Cooking Kids

Thought I’d end the month with the food joke of the week. I’ve got a fun joke for the kids and then some unconventional ways to determine food spoilage. Enjoy!

 Sammy: Daddy, are caterpillars good to eat?

Daddy: I’ve told you we don’t talk about things like that during dinner.

Mommy: Why would you ask that anyway?
Sammy: Because I saw one on the lettuce daddy ate, but now it’s gone.

Food Spoilage Table

THE GAG TEST-Courtesy of e-cookbooks.com
Anything that makes you gag is spoiled (except for leftovers
from what you cooked for yourself last night).

EGGS
When something starts pecking its way out of the shell, the
egg is probably past its prime.

MEAT
If opening the refrigerator door causes stray animals from
a three-block radius to congregate outside your house,
the meat is spoiled.

CANNED GOODS
Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a
basketball should be disposed of. Carefully.

WINE
It should not taste like salad dressing.

POTATOES
Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches, or dense,
leafy undergrowth.

GENERAL RULE OF THUMB:
Most food cannot be kept longer than the average life span
of a hamster. Keep a hamster in your refrigerator to gauge this.

Here’s a recipe for one of our favorite side dishes. This has replaced our regular corn for the holidays. We like it best with chicken, but we like chicken with everything.

1/2 C. sugar

1 C. milk

1/4 C. melted butter

3 tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. each of salt and pepper

3 eggs

1 can kernel corn

1 can creamed corn

Combine the sugar and flour. Whisk the eggs, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Add to flour mixture and whisk well. Stir in the corns. Pour into a glass baking dish and bake for 45-50 minutes at 350* or until set. Let sit 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

A recipe index has been added to Cooking Kids. Right now the index is alphabetical. As the blog grows and more recipes are added, I will categorize the index by subject so that it’s easier to find main meals, snacks, lunch box treats, desserts and so forth.

October is soup month here at cooking kids. With fall weather right around the corner, and possibly already settled in for some of you, warmer, heartier foods start showing up on the menu. We love soup because it’s generally easy to make, and there’s usually enough left over to have for lunch throughout the week and as a leftover supper during the weekend. I’ll be putting up my family’s recipes for potato soup and of course chicken soup, plus a lot more.

This post is the first in a new addition to this blog - lunch box snacks. As a parent, I know that I struggle with putting different snacks in my kid’s lunch box. I hate buying a bunch of processed snacks at the store, but most homemade items I make don’t fare well in a lunch box after he’s sat on, smashed, threw around and basically put his lunchbox through a MMA fight before lunchtime. I’m going to try and post a lunch box worthy snack once a week. This week’s snack is cream cheese puffs. Easy to make, eat and take to school.

 Cream Cheese Puffs:

1/2 C. sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 C. melted butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 tube biscuits

1 pkg. cream cheese - cubed

Combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Combine vanilla and butter in a separate bowl. Separate biscuits and press into a 3-in circle. Dip cream cheese cubes in butter/vanilla mixture and then into sugar mixture. Place cubes in center of biscuit and fold over and seal. Shape into balls. Dip biscuit balls in butter mixture and then sugar. Place in greased muffin cups, seam side down. Bake for 14-18 min. at 375*.

Place these in a plastic container in their lunch box for their lunch dessert. Enjoy!

This recipe is one of my family’s favorite casseroles. It makes a lot and we always have tons of leftovers. I’ve never tried freezing it, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Don’t let the cottage cheese scare you. My husband is the only cottage cheese eater in the house, but you can’t even tell it’s in the casserole. I hate cottage cheese, but I love this dish. If you don’t have scallions, you can just increase the onion. Enjoy!

Cheesy Beef Casserole

1 pkg. egg noodles

1 lb. ground beef

3/4c. chopped onion

2 cans tomato sauce

1/2 tsp. garlic powder and salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 pkg. cream cheese ( I use light)

1 C. small curd cottage cheese

1/2 C. parmesan

1/3 C. scallions

1/4 C. chopped green pepper

Cook noodles. Brown beef and onion, drain. Add tomato sauce to the beef and onion, along with the garlic powder, salt and pepper. Mix well. Combine the cheeses, scallion, and green pepper in a bowl and mix well. In a casserole dish, layer half the noodles. Spoon and spread half the beef mixture onto that. Spoon and spread half the cheese mixture on top of that. (The original recipe called for leaving clumps of the cheese mixture, but we found that we like it spread out better or you get a mouth full of cheese and nothing else sometimes.) Then repeat the layers - noodles, beef mixture, cheese mixture. Bake 30-35 minutes at 350*. Let set 5 minutes before serving.

A nutritionist was once addressing a large audience in New York. “The substances we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago.
Red meat is awful. Soft drinks erode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. Vegetables can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.

But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?”

A 75-year-old man in the front row stood up and said, “Wedding cake.”

Today was my first kids’ cooking club. The kids had so much fun. If you’re thinking about starting one, I’d say go for it. We made apple roll-ups, apple punch and apple frogs. My daughter is pictured here with her apple frog.

We started by reading a story related to apples. I did this while waiting for the last few kids to show up. Once all the kids were here, we moved into the dining room and started working on our roll-ups. I diced the apples beforehand and filled little applesauce cups with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. The kids flattened their biscuit, piled apples on top and then sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon. The moms helped fold it up and then the kids sprinkled more sugar and cinnamon on top. We baked these while the kids worked on making the punch and their frogs.

For the frogs, I presliced the apples and cut up the grapes. The kids were given two apple slices, some mini chocolate chips, a sliced grape, a piece of red licorice and some peanut butter. They spread peanut butter on one slice of the apple and glued them together to create the frog face. They then glued the grapes on for eyes and put the chocolate chips in the middle for pupils. They also added the red licorice for the fly catching frog tongue.

Overall it went smoothly. What I learned from this first time was that next time I need to provide baby wipes. Other than that, everything went well. Next month’s kids’ cooking club theme is pumpkins and popcorn.

I promised that in September I would be starting a kids’ cooking club called Little Chefs and posting about it. Tomorrow is the first cooking club for my daughter’s playgroup, and both her and I are very excited about it. Here’s what went into planning the first session for a group of 2-4 year olds.

I picked a theme - apples for this one - and chose my recipes based off that. I’m planning for the club to last possibly a  little over an hour. When looking for recipes I searched online and in cookbooks. One of my recipes comes from a book, while the other two were online. When searching recipes, I looked for ones that could be completed individually or with very little parental help. My goal is to make little chefs, and not have the moms making all the foods.

My three recipes are apple roll-ups, apple punch and apple frogs. The kids will start with the apple roll-ups since they need to bake for around 8 minutes. While the roll-ups bake, we’ll make the punch and the kids can start working on their frogs. By the time they’re done with that the roll-ups should be ready to eat. I have little plastic cups saved from applesauce for each kid. I will put their ingredients in these cups and provide plates and cups.

Check back this weekend for an update on how the first kids’ cooking club went, along with recipes and some pictures.

Here’s a recipe that is easy for the kids to help with and that they love. Both of my kids thought these were delicious. These work well as a side dish with dinner or just a snack throughout the day. If you wanted to use these for breakfast, combine hot and mild breakfast sausages.

Cheddar Sausage Balls:

1 package of hot sausage
1 package of mild sausage
2 C. cheddar cheese
1/2 C. Bisquick

Mix all ingredients together and shape into balls. Place them on a lightly sprayed baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes in a 350* oven. Let them cool a couple minutes before serving.

Little Billy and his family lived in the country, and as a result seldom had guests. He was eager to help his mother after his father appeared with two dinner guests from the office.

When the dinner was nearly over, Little Billy went to the kitchen and proudly carried in the first piece of apple pie, giving it to his father who passed it to a guest. Little Johnny came in with a second piece of pie and gave it to his father, who again gave it to a guest. After handing his dad the third piece, he watched as his dad handed it to his mom.

This was too much for Little Billy, who said, “It’s no use, dad. The pieces are all the same size.”

Isn’t that just the way kids think???