I looooooovvvveee a good cooking show. Make it a competition cooking show with challenges and I'm usually hooked. Chopped...love it. Cutthroat Kitchen...Yes please! Master-Chef...I'm glued! And throw in Gordon Ramsay as the cherry on top.
But I have yet to see the ultimate cooking challenge.
Getting dinner on the table in 45-30 minutes with kids running around the house, one (or two 😉) who are in that especially clingy, leg-grabbing stage and won't leave you alone in the kitchen. BONUS points for doing it without drinking wine/beer, not using "adult words", then answering a phone call from your husband saying traffic is bad and you need to leave (mid cooking) to pick up the teen from ball practice, and answering rapid-fire questions from your 8-year-old who is in a current stage of asking really in-depth and specific questions.
Sheesh! I'm tired just writing that. But seriously...I'd watch that competition show!
While that paragraph above may seem like an exaggeration to grab your attention...most moms reading that probably nodded along in agreement or thought of their own bonus point options to throw in. Because, while that may not be the exact scenario every night, any (or all) of those can pop up on my "Cooking Roulette" wheel every time I make dinner. Throughout my almost 13 years of cooking with kids around I have picked up a few tricks along the way to survive our own personal "Hell's Kitchen."
So, I thought I'd share my list with you!
SEND THE KIDS OUT:
The one depends greatly on your own personal surroundings and weather. If the weather is tolerable for the age of kids and your area is safe enough...send them outside! Lock the door if you have to (which I have on occasion). Getting them outside is both good for them AND a blessing for you. You'd be amazing at how that 30-minute meal can come together in actually 30 minutes (or less) when the little buggers are not distracting you. If the weather is nice enough, I love to shoo my kiddos out the door with Rocky (our German Shepherd babysitter) while they play and wait for dinner. Or scream at the door for me to let them in.
Down to the basement is another option, but there may not be a door to lock and keep them from coming back up. This can have the same desired effect.
SCREENTIME:
Whenever I start to feel guilty about amount of screen time my kids have had, I try to focus on the purpose. I do that by asking myself "What did I accomplish because of the screens?" If you used screentime as a way to do something productive for your family, the house, or yourself...then no guilt should be felt! Pop in a movie, give them the iPad, let them play Roblox on their Chromebook and get shit done!
GIVE THEM A TASK:
Kids can help in the kitchen, and at surprisingly young ages. In this case, for this blog post I'm going to focus mainly on suggestions to keep them busy and out of your way. I will write another post on how we have tried to get our kids involved with cooking meals, specifically our Sunday dinners. For now, I'll stick with things that are helpful because they don't need your supervision and/or it keeps kids out of the way. So, this would be more for your younger kiddos. Big kiddos can do a lot more and be "out of your way" and actually helpful.
Let them "help" by doing a veerrryyy simple job. My favorite one is to take frozen breadsticks and place them on the baking sheet. There are usually 5 or 6 frozen breadsticks or knots or pieces of garlic toast. Kids as young as two or three can pull them out of the package and place them on the sheet. (Good way to practice counting too). They could make a triangle with three pieces, a square with four, the letter A or I or E... I don't worry too much about the kids touching the bread, it's gonna be blasted at 425 degrees and it's fine. One time I gave little 18-month-old Jackie a bunch of pepper halves and told her to move them from a baggie to a bowl. She spent a good chunk of time just moving the peppers from one to the other. It doesn't have to be a "real" job...just something to get them involved in the food-making process.
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| Jackie "helping" with peppers. |
As they get a little bigger but still like to get in the way good jobs could be...pulling grapes from the stems, cutting Velveeta cheese with a butter knife into squares, placing silverware and cups on the table for dinner, and stirring the spaghetti sauce (slowly...make sure to tell them to stir slowly!)
For my crawling/walking littles...the ones who like to hang on your legs and fuss the entire time, I like to give them a "food toy." Stick with me...it works. I get them pieces of food that won't hurt them and will keep them occupied. Dry spaghetti is a great one. My all-time favorite is the end chunk of a head of broccoli. That big, thick stick end that you don't cook up (well, maybe you do...but we don't). Toddlers LOVE to play with it and the chances of them biting off a chunk is pretty low.
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| Izzy playing with a piece of uncooked spaghetti. |
EMBRACE THE CHAOS
Sometimes it just comes down to throwing your hands up, pouring a glass of wine and dragging a sobbing baby on your leg around the kitchen while you get it done. I find I use those "blocking out" skills I learned in basketball over 25 years ago keeping my 16-month old twins from attacking the hot oven as I pull out the casserole. Man, if coach could see me now! Ha!
Pull all the Tupperware out of the cabinet? Cool.
Wanna bang some pans ln the floor? Sure.
Here....lick this.
Again I say...where is this challenge on a cooking show? I've got a set of twins I could loan you for a day or two for filming. And a sassy kindergartener, and a question-asking 8-year-old, and an 11-year-old who will walk through the kitchen wrapped in a huge blanket to give you a hug while you try to pan-fry chicken strips, and a busy almost-teenager who needs a ride just as your water boils. The possibilities are endless!
My last piece of advice. Know when it's time to just order pizza. :)
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