Kitchen Confidence

Cooking and baking are definitely not my areas of expertise, but they provide such fantastic learning opportunities for the kids that I am really trying to master-- or at least modestly improve-- these skills. I also think the more confident I become in cooking, the better I will be at using this daily task as a homeschooling tool.

Prior to motherhood, when I was teaching businesspeople how to effectively delegate and lead teams, it was usually the new managers who had the most difficulty in this area because they were the least experienced and confident. Once they gained leadership skills, they were able to improve their team's impact and efficiency. I hope the same is true for me and cooking. For now, I'll plug away in the kitchen and involve the kids as much as possible, while trying to keep the house from burning down.

So for this week's homeschool playgroup, I discovered a yummy granola bar snack recipe on a great website, called Super Healthy Kids. What I like about this recipe is that it is very straightforward and relatively nutritious -- and doesn't have lots of fancy (at least for me) ingredients like flaxseed and wheat germ which, truthfully, I don't stock in my pantry on a regular basis.

I also like that this recipe is good for little hands who value any opportunity to pound a mixture into a baking pan. And really, who doesn't love to lick a spoonful of honey?