Kitchen Classroom 2021: Week 21

Welcome to week 21 of Kitchen Classroom 2021, where America’s Test Kitchen Kids is sharing a weekly kid-tested and kid-approved recipe, hands-on experiment, or activity paired with a Learning Moment that brings learning to life in the kitchen. 

In this week’s edition of Kitchen Classroom, Kids Cook Breakfast! Kids will whip up a batch of fluffy scrambled eggs mixed with scallions and bacon to make Breakfast Tacos with Bacon, and top them with cheese, salsa, and anything else they’d like. Kids will practice multiplication (or addition) to scale this recipe up to serve the whole family, and then play a game featuring the parts of speech in Take It Further.

Don’t forget to share what your family makes by tagging @testkitchenkids or using #ATKkids on Instagram, or by sending photos to kids@americastestkitchen.com. Visit the America’s Test Kitchen Kids website for more culinary content designed especially for kids. 

Here’s what’s cooking for the week of May 24th through May 31st, 2021.

These tacos are a tasty and filling way to start the day. Kids will mix scrambled eggs with bacon and scallions for their taco filling, and can top them with melty Monterey Jack cheese, salsa, and a squeeze of lime. The recipe makes four tacos, but kids can practice using multiplication or addition to scale the recipe up if needed to serve the right number of tacos for your family (see the Learning Moment, below). Before cooking, have kids set up a taco bar of toppings (adding any of your family’s favorites, such as chopped avocado or hot sauce) for diners to choose from so everyone can add exactly what they’d like.
[GET THE RECIPE]

What You’ll Need
4 large eggs
⅛ teaspoon salt
Pinch pepper
1 slice bacon
1 scallion, sliced thin
4 (6-inch) flour or corn tortillas
½ cup tomato salsa (jarred or homemade)
¼ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 lime, cut into wedges

Learning Moment
Math (Multiplication, Addition):
This recipe makes 4 breakfast tacos. Before your young chef starts cooking, tell them that they might need to scale this recipe up to feed everyone in the family. Remind kids that if you scale a recipe up, you will increase the amount of ingredients in the recipe to make more food. Challenge your young chef to scale this recipe up using addition or multiplication in the word problems below. Then, find out how many tacos everyone wants to eat and scale the recipe for your family. Remind kids that the rule for multiplying any number by 1 is that the number remains the same. Ask kids:

• Imagine that there are 4 people eating tacos, and every person wants 2 tacos. How many tacos do you need to make? How many eggs do you need to use? How many slices of bacon? How much salsa do you need?
  (Answer: 4 people x 2 tacos each = 8 tacos, or 2 batches of this recipe; 4 eggs x 2 = 8 eggs (or 4 + 4); 1 slice of bacon x 2 = 2 slices of bacon (or 1 + 1); ½ cup salsa x 2 = 1 cup salsa (or ½ + ½))

• Imagine that there are 8 people eating tacos, and every person wants 2 tacos. How many tacos do you need to make? How many eggs do you need to use? How many slices of bacon? How much salsa do you need?
  (Answer: 8 people x 2 tacos each = 16 tacos, or 4 batches of this recipe; ; 4 eggs x 4 = 16 eggs (or 4 + 4 + 4 + 4); 1 slice of bacon x 4 = 4 slices of bacon (or 1 + 1 + 1 + 1); ½ cup salsa x 4 = 2 cups salsa (or ½ + ½ + ½ + ½))

How many tacos does each person in your family want to eat for breakfast? Add those numbers together to get your total number of tacos, then decide how many batches of this recipe you’ll need to make. Multiply all of the ingredients in the recipe by that number, and you’ll have just the right amounts. If you are increasing the recipe, use a 12-inch nonstick skillet instead of a 10-inch nonstick skillet so the larger number of bacon and eggs will fit (you can cook them all together, rather than in smaller batches back-to-back).

Take It Further
Language Arts (Parts of Speech):
As everyone eats their tacos, do a quick refresher with your young chef on parts of speech. Ask them to define verbs, nouns, and adjectives:

Verb: A word (such as jump, eat, or chop) used to describe an action
Noun: A word (such as sibling, cafe, or sandwich) for a person, place, or thing
Adjective: A word (such as sparkly, crispy, or tall) that describes a noun

Then, ask young chefs: Which actions did you use while making, serving, or eating these tacos? Challenge family members to go around the table and list as many verbs as they can that relate to cooking or eating tacos. Then do the same with nouns and adjectives that relate. Set a timer to amp up excitement! Here are some words to get you started:

Verbs: Whisk, stir, shred, chew
Nouns: Pan, spatula, bowl, eggs, bacon, plates, silverware
Adjectives: Melty cheese; Salty bacon; Warm tortillas

Catching up on Kitchen Classroom? Find previous weeks using the links below:

• Kitchen Classroom 2021
• Kitchen Classroom 2020