Busy, busy morning.
We are starting off this morning right
here in the Charlie Wilson KitchenAid
kitchen to check out some fun and easy
recipes that you can cook up with the kids.
And joining us in the kitchen is Chef
Brandy Alexander to show us how it's done.
Because right, we start them ea,
they're going to have a lifelong
tool in their in their tool kit,
I tell people everyone should kw
how to feed themselves, and kide
capable of so much more than we think.
When I taught elementary school,
I would have 30 students making homemade
lasagna, The classroom so good.
We don't want them to.
Like we don't do everything for them.
We want to see the joy in it.
Yes, and like I said, they're capable
of so much more than you think.
One thing I like to start with,
which I think a lot of parents are afraid of,
is knife safety.
Oh yes, please.
So even as soon as my children
are 18 months old,
I start giving them plastic
knives to cut things with.
My daughter's 2 1/2 and she uses real metal
butter knives to cut things like bananas,
stuff like that.
And then my 9 year old get over
here is actually already using y
Damascus stainless steel knives.
Now, yeah, he's graduated from these,
but you can get these online.
They're cut proof knives.
So if you're worried about your head,
you know, cutting themselves,
they can't cut through it.
OK. And obviously, you know,
supervise them at the beginning,
You know, until they learn how ,
you don't want to keep them away from
everything. This is how you use.
This is how you use it. Well, y.
Yes. Right.
So when you're getting your
kids to start cooking,
I think it's really important
to pick a simple recipe that.
That they love, you know,
don't worry about the vegetables and things.
You know, for the very first re,
something as simple as,
you know, peanut butter cookies.
Who doesn't love a cookie? Exac.
Cookies. How do I make it mysel?
They have to be able to see the product,
taste the product and enjoy it and see,
oh, look what I can do.
Look what I can make.
This is a super simple cookie recipe.
It literally has three ingredie.
We have a cup of peanut butter,
a cup of sugar and one egg. That's it.
Bake them in for 10 minutes.
My son came home from school yesterday.
He's nine years old.
And I said, Colt, I'm so busy,
I need you to make peanut butter cookies.
And off into the kitchen he went
and he made all these cookies.
He said, can I add chocolate chips to some?
I said sure.
So I didn't touch these cookies.
I was going to borrow them in my house too,
right?
Yeah, sure.
And you know he's,
he's brave enough to experiment.
Now he said I'm going to take some of this
and I'm going to add banana
to it and see what it does.
And he smashed up a banana.
It does not work in this recipe.
Do not use banana.
But you know, he was brave enouh
to try something new, right?
I think sometimes we're worried,
oh, they're going to make a mes.
They're going to do this.
It's just having the patience to stop.
Let them make the mess.
I make messes when I cook.
Let them make the mess. And the.
We've got another simple, easy recipe.
They'll all up.
This is watermelon pizza.
This is also, you know,
much healthier than the cookies for the base.
Well, we've sliced watermelon,
you know, into thin slices for the base.
All I've done is mix together a
container of vanilla bean yogurt
and a container of Cool Whip.
You can make your own whipped
cream if you like,
and then you mix that all
together to put on the top.
Yes, one container of the yogur.
One container of Cool Whip.
And then spread that on the top.
They can get creative, you know,
and make their own little desig.
I love how you have the little
dishes out with, you know,
I'm building my own little,
building my own watermelon pizz.
It's that they get ownership,
They get to make it look like they want,
they get to make it taste like they want,
and then they've got their own
little pizza there that look at that.
A nice healthy snack compared
to the cookies are good though.
The cookies are delicious.
And, you know, you can get sugarfree yogurt,
you can get sugarfree Cool Whip,
you can make your own whipped c.
The base is super simple, but it's light.
It's great for summertime.
You can even freeze these and make like
little little popsicles out of .
Yeah, so many different ways.
How old were you when you started cooking?
When I was probably two or thre,
I started making Christmas
cookies with my grandmother.
She owned a restaurant before I was born.
So you know, she cooked a lot.
So I started baking with my
grandmother when I was very you.
My mom started teaching me things, you know,
when I was probably 5-6, you kn,
biscuits and gravy, stuff like .
And on this video right now, this is my chef.
Like, he loves to cook.
He wants to be a chef when he grows up.
He's got a pretty good teacher Brandy.
It really, really does.
What is he making?
Here?
We are actually making homemade
strawberry preserves right ther.
And that recipe is also on my
Instagram and it's a freezer ja.
It's super simple.
You don't have to do any caning with it.
Don't you think too, even though
they're not doing the whole thi,
he's seeing you kind of make
go through the different steps.
They absorb something.
Yes.
And if you do,
you know,
complicate 5050 with them
the first time they
do it, the second time they can do 90% of it
and eventually they can do it on their own,
like cult going and making its own cookies,
right. I'm just thinking too,
it's strawberry season too.
So I'm thinking of like all
these strawberry recipes.
That's why we did that.
Oh, I love that.
Definitely, definitely love tha.
So I just, it's it's like every.
Professional chef,
TV chef that you talk to,
They all have memories,
like you of cooking with their
parents when they were little.
So you just never know what
you're able to teach them.
So maybe when they go off to college,
God willing, right,
they're able to cook and like to help.
And you know, they don't all have to be
a chef when they grow up and they all
need to know how to feed themse.
Right. Beyond ramen.
Yes, beyond ramen.
All right.
Because stay with us because coming up,
we tease a little bit.
We know these are fun from the cookies.
To the pizza.
But we're going to talk about he
can get kids to eat some health,
get some of those vegetables in there.
Right now is the season.
Hey,
if you want to reach out to Bra,
all you have to do is go to Southern Dash,
Flare dot.