I woke up this morning made myself a cup of tea and enjoyed a nice banana muffin, which I made with the girls last night. In an attempt to make my life easier I now do weekly meal plans for my family. On Sundays I sit down and make a plan for dinner for each night of the week. I try to have some sort of format and Saturday night are fun dinner nights. This means we make dinner together. It may not always be our healthiest meal of the day, and is usually is our messiest, but it is also the most fun.
Last night was pizza night – a very easy dinner to make with the kids. We make dough in the breadmaker but you can usually find dough in any grocery store. Yesterday was a bit of an adventure as our breadmaker stopped working but Gramma came to the rescue and made a batch for us in her breadmaker. Another easy tip is to get pizza sauce in the easy squeeze bottle – it is very kid friendly. I just keep filling it up with the cheaper canned variety. The best thing about pizza is that everyone can put on their favourite toppings.
Now back to those banana muffins. We had a bunch of bananas that were getting a bit old so we did what any person would do – we made muffins. I pulled out Kaitlyn’s Kids Do Snacks cookbook, and found a recipe for “Fanana of Banana Muffins”. This is a great cookbook for kids that gives them clearly laid out steps. My kids are still a bit young to follow the steps themselves so this is a great activity we do together.
The most important thing when baking and cooking with kids is to go with the flow. It sometimes is difficult to do but don’t worry about the messes. At one point Eileen poured half a tsp of baking powder all over herself – I just simply brushed her off and game her another tsp.
I am always looking for new hands on dinner ideas with the kids – if anyone has any suggestions please add them in the comments.
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