Tag Archives: Cooking with Kids

Homemade Root Beer Experiment

Do your kids like root beer? One of my children wanted a homemade root beer kit for Christmas. He didn’t get it. The kit looked complicated and was expensive. To create the root beer involved steeping roots and sterilizing bottles. It didn’t sound like much fun to me. A few days ago at the store we spotted Root Beer Concentrate next to the vanilla and peppermint extracts. One the back was a simple recipe for root beer so we tried it. In a saucepan you bring one and a half cups water to a boil. Stir in ¾ c up … Continue reading →

Cooking With Kids – White Chocolate Pretzels

I’ve been looking for easy things for my kids to help with. Tonight we made some pretzels with white chocolate drizzle. They turned out fine, and they have a nice sweet and salty taste. The kids like them better than I do. I thought it would be an easy, easy thing to make since it didn’t involve an oven. It’s not completely uncomplicated. We melted white baking chips in the microwave. You can also use a double boiler. If I end up making these again, I will use the double boiler. Microwaving chocolate is very tricky. You need to do … Continue reading →

Everyone Helps With Thanksgiving Dinner

Yesterday my oldest son and I did our shopping for Thanksgiving. Some years the whole family goes and picks out things, but we didn’t have the time yesterday. The store was so crowded that I was glad everyone had not come with us. Before shopping, we did have a mini family meeting though about the menu. We don’t change it much from year to year, but we have all agreed that we need to spice it up a little. Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner is old southern family recipes. The dishes are delicious, heavy on the butter and pecans, but also … Continue reading →

Trail Mix Day Fun

Today is National Trail Mix Day. (Isn’t it amazing how everything has a day?) Mixing up trail mix can be a fun thing to do with your children. It’s also a great snack to bring along for Labor Day picnics and parties. What I love about trail mix is that there are so many great flavor combinations. In other words, it’s hard to get trail mix wrong. It’s also a great cooking project for kids. Younger children can scoop, measure, and mix. Older ones can mix up this snack on their own, and come up with their own flavor combinations. … Continue reading →

Baked Potato Night – Cooking With Kids

My husband is one of those rare people who don’t like potatoes. He’ll eat just about other vegetable, but except for french fries, he doesn’t eat potatoes. My kids and I love potatoes any way they are made – boiled, baked, twice-baked, mashed, or creamed. So sometimes, when we know my husband won’t be home for dinner, we plan on baked potato night. If it’s been awhile since you really oven baked a potato, not just microwaved it – let me persuade you. Bake the potato. Turn the oven on 400 or so and wait an hour. If you are … Continue reading →

Fun in the Family Kitchen

I’m a big believer in having children help out in the kitchen. For one thing, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It’s fun to have company. For another, while kids cook they learn about science, measuring, and chemistry. I also think it is part of my parenting job to teach them at least basic kitchen skills. Later in life they will need to feed themselves and their own families. I picked up The Family Kitchen: Easy and Delicious Recipes for Parents and Kids to Make and Enjoy Together by Debra Ponzek. After looking her book, I’m even … Continue reading →

Tallulah in the Kitchen – Nancy Wolff

Tallulah is a brightly colored kitty cat who loves to cook; more specifically, she loves to cook pancakes. Today her friends Freddie and Roxy are coming over to try her new pancake recipies. Along with her dog, Flapjack, they comprise her culinary judging panel. Sometimes her experiments don’t go over so well. Her chocolate pancakes with mini marshmallows and sliced bananas were a big hit, but not so much her coconut and jelly bean pancakes. She’s a stickler for rules in her kitchen. Some of her rules actually make sense, but most are just silly. She’s already checked her ingredient … Continue reading →

Strawberry Shortcake – Heirloom Recipes

One of our favorite family desserts is Strawberry Shortcake. We make it the old-fashioned way. The cakes actually look more like biscuits, and are truly just sweetened biscuit dough. I love knowing that my great grandmother made this same dessert for her family, and maybe she even had it as a child. I love that by eating this yummy dessert, we are passing on family heritage. And I love teaching my children to make a family recipe. Someday, maybe, they will tell their children that their great-great grandmother made this for her family. Here are some interesting facts about strawberries … Continue reading →

Letting Toddlers “Cook”

Toddlers love to say “me do it”. The trouble is, there’s a lot of things they really aren’t ready to do. Here’s some very easy recipes we used when our boys were small. Most came from their wonderful preschool teacher. Make sure children are old enough for the snacks and aren’t allergic to any of the ingredients. Shaky apples : An adult cuts the apple into toddler bite sized pieces. (A little bit older child could cut slices into small pieces, with supervision.) The child puts the apple pieces into a zipper type plastic bag. Then the child can measure … Continue reading →

Dinner Helpers

We started something new with the boys a couple of weeks ago. They alternate being “dinner helper”. In the past they’ve all spent hours on the kitchen, even sitting on the counters stirring mixes or adding in things like sugar or flour that I’d already measured. They loved helping. They loved cooking. But as they have got older they show up less in the kitchen. So now, twice a week, they each have a turn of being in the kitchen with me. It’s nice to have one on one time with my children. That’s particularly hard to do with twins. … Continue reading →