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We asked some of our Mummypages Mums to try the online course and cook and play with their kids.  Read what they thought below x

Laura Erskine, - mum-in-residence for MummyPages.ie and her two mini chefs James (7) and Lucy (5).
My two little chefs James and Lucy are really enjoying the Ben's Beginners online course. As a busy parent I am guilty of cooking the same family favourite meals as I know they will be eaten. Trying new recipes is always a little nerve wracking and can ultimately be frustrating if the finished product is not enjoyed by my children, or worse still not eaten at all. However with the Ben's Beginners online cookery course there is little left to chance! Instead I have two very enthusiastic mini chefs in the kitchen who are only too delighted to taste the food they have prepared (with a little help from mum).
I have found it really challenging to get my children to try new food flavours and textures but with the Ben's Beginners recipes their developing palates have been catered for while exposing them to new foods too. I am not a great cook myself however even those lacking confidence can easily follow the recipes on the site. We open the site on our family tablet, open the recipe page and pick our meals for the week! We can then easily prop the tablet up and follow the instructions when working on the recipe together.
The cooking basics are tackled in each course category and tailored appropriately for the relevant age groups. My little girl has less dexterity than her big brother so her skills are being developed at her level while James can move on to more advanced cookery skills. I'm really happy to be able to give them this life skill from such an early age and hopefully a love for healthy food too. The Ben's Beginners course fuels their imaginations and sense of exploration so much so that they are now happily trying vegetables that they would have turned their nose up at before. So far our favourite recipe is the Nasi Goreng dish where Lucy loves eating the prawns while James enjoys chopping the peppers using the clever food hack idea of metal shape cutters.
Very often us parents make the excuse that we don't have time to cook with our children, but with Ben's Beginners you're not only ticking the box on the dinnertime chore but you're spending quality, fun time with your kids too. The reward charts and interactive games really add to the whole experience, pity there isn't a reward task for doing the washing up!

Ben’s Beginners online course is fabulous! It couldn’t be easier to follow, with very child friendly graphics and instructions. I have a fussy six year old and a ‘will eat anything you give them’ three year old, so cooking at home can be difficult. We tried out the Creamy Vegetable Soup recently, and it went down a treat with the whole family! Following the online video was great fun and a real bonding exercise with my girls. Each have different capabilities, so the tricks & tips like cutting the celery, rather than chopping with a sharp knife, was great. We all know it’s much quicker (and tidier) to cook dinner on your own, but the kids loved all the weighing and measuring, and being Mummy’s little helper, something I had underestimated.
Like most parents, I try and hide vegetables in their food and sauces where possible, but this exercise was actually good for them to see what is going into their meal and what they are all called (or look like). The end result was two happy girls with two empty bowls, delighted with themselves in making their own soup!

I think the site is very impressive, the vibrant colours of the recipes made them really inviting for kids. I loved both the recipes and the downloadable activities/reward tools.
It was very easy to navigate around and very interactive. Myself and my five year old made the Nasi Goreng. She was able to manage very well with the use of cutters, scissors and grater in parts of the process where I would have had to “take over” on the knife skills. Some parts still required some assistance from me (e.g. popping the peppers out of the cutter) but overall she was able to do a lot more of the prep herself. My little one is a fussy eater and not at all adventurous, after cooking the Nasi Goreng she tried (and loved!) prawns for the first time! We love cooking together and we do a lot of baking together too. I’ve been trying to encourage her to try new foods and widen our menu options and that’s what attracted me to the course. I definitely think that including her (where time allows) in the preparation of the meal, results in her being more open to trying something new or a bit different.
The games were great, particularly that there’s an option to download and print them off, they would be handy to have in the bag for keeping the kids occupied when we’re eating out! She is still very small and I will introduce the older age appropriate cooking skills over time. I also intend to try out all of the other recipes together because we had such good success with the Nasi Goreng.
Yes I will definitely be recommending the course to my friends who have small kids.

Myself and my daughter did the Ben’s Beginners online course together. We found it very easy to follow . We cooked Nasi Goreng. I never imagined my daughter would eat this in a million years but after cooking it I was so surprised to see that she really enjoyed it. She is 10yrs old and I found it very appropriate for her age. We really enjoyed cooking together .I was surprised at how good she was able to follow the instructions. We definitely will be using the online course again to cook something different. I would highly recommend this site to parents. It's a great way to get the kids involved in the kitchen and a great way to spend time together.

Myself & my daughter Sophie, aged 9, signed up for the online course at the weekend. We always sit down for a family meal on a Saturday evening, with me usually doing the cooking, but Sophie decided she wanted to cook for the family for a change. Out of the six recipes on offer she decided that she wanted to make the Nasi Goreng. We got all the ingredients we needed and followed the method provided online. Sophie loved the little tips provided, like grating the carrots and cutting the spring onions with the scissors. She also commented on the lovely smells from the ginger, garlic and soy sauce. She found the method really easy to understand and followed each step. The only thing I had to do was prepare the chicken. While she was cooking my other 2 children commented on the lovely smell in the kitchen so everyone was looking forward to the meal.
Sophie loved presenting the rice as a small mound with the poached egg sitting on top. She took great pride in serving it up to all of us. All of my children tried the peppers and spring onions which they had refused in the past. The meal was a great success and Sophie wants to do the "Japanese Chicken Katsu Curry" next week.

We had great fun cooking together, found the cooking skills really age appropriate and will definitely recommend the online course to our friends and family.

Like so many mums I try to juggle lots of things, that sometimes it can be hard to make one on one time with my children. My daughter Sadie, who's 8, and I had a really wonderful afternoon when we logged on to the Ben’s Beginners website and took time out to cook together. Sadie would be at the best of times a "picky" eater so I hoped that getting her involved might help with that. We chose to make Nasi Goreng as we both like Asian food. We thoroughly enjoyed the way the lesson flowed. She's quite an independent child so she loved the opportunity to cut and chop, things I would have been somewhat reluctant to allow her to do in the past. The tips shown on the site are brilliant. Who would have thought to chop chicken with a scissors or peel ginger with a spoon! I couldn't believe it when we finished that she actually ate what we'd prepared, she even tried a prawn! The fact that she was involved in the preparation was key. She was so proud of her achievement and we've already made a date to try a new recipe this weekend. Massive thumbs up from us!