Easy holidays in the kitchen with your little ones

Easy holidays in the kitchen with your little ones

Filling those long school holiday hours at home with the kids can seem a little daunting. Sometimes, all you want to do is make yourself a coffee and hunker down. We’ve come up with five easy ways to keep the kids happy, entertained and fed these school holidays and who knows, you might just be tempted to join in the fun yourself.

 

1. Create a culinary masterpiece

A bowl of yogurt is a pretty good go-to for a snack at any time of day, so how about making an activity out of snack-time. Kids love yogurt and they love creating. Let them come up with their own ideas for fashioning their own masterpiece using what you have on hand in the pantry.
Some options to get you started:

  • 100s and 1000’s (a timeless treat no matter what generation you’re in)
  • Toasted coconut
  • Fresh, in season or tinned fruit
  • Drizzles of honey, maple syrup or golden syrup
  • Roasted nuts
  • Granola, or toasted oats
  • Popcorn, caramel coated for some extra fun
  • Crushed up biscuits

Get the kids thinking ‘outside the bowl’ too – yogurt can be fun in a teacup, on a plate …


2. Challenge the kids to a recipe a day

From naan bread to cookies, pizza bases and cakes to soups and drinks, cooking with yogurt offers plenty of variety. Let them choose from savoury and protein-based options through to decadent desserts, or challenge the kids to create a new treat of their own.

  • Smoothies for breakfast
  • Cookies for morning tea
  • Pizza for lunch
  • Cheesy-mite scrolls for an afternoon pick-me-up
  • Dip to go with snacks for a movie afternoon
  • Tandoori chicken for dinner
  • Cake or ice-cream for dessert

Can you convince them to make an ‘on-the-run’ breakfast bowl for Mum or Dad?
We’ve got plenty of easy recipe ideas here.


3. Frozen fun

Who doesn’t love frozen yogurt? There are so many ways to turn fresh homemade yogurt into delicious frozen treats, which are a great way to increase the dairy in your child’s diet.
Our frozen yogurt recipes are so popular we’ve created a tab on our website dedicated to them! It’s hard to go past the stripy breakfast popsicles and the frozen yogurt bites, which the kids will love creating.

 

4. Messy, sensory fun

Do you have younger children who love to get messy? Here’s a way they can get right into it.
Grab a container, some yogurt, some food colouring and a clean paintbrush or any other safe kitchen utensils and let your wee one’s imaginations run wild. Are they painting a masterpiece? Building a yogurt cave?

 

5. Hold a kids’ yogurt party

Got a special occasion coming up or a houseful of energetic children? How about extending an invitation to a mini-party for your littlies and their friends. Let your children come up with the challenges – it might be designing the most colourful, the healthiest, the messiest, or the biggest yogurt creation they can!

Accessorising can provide some inspiration too. There are so many varieties of jars, spoons and decorations around now for tiny budgets, it’s easy to create a theme and get amongst it.