Cooking with Kids

Kids in the kitchen creates confidence! 

One of my favorite things to do with Alexandra is get in the kitchen and cook, bake, and let her be creative. I think in order to have kids be interested in anything you gotta start ‘em young. Since cooking is such a big part of my life, I would love it if Alexandra is as into it as I am when she gets older. By the looks of things I think she just might be. We started baking together when she was as young as three and now at six years old she has an incredible amount of confidence in the kitchen. That confidence also translates into other areas of her life, which I really love to see. Not only is it a great bonding time between us but it also helps her develop strong life skills that will help her in the real world. It’s also a great way to teach her about our family’s heritage through recipes. Whether it be my Greek side of the family or her dad’s Italian and Romanian side, there’s always a bit of a history lesson that goes along with the food. As I am writing this, I am also realizing that this is one of the reasons that I love cooking so much too. Some of our favorite recipes that we have made together are Koulourakia, which she calls Yia Yia cookies because Yia Yia means grandma in Greek, and I used to make them with my mom growing up. Guacamole because she loves to pick the avocados off the trees in our backyard and get creative with the flavors. Mediterranean chickpea salad, which is just a bit of a “dump” recipe, but is super tasty and good for you. We also make stuffed tomatoes, which is another one of my mom's specialties, extremely yummy creamy and super easy rice pudding, pancakes which we make every single Sunday, and of course my “world famous” spanakopita.

*Fun fact: Alexandra’s first solid food was spanakopita. Changing that diaper was no fun haha. You can find a lot of these recipes that I just mentioned on my blog and in my cookbook.