Cooking with kids doesn’t always have to turn out the way you’d expect. Half of the fun is in the experimentation. They will learn from it and have fun spending time in the kitchen. I think this is one of the grossest things we have made, but the kids disagree.

We were traveling through an area that had a lot of orange trees that were free for picking. We braved the prickly plants on the ground and the mosquitoes attacking by air to get to the fruit.

The kids had watched the movie, Paddington, and kept talking about marmalade…but using his accent they called it mom-a-lade. When I told them we could try to make some, they were ecstatic.

We found a recipe online, that was our first mistake. It turned out so bad and bitter, but kids will usually like food if they are the ones to cook it, and that was the case yet again. They liked it and have since forgotten that it was a little bitter. Their memories of “momalade” being so delicious is what keeps them asking to make it again years later.