Get Kids Cooking: Let Them Create a Cookbook

My daughter has loved corn on the cob since her new top teeth met her very young bottom teeth. Still, if you'd had told me that that at age eight she would love to prepare and eat and a cold corn and bail salad with scallions and red wine vinegar no less, I would have been skeptical. I can take no credit for this blessing, other than enrolling in her a culinary kid's camp. Daily she came home with delightful leftovers and big smile.

At the end of the week though she came home with the crown jewel- a laminated copy of a cookbook with recipes she'd tried and liked, complete a photo of her donning a chef's hat and stirring away in a large blue mixing bowl. Through out the week we had enjoyed her homemade lasagna rolls, chocolate chip cookies, chives and red potato smash, banana muffins and then of course, the corn and basil salad. The only thing we enjoyed more than her tasty contributions to our meals was her incredible enthusiasm for cooking. While the extra frozen slice and bake chocolate chip cookie dough was an incredible gift, we quickly learned that what really sealed the deal for our daughter to initiate cooking was the hand made cookbook. It was all about ownership. This was Her cookbook and therefore, she was excited to cook Her own dishes.