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Cooking can be a great distraction in these trying times.
Apart from keeping the kids busy after school, it’s a great way to ease pressure on busy parents as cooking hopefully becomes something fun instead of another a chore to slog through on your own.
In this extract from her new cookbook, celebrity chef Siba Mtongana offers some clever ideas for how you can get children of all ages involved in the kitchen, making tasty meals the whole family will want to eat.
Cheat pizza
This is a cheat pizza because it’s cooked on top of the stove instead of in the oven, plus it uses a tortilla wrap as a base instead of pizza dough – cutting down the cooking time to under 5 minutes! I hope you enjoy making this easy sibalicious pizza.
Cheat pizza
The chocciest chocolate crêpes
When making crêpes, I like to use at least two pans to speed up the cooking process. Make sure to watch and control the heat as you cook the crêpes, but they are best made over low-to-medium heat.
The almond milk is interchangeable with coconut milk – or dairy milk for those who are not lactose intolerant.
Savoury french toast
Add a little more sugar to sweeten it further, if you like. You can also serve the french toast with ice cream and berries or any fruit of your choice instead of bacon.
Crumbed chicken sliders
A family favourite with the kids, this is a great recipe for parents and kids to make together as it involves a few steps and techniques that they can learn from, including kitchen hygiene when it comes to chicken in general. But parents or guardians, be sure to help with the cutting of the chicken and cooking, particularly if the kids are not old enough to use a knife or handle hot pots. And don’t forget to have fun!
Cheat spaghetti and meatballs
This dish is jam-packed with wholesome goodness, but even my most difficult customer, baby Ntando aka “our baby”, loves this and it’s one of her fave meals. My “squad” also love rolling the meatballs (to which I have added lots of veggies) into shape and helping me with them. I mix the spaghetti with baby marrow “spaghetti” to up the veggie content of these spaghetti meals in the most detectable way.
Raspberry yoghurt popsicle
These popsicles have come in handy so many times as a midday snack in my home. They are so easy to prepare and require only a handful of ingredients. In fact, the kids can make these themselves with very little supervision.
THIS IS AN EDITED EXTRACT FROM LET’S COOK BY SIBA MTONGANA. PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE. RETAIL PRICE: R314. PRICE CORRECT AT THE TIME OF GOING TO PRINT AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
