonstration and oral instruction from mother to child or grandmother to grandchild.
www.gracefullittlehoneybee.com/recipes-grandma-knew
It happens all the time. You think you have everything needed to prepare your favorite recipe and mid-preparation (usually at midnight) you realize you do not have __________ (fill in the blank). Is your recipe ruined? Maybe not. This list of substitute ingredients could be a lifesaver.
www.huffingtonpost.com/thrillist/no-butter-no-problem-ever_b_8432070.html
Does the mixing method for preparing a cake batter matter? You could have your teen chef make a pound cake using the given pound cake recipe and try the two mixing methods. Which method prepares a better pound cake?
www.baking-sense.com/2017/02/28/cake-batter-mixing-technique
It may be called culinary arts, but there is real science behind cooking. You will find detailed scientific articles about the science behind cooking at the Science of Food website. The latest articles include, “What are the Four Basic Food Molecules?,” “What are the Basic Tastes?,” “The Molecular Basis of Taste—Taste Molecules,” “Where are Foods Digested?,” and “What is Flavor?,” among others.
This infographic illustrates a worldwide interest in barbecuing.
https://kalamazoogourmet.com/products/grilling-around-the-world
Grilling is not the same as cooking over an open fire. This article discusses the fine art of cooking over a fire. You will find information on starting a fire, what wood to use, cooking methods, as well as foods to cook.
http://hillsborough-homesteading.com/lost-art-cooking-fire
