Nutrition

Cooking with Children: How to Make “Stone Soup”

Children as young as 2- or 3-years old are capable of helping with cooking. Involving children with meal preparation teaches them real-life skills and helps them feel capable and confident.

This week on Sunday with Sarah I demonstrate how I made Stone Soup (vegetable soup) with the children in my kindergarten class.

Though I never use a recipe, here are the general instructions:

Chop an apple and an onion. Peel and crush 2-4 cloves of garlic. Sauté the apples, onions and garlic in olive oil and about a tablespoon of butter.
Add 2-3 bouillon cubes, or 2-3 T. of bouillon paste (I like Better Than Bouillon) to the sauteed mixture.
Add 2-3 quarts of water and put a clean, washed stone in the pot, and let simmer.
Have children help you chop whatever vegetables you have on hand. Veggies can include potatoes, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, broccoli, celery, zucchini, kale, spinach, or virtually any other type of fresh vegetable.
Have children help add chopped vegetables to pot.
Add a cup of barley or rice that has been rinsed and soaked overnight, or pasta in fun shapes.
Let simmer for an hour.
Enjoy! (Makes a full pot that will feed a family, with enough for leftovers.)

Items demonstrated in this video:

Find them all under our Cooking category at Bella Luna Toys.

Click here to read the Stone Soup story.

Bon appétit!

If you decide to make Stone Soup with your children, let me know how it turns out! In what other ways to you involve your child/ren in the kitchen? What cooking tasks have they helped you with? Share your thoughts, comments and questions here!

May 4, 2014 by Sarah Baldwin

Nutrition, Parenting, Sunday With Sarah, Toddlers

How to Handle Picky Eaters

This week on Sunday With Sarah, I answer a viewer’s question, and share some ideas on how to encourage healthy eating and to discourage picky eating by children and toddlers.

In addition to the ideas discussed in the video, here are some other ideas:

Do not bribe children to eat!

Why? It doesn’t work in the long run. Children will do what you ask only to get the reward. When the reward is no longer offered, they lose their motivation. We want healthy eating to become a habit.

Here’s an article from the New York Times on why bribery isn’t an effective way of modifying a child’s behavior.

Never offer dessert as a reward.

This gives children the message that sweets are more desirable than more nutritious foods, and that more savory foods are only to be endured in order to get the dessert.

Serve healthy desserts.

Try offering desserts such as yogurt, fruit, baked goods with whole grains, or applesauce, and limit desserts to only a couple of evenings a week.

If your child dislikes vegetables, try serving more fruit.

If your child turns up his or her nose at certain vegetables, try offering a wider variety of fruits instead. Colorful fruits offer most of the same vitamins and nutrition as vegetables.

Try saying “Are you still hungry?” rather than “Are you full?.”

If you are trying to encourage a picky eater to eat more, this can change a child’s mindset. If s/he is still hungry, offer more of the food choices s/he likes.

Have you found effective ways to encourage a picky eater to eat more? Please share your successes and challenges here!

March 24, 2013 by Sarah Baldwin

Cooking with Children: How to Make “Stone Soup”

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