~~~Getting Kids Involved in Cooking~~~

Family get togethers are meant for making memories and sharing old ones. This certainly includes the young people in our families. Getting those young ones involved in the planning and cooking of meals is a step in making sure they will continue building family closeness in their own futures only if you make it fun. By letting them help choose the menu and then making or helping make some of items they build pride and confidence in themselves along with learning to cook.

Here are a few simple recipes and ideas to get those youngsters involved that have worked for us. Remember they are young, will make mistakes, but we did too and just because the end results may not be perfect EAT IT ANYWAY. Give them some leeway to express their creativity and learn.

Bunny Cake

A bunny cake is simple to make from a 9x13 cake. After you cool the cake freeze it for a few minutes to make it easier to handle. Cut 2x9 off one end for the two ears. You will cut this piece in half. Cut three 3 1/2" (you can adjust this size) triangle corners off the square you have left, put two together at the top forming a square for the head and one at the bottom of the square for a tail on the corner you didn't cut off, the ears on top of the head. Shape them as bunny ears; frost the whole thing with a fluffy white frosting and sprinkle with coconut if desired. Add a pink Jelly Bean for the eye and red licorice whiskers. Refer to the photo for placement and cutting lines.

You could use a smaller cake pan for the main body and put the rest of the batter in a small round pan for the head. Frosting hides a multitude of sins in the cake.

My Mother-in-law gave me this recipe and we all love it. A quick and easy salad my grandchildren like to make as well as eat –

Jell-O Fruit Salad

1 small package Jell-O any flavor strawberry is their fave

2 C sliced strawberries any fruit fresh or canned

2 C cool whip

2 C cottage cheese

2 C marshmallows

These amounts are all adjustable if I am short on something oh well, it is delicious anyway. Nuts are good also but one of our grands doesn’t like them so, you know we have to spoil the grands when we get the chance.

Refrigerator Muffins (feel free to cut the recipe in half if you wish)

3 Cups sugar                1 qt. Buttermilk

1 C shortening                        4 eggs

5 tea b. soda                4 C All-Bran cereal

1 tea salt                      2 C 100% bran

5 C flour                      2 C boiling water

Pour Boiling water over 100% bran. Cream shortening and sugar, add eggs, buttermilk and 100% bran. Sift flour, salt and soda together. Add all together with All-Bran. Fold in only until moistened. Pour into greased muffin tins or muffin cups and bake 15 to 20 minute at 400 degrees. This batter will keep in refrigerator for 6 to 8 weeks. Keep batter covered. I use any bran cereal. When I want to use some batter I pour out how much I need and add slivered apples, raisins, dates, nuts or whatever I want before putting into the liners. For holidays use holiday colored liners.

Child’s Apron

Supplies

1 hand towel

1 child’s tee shirt

Sewing machine

Bias tape

Cut hand towel in half, lay aside. Cut the top of apron according to picture using the neck opening for the neck of your apron. I chose to make a narrow shoulder but the picture shows a narrow and wide cutting line marked with a sharpie.

After cutting out the tee shirt top lay it out flat, align the half hand towel cut side next to the bottom of the tee shirt bottom. Gather the hand towel to match the width of the tee shirt. Stitch the hand towel to hold gathers. Pin the towel to the back of the tee shirt so you can sew on the hemline of the tee shirt and through the gathering stitching on your towel.

Fold your bias tape over the raw edges of the tee shirt starting where the towel and tee shirt join, stitch around to the other towel/tee shirt joint and cut even with the towel. Attach the same bias tape for the ties or use tie material of your choice.

Enjoy cooking with your little ones in their very own apron. Feel free to personalize with the child’s name or picture. My granddaughter and I love to cook together so I made this one for her.

Images:

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Well, I got my wish! I have perfect teeth, they aren’t real but they are real perfect!

As for my wish yes, years ago when my teeth were uneven, some discolored, the back ones missing; so when I tried to eat chips and other wonderful crunchy foods I got bit instead of the food, I wished desperately for a full set of beautiful “chompers”.  Just can’t bring myself to say f----- teeth for some reason, after all they are for old people and no one in my family has had ever had any. Now I admit I have always been a teeny bit different than others in my family but even I have my limits. For the sake of my family, friends and all of you may I stay a teeny bit different if you haven’t been unfortunate enough to have gotten the same wish bestowed on your unsuspecting mouth. Now that's a Dental Delimma in my toothless opinion!

Anyone who knows me well will tell you my mouth has always gotten me into trouble from time to time and still does but never did it do anything so bad to deserve this treatment.

Okay, it’s a done deal; now deal with it, right? Right! What I really am wanting to do is share a little of what I have learned that may help any one that finds themselves facing this situation.

First of all there is food, we still have to eat like it or not and I mean like it or not. I do not like it and oh how I used to, now not liking it has been a good thing for I have lost a few pounds, which I am grateful for. As of yet Weight watchers hasn’t contacted me for my secret but I’ll keep a line open; and no I wouldn’t recommend this method.

Now I love soup of any kind, rice and yogurt. Then there are ice cream and malts of course and now I have an excuse to eat them without the guilt. With great pride and determination there has been no ice cream brought into this house since I have had the excuse, with no limitations I am afraid of what I might do. You’ve seen those movies with the distraught women digging in the ice cream bucket with their big ole’ spoon, well I am afraid I might by-pass the spoon and only come for air when I hit the bottom!

Right now my favorite piece of equipment in my kitchen is my 1-cup electric blender. It has become my new best friend and no longer is delegated to under the cabinet. Front and center for my friends. It us the main tool in my cooking these days and the reason I am still alive at all. It is said we should live and learn; well I am proof of that. I am alive and relearning how to prepare food and now would like to share some of my findings with you in case you ever find yourself in my predicament. One would not have to get your teeth pulled to enjoy these few recipes but they certainly are tried and true “chomper” recipes.

As for yogurt I am enjoying it often, my favorite way is crumbling a muffin, (one that I made with Malt-o-Meal cereal thinking it was a bread I could eat because it would be soft, wrong the cereal grains got under the plates and went to war) in a cereal bowl, cutting up mixed frozen fruit and topping with fat free vanilla yogurt and a touch of milk. Now that’s a treat.

Another favorite is shrimp salad served in a half avocado shell. This one I learned in Mexico and have adapted to work with tuna also. I boil my shrimp and run it through my one-cup electric blender along with the celery. I add the rest of the softer ingredients as one normally uses, mayo, relish, garlic salt and what ever you like. Clean the avocado and cram just as much shrimp salad as I can into it, piling it up in a nice mound. The other half of the avocado I slice and lay around the filled half, sprinkle with more garlic salt, wipe the saliva from my mouth as I grab my fork and hurry to sit down to enjoy my feast.

Not being one to ever like gravy on my potatoes, I know weird again, yes I like both just not together, give me rice any day. Off course one can’t make just a cup of rice, no I don’t like the instant, so I have a lot of the wonderful fluffy stuff to do something with. In our house the hubby eats potatoes only so I can do anything I want with the rice. A few ways I have found that appease the new “choppers” are buttered or heated with stewed tomatoes (sometimes a little salsa and parmesan cheese) or cheese melted over it and of course put in stew, a hubby pan and one for me of course.

The stew is all cut up really fine except the meat, which I run through my trusty little chopper just before serving so hubby has his chunky meat.

These recipes are of course not limited to the sore of mouth, aged, or sound of mind of which I am proof so feel free to try them. You don’t have to tell where you got them, no one will know.

Well if you are still with me, you may just be a chomper candidate someday if the need arises. We’ll hope the need does not indeed knock at your door. Remember to be careful what you wish, it might come true and you will pay for it with your mouth!

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