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All jokes aside, this started a few mornings ago when Konnie, our 3-year old toddler came to me and said to me: “I want to cook with you, Papa”! Konnie has always loved to play cooking as part of her imaginative plays and today was no exception.
And of course, I was on my phone, trying to either read a news article or attempting to get the daily reward of whatever pointless game I was playing. I remember telling her “ok great let’s do it later. Is that alright?”.
She walked away, head hung low, totally disappointed.
I caught her out of the corner of my eye and reminded myself that we are not travelling around the world so that I could play games. I walked to her, gave her a big hug and said: “I am free now, let’s cook together!”. I was rewarded with the biggest smile and cuddle.
As she ran off into the kitchen, I thought we were going to do some pretend cooking. But the little principessa clearly had something else in mind. By the time I got to the kitchen, she’s already got the pot out and was running to the bathroom to fill it up with water to make noodles.
Did you say noodles?
Turns out, Konnie had something in mind what she wanted to make. She wanted to make herself some noodles for lunch. As we talked about what could go into her noodles, the first thing she said was “kelp”. Yep. Kelp. Konnie is a big fan of The Octonauts and she always talks about wanting to eat kelp (but eating it is always a hit and miss).
Dried kelp/seaweed is something we’ve been carrying with us (note that this isn’t nori sheets). We also went through the rest of the kitchen, looking for ingredients and ended up with the following:
- Dry egg noodles (about 60g)
- 10 tablespoons coconut cream
- Vegetable stock cube
- Dried kelp (unknown amount, it was a Konnie handful which was way too much)
- Water in the pot – estimated to be around 250ml
And true to her words, Konnie handled and placed all the ingredients into the pot of water, even handled the slightly slimy rehydrated kelp (I am not selling it, am I?) herself. She made a bit of mess with the coconut cream and the dried egg noodles but she soon tidied it up.
At this point, she proclaimed that she was going to cook it on the real stove.
Real stove? A toddler can’t use the stove!
As you can see, I placed her on a chair next to the stove, turned it on (glowing red hot!) and told her that she needs to be very careful as it is hot and she must not touch the stove. She told me “yep” and held on to the pot handle like a natural and stirred carefully.
At this point in time I realised that I should document this momentous moment, took out my phone and started snapping away (with Mrs Child-Supervisor’s help, I might add as I did not want to have my hands occupied while I took the photos). Pot became piping hot, noodles and kelp were cooked to perfection and lunch was served.
The eating
Most of us struggle to get our kids to eat from time to time. But I have to say that this meal was not one of those occasions. I put the food into a bowl, gave her grownups chopsticks and away she went. At some point she gave up on the kelp but she managed all the noodles and a very good amount of the coconut broth.
Konnie proclaimed that this is henceforth her favourite food and she would like an egg in it the next time. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes!
The recipe
Ingredients
- 250ml water
- 1 tablespoon kelp/dried seaweed
- 10 tablespoons of coconut cream
- 60g dried egg noodles
- Half a stock cube (pick your favourite flavour!)
Equipments needed
- A toddler
- A responsible adult
- (Optional) A photographer
- A small pot (or is it a saucepan?)
- A stirring device (heat-proof whisk, wooden spoon, sturdy non-poisonous tree branch)
- Utensil for eating (chopsticks, spoon, forks)
- Two bowls, bowl A and bowl B
Cooking instructions
Toddler
- Cover seaweed/kelp with water in bowl A
- Place everything else into the pot, including the dried noodles
- Carefully bring the pot to the stove and place down gently
- Have the adult turn on the stove on. Low at first until everyone is comfortable before turning the heat up. Stir gently regularly.
- Once the pot reaches simmering point, add the rehydrated kelp and discard soaking liquid.
- Set the table! (Adult can turn the heat up safely at this point to bring the pot to the boil)
- Eat!
Responsible adult
- Talk to the toddler. It’s an amazing experience for both.
- Let your child do as much as possible even if it gets messy for as long as it’s safe
- You might need to open the tinned coconut cream (our toddler isn’t strong enough to do it yet and sharp edge is involved)
- Operate the stove and make sure access to the stove is safe
- Serve into bowl B once pot has come to the boil.
Once everyone feels confident, this can be made into a light or full meal for everyone by having more of everything. You can replace kelp with other vegetables, add spices such as curry and other ingredients such as eggs, chicken, fish sticks or even frankfurters.
Experiment, explore, enjoy.
Do you have any favourite recipes which you cook with your kids? Any ingredients you want to see us try? Please leave us a comment below!
Share your thoughts and feedback with us, we would love to hear from you!