It’s Father’s Day and my wife says I am not allowed to cook. For some reason, she thinks this is work for me, so my nightly act of “ug, I guess I’ll go out to the porch and get dinner going” seems to be working. I’ve successfully made the porch, with it’s 36 inch TV with full cable, mini-refrigerator and grill seem like a BAD place to be. My Fatherly and manly duty each night is to prepare our meal over an open flame, whether or not I can find a good game to watch. Pure torture!
Well, today that impression my wife has of grilling has back-fired on me so I guess I am going to have to do some “back seat grilling”. One way I am planning on getting around her not letting me grill is to get my son involved. If he’s helping, seems like a pretty good bonding experience for Father’s Day, right? The truth is, my little man is a great first mate around the grill. He’s only 4 so I don’t let him get close enough to burn himself, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help. So today I wanted to give you a couple of quick ideas to kids the kids involved in the grilling for this Father’s Day cookout.
- Have them play Firefighter. We all know to be vigilant when grilling certain meats that are more fatty than others. Some grilled chicken recipes flare up quite a bit, grilled chicken wings is a good example. Have the kids stand on a stool at a SAFE DISTANCE away from the grill. Give him or her the squirt bottle, or even let them use a squirt gun with some fresh water. When the flare-ups occur, they can squirt them down!
- Have them build their own pizzas. I don’t think I have ever met a child that didn’t like pizza. Everyone wants their own toppings on a pizza, so why not have the kids make their own? All you have to do is man the grill like normal and they add the toppings. If you don’t have a Villaware pizza grill that’s ok, just grill your pizza right on the grate. You can’t even get fancy and make a gourmet pizza on the grill for the adults.
- Help with the appetizers and sides. As we all know, a good grilling meal needs a great supporting cast. There are even more ways to get the kids involved in creating these side dishes to go along with your favorite grill recipes. For example, have them mix all of the topping ingredients together for bruschetta while you toast the bread on the grill. Kids love to mix stuff together, so just put all of the ingredients in separate bowls and have the kid combine them in a larger bowl and mix. Coleslaw is another example of a side dish they can help prepare by mixing together the ingredients.
So there are 3 quick examples to get the kids involved in grilling. If you are like me and you’d rather just cook this Father’s Day, say you need the bonding time with the kids. Make sure you make it sound really painful though so you can continue to “escape” to the porch in the evenings to do your “job”. Happy Father’s Day!
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