Cooking With Kids: Cornbread
Practice your mountain pose, mama.
That’s right, you! Stand with your feet hip width apart, straighten your back, arms at your sides with palms forward, and fingers spread. Stand with your feet planted firmly and connected to the Earth (extra points if you are barefoot and on a mountain). Breath slowly and steadily and remember you have what you need for today.
This strengthening and mindful activity is one of many filling the pages of our Mountain Guide. Not only can our children participate, but we can too! This is one of the reasons I love these resources so much!
My boys are still young and easily jump into these sweet yoga role plays. We often let them choose from being a bear, a mountain, a tree, or some other amazing pose we have learned together. After our mindfulness and affirmations, we hit the trail for a hike….but my boys get hungry fast! Here is a little trick for not only doing some “school”, but sneaking it in without anyone noticing: bake the cooking activity the night before and bring it and one of the picture books from your lessons on your hike!
If you are using the Mountain Guide, your kids will get the chance to make Swiss Zopf bread, Pan Chuta, and more! We enjoyed preparing corn bread with a special twist for our nature walk recently.
Gather up your ingredients:
1/2c cornmeal
1 1/2 c gluten free flour (we used our flour of choice)
1/4 c honey
1T baking powder
1t salt
1/3c oil
3T butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 c milk
My 7 year old loves to practice measurements. While he cannot yet read them all, and we have not formally introduced much with fractions, he is quickly learning to read them just because we keep him in the kitchen so often! Just another reason to have your littles in the kitchen regularly. Learning by doing is one of the best ways for learning to stay with our children forever.
If your student is older, they can practice reading the recipe themselves and executing the entire thing more independently. In my case, I have three younger helpers, so I stay heartily involved. My 7 year old turns on our oven (to 375 F in this case) and then we begin. I typically prep a little by laying out our ingredients and utensils, bowls, etc. on our counter.
My three year old loves to grease our pans. He gets the oil in his hands and smears it all over the pan to grease it while my five year old helps count the eggs and cracks them into the bowl. All the wet ingredients are measured and poured, then mixed in with the dry ingredients by three eager beavers. For an added twist and kick, my boys like to replace the honey with 1/8c jalapeño juice and 1/8c shredded cheddar cheese. They each love to top our cornbread with slice pickled jalapeños and some cheese. The last steps are pouring and placing in a hot oven. All three of my boys enjoy pouring, so we just rotate - good thing we bake together often!
After 15 minutes in the oven, the cornbread is ready!
Packing this bread is so simple. We pre-cut it and wrap it in some wax wrap or foil. Toss in your pack with Nuptse and Lhotse Go to the Rockies and you’re ready for a fun day of lessons, nature, and memories!
You can get the complete Mountain Guide here. We’d love to see your children in the kitchen and out in nature, use the hashtags #thepeacefulpress and #thepeacefulpreschool so our community of learners can be inspired!
Guest post by Sarah Ruth Owens.
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