5 delicious recipes to make at home with the kids

With lockdown stretching on for months, you might find you’re increasingly being met with grumpy looks from your kids when you answer the question “what’s for dinner tonight?”

The good news is, there’s a way you can keep the littlies entertained and satisfy their growing appetites: cook with them! Getting the kids involved in the kitchen is not only a great bonding activity, but it can help teach them some valuable life skills. Plus, it means you get an extra set (or a few!) of hands in the kitchen to help with the cooking.

Read on for 5 simple, fun and delicious recipes to make at home with the kids.

1. Mini pizzas

Everyone loves pizza!

Mini pizzas are a great idea because everyone can have one of their own. Plus, they’re fun and easy to prepare, and you can make them as healthy (or indulgent) as you like.

Use a round cutter to cut some pizza bases or Lebanese bread into mini pizzas (or, if you feel like getting fancy, you can make the dough from scratch). Then, spread tomato paste or pizza sauce all over the bases, sprinkle some mozzarella cheese and get the kids to mix and match their favourite toppings.

Some great, kid-friendly topping ideas include ham, pineapple, salami, mushroom, feta, sausage, shredded chicken and spinach. Bake them in the oven for 8-10 minutes and you’ve got yourself a delicious lunch or dinner.

Mini Pizza

2. Ice-cream sandwiches

What’s the only thing better than cookies and ice cream? Combining the two.

Making your own ice cream sandwiches is a great way to adapt this summer treat for the cooler months. Plus, it’s extremely versatile, as you can use pretty much any combination of biscuits — whether it’s chocolate cookies with vanilla ice-cream, shortbread with peppermint or wafers with Neapolitan.

You just grab a cookie, scoop the ice-cream onto it and press another cookie on top to make the sandwich. The kids will love getting to squish the cookies together (just make sure they press gently so that it doesn’t go everywhere!) Then, you can enjoy them immediately or freeze for up to 3 months for an anytime treat.

Ice-cream sandwiches

3. Bento boxes

This Japanese-inspired meal is a fun way to get the kids excited about eating healthier foods. This is a divided lunchbox, normally filled with a mix of staples like rice, meat and assorted veggies. But, you can put your own spin on it by adding things like sandwich twists, colourful fruit, cut up veggies and cheese cubes.

While bento boxes are typically used for a convenient, on-the-go lunch, they’re also a great way to keep peckish kids satiated throughout their day at home. You can prep them with the kids in the morning and when they go looking for a snack, they’ll know where to find their bento box in the fridge.

Bento Boxes

4. Rainbow blondies

There’s no doubt that brownies are a classic. But for a fun and colourful treat to bake with the kids, why not shake it up with some rainbow blondies? This delicious dessert combines a buttery vanilla base with gooey white chocolate and chewy, colourful bits.

Grab a white chocolate fudge baking mix at your local supermarket, or make your own with sugar, vanilla, flour, eggs and white chocolate. Get the kids involved mixing in some chocolates like M&Ms or rainbow sprinkles into the mix. For a tie-dyed effect, you can also grab some different coloured food dyes and pour them into different sections in the pan. Bake for around 30 minutes and voila, you’re ready to bite the rainbow.

Blondie Brownies

5. Fajitas

Here’s a Mexican dish that even the fussiest of eaters will love.

Fajitas are great because everyone gets to pick their own toppings and roll their own wraps. They’re also great for younger kids, as the wraps are normally smaller than burritos.

Thinly sliced chicken breasts or thighs are usually the key ingredient in this dish, marinated in Mexican spices like paprika and cumin and cooked in a pan. While you prepare the meat, you can put the kids in charge of putting all the toppings in bowls, like sour cream, guacamole and chopped tomato and capsicum. Heat up some small wraps in the microwave or on a pan and it’s time to serve up this sizzling lunch or dinner dish.