Cooking with Heidi

I love cooking with Heidi. Every time I say "I need to go cook" she runs into the kitchen and says "Heidi cook. I need chair." So I try to figure out what simple jobs she can do to help me cook. Last night we made pizza and salad. For the salad she took the lettuce out of the bag and put it into the bowl. While she did that I chopped all the veggies and then gave them to her to put into the bowl. She is so serious and focused while "cooking", I have no clue where she got that from. Next we made the pizzas. I put 3 pitas on a baking sheet and then put the pizza sauce on the middle of each pita. She spread the pizza sauce around on each pita. She mainly just pushed the sauce around and mommy came over and helped spread it evenly on the pitas. Then she put all the toppings on and overloaded daddy's pizza with olives. He pretty much had an olive pizza, but it was made with Heidi's love so it was the best pizza ever. Of course I chopped up some veggies, like squash and zucchini, real small and had her add them to her pizza, it was a good way of sneaking some veggies into the pizza. After that we added the cheese and I popped them in the oven. She absolutely loved her pizza and we'll do it again real soon.

I think it's important for the kids to help out in the kitchen, whether it's cooking, setting the table, or even cleaning up afterwards. Plus, it keeps her busy and is a good learning experience for her. The first thing Heidi helped me cook was her daddy's birthday cake in June. Now I'm always looking for ways for her to help me. I call her my little sous chef!