Some Tips from Guest Blogger, Barbara Beery

Hi y’all! I’m Barbara Beery and I run a cooking school in Austin, Texas called the Batter Up Kids Culinary Center – I wanted to inspire young children everywhere to learn to love cooking but also learn how to cook easy, healthy meals for themselves. I’ve also written a few cook books, most recently the Green Princess Cookbook, designed to inspire children how to cook using homegrown foods, organic produce, and other earth-friendly materials.

I’m particularly excited about partnering with Step2 this holiday season to get parents and kids in the kitchen cooking together. Make sure you check out my Step2 Little Helper’s Cheese Manicotti recipe. And check out these extra cooking tips to make it even more interactive.

Barbara’s Kid-friendly Cooking Tips, Tricks and Tools
1. Encourage young chefs to get actively involved in almost every step of this recipe with the help of some kid-friendly kitchen tools. Lettuce knives are the perfect tool for young chefs because they easily cut through veggies with no possible way of cutting their little fingers. We call these “safety knives” and have had kids successfully (and safely) use them for years in our cooking classes.

2. Equally as safe for chopping is a manual food chopper with veggies chopped inside a totally enclosed container.

3. Kids love string cheese and they love pasta. Encouraging a child to “stuff” a piece of string cheese into a cooked pasta shell is simply irresistible. It’s also a great way to help improve a toddler’s hand–to eye coordination. You may want to buy a little extra string cheese to allow for some healthy snaking while kids are preparing this savory dish!

4. Try to use a whole wheat manicotti if that option is available in your market. You get the added bonus of great nutty- flavored pasta with more nutritional value.

5. Include a large leafy salad for a complete healthy meal, the whole family will enjoy.