Priyam’s Kitchen for Kids serves as a great resource for diverse and healthy recipes geared for kids, using locally available ingredients. Khun Priyam Sachdev, the site’s owner and mother of twin 6-year old boys and a girl, aged 15 months, says, “My journey of cooking started after I became a mother. I always belonged to a ‘foodie family’ and I became determined to find a way to pass on the love for food to my little ones, just in case it was not already hereditary.”
The featured recipes have been inspired from the internet, books and some of her family’s traditions — and all have been tried and tested in her own kitchen with her kids.
“Like every mother, I wanted to mold less fussy children so I started them on the same meal plan as the rest of the family from the very beginning of solids. All I do is, I modify some contents of an adult’s menu such as minimizing the bite size or skipping fresh chilies to adapt to little taste buds,” explains Priyam. “By adapting to the bite size as per your child requirement, you can prepare almost every dish on this site for children as young as one and a half years old.”
Priyam also offers custom cooking classes for children ages 4 to 13. She has been teaching cooking since 2015, on and off, to young kids and teenagers, including her twin boys who started helping out in the kitchen at the age of three.
She adds, “I also have a good sized hydroponic garden where my children and I grow Thai vegetables like morning glory, spinach, Chinese kale as well as all kinds of salad leaves and herbs like Italian basil. Other plants that grow in my garden, in soil, are pandan leaves, lemongrass, Chinese ginger, holy basil, mint leaves, curry leaves… no pesticides are used whatsoever.”
From her experience, Priyam noticed that children who are exposed to growing their own food are more open to trying and loving vegetables. And hence, she harbours a strong belief in encouraging children to grow their own food, to make healthy choices early on, and to be able to control what goes into their bodies.
Classes are available from Monday to Saturday, from 10am to 1pm; each class has a maximum of three students. They are tailored according to the age, availability of vegetables in the garden, and motor skills of the child (or children). Some of the dishes covered in Priyam’s cooking classes include:
1. Spaghetti bolognese
2. Penne pesto
3. Caesar salad with a home-made dressing
4. Pizza
5. Cupcakes
6. Muffins
7. Teriyaki prawns
8. Summer rolls
9. Baked spinach
10. Pineapple fried rice
The cost is 1,200 baht per child per class, including all ingredients and equipment. Students eat what they cook or pack the food to take home. The venue is 99/4 Grand Royal Nisachol, Kalapraprehuk Road, Bangkok (drive straight down from Sathorn).
“Being in my kitchen is like being in a culinary playground. We have our own pace of exploring the vegetables in the garden. We wash and clean the vegetables. We even make staples and the most basic things that most cooking lessons overlook – like how to clean and cook rice. We cook. We eat and then we clean up together. Nobody is rushed to finish their tasks.”
For more information, please visit Priyam’s Kitchen for Kids’ website, Facebook page, or IG page.
