Cooking with children

I recommend reading an article on the blog Simplemom about cooking with your children. It has given me the incentive to do it more often. I do bake with my kids on special occasions but shoo them away when ever heat is involved. At a minimum, I hope to release my children into the world with basic cooking skills. For my son I have planned (if he isn't really into cooking), to arm him with perhaps 5 basic recipes so that he can avoid take out in the single years. My top picks would be:

• Tomato and/ or meat sauce with pasta
  
• Mac and cheese
• Sheppard's pie
• Basic stir fry
• Roast chicken
  

If he loves to cook well then...that's a different story, but I think he can fare well in life with these 5. If he continues with his vegetarian tendencies 4 of the recipes can be adapted easily. The roast chicken can be replaced by marinated and roasted tofu. Or I can replace it with say...moussaka or a great vegetarian pate. As for my daughter well its too early to tell. If either one of them wanted to be a chef I would be ecstatic but I do not intend to push it on them. I hope to also teach them how to prepare vegetables properly so that they may always include and enjoy them as part of their meals.