Cooking Kids

Well the kids had a blast at this month’s cooking club. Our theme was Christmas Treats. The kids made reindeer food to take home, which is simply oatmeal and sprinkles. My daughter really loved spreading the food out on Christmas Eve. She was so excited that Rudolph would come and eat her food. They also made christmas mice. These turned out so cute, and the recipe is very simple. Then they made pressed peanut butter cookies and sugar plum dreams. The recipes follow:

Christmas Mice

1 container of chocolate icing

1 to 2 cups of flour

slivered almonds

Red sprinkle dots

Mini chocolate chips

A small plate of cocoa powder or crushed chocolate cookies

Mix the frosting and flour until the frosting is more like a dough. Chill overnight. Take a small amount of frosting and roll it into a ball, stretching out one end so it looks more like a mouse. Really you should roll it into an oval, but kids have a hard time with that. Roll the mouse into the cocoa. Use the slivered almonds for ears, the chocolate chip for a tail and the red sprinkles for eyes.

Sugar Plum Dreams

1 bag of large marshmallows

Melted white chocolate

Sprinkles

Wafer Roll cookies

Break a wafer roll cookie in half and stick them into 2 large marshmallows. Roll the marshmallow into melted white chocolate and sprinkle with sprinkles. Let set and enjoy!

Well it’s time for my monthly Little Chefs cooking club tomorrow. This month we’re focusing on Christmas Treats. The kids are making chocolate christmas mice, sugarplum dreams, peanut butter cookies and take-home reindeer food.

I originally planned for the kids to make gingerbread kids, but that fell through. We’re redoing our kitchen floors, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the gingerbread dough from scratch without going completely insane stepping over my husband and tile pieces. And the grocery store I went to had no gingerbread. So instead, I am having the kids pick one of four cookie presses that I have and push them into peanut butter cookie dough, and then they can decorate them with icing and sprinkles.

The kids’ cooking club has been a huge success. Every month my playgroup sends out a calendar and Little Chefs is one of the first activities to fill up, and it always has a waiting list. I was a little wary at first that the kids wouldn’t be interested, but they all love it and so do the moms.

I had my monthly kids’ cooking club on Friday. The theme was Turkey Tracks and the kids had a blast. The recipes were cut out turkey sandwiches, turkey track crackers and turkey cupcakes. This was one of the most time-intensive cooking club I’ve done so far. I got the idea for the turkey cupcakes from Family Fun magazine,  and while the idea of wrapping fruit leather around toothpicks sounds easy, I didn’t think about the fact that I don’t have a crew of 30 to help me out. So I spent about 2 hours wrapping Fruit Roll-Ups around toothpicks so that each kid could have about 5 feathers, for a total of 50 feathers. We changed up the recipe a little bit, since the original turkey cupcakes called for cutting fruit leather into gobbler shapes. I used red Tic-Tacs instead.

Here’s the recipes and a couple pics from our cooking club:

Turkey Cut-Out Sandwiches:

I provided two slices of bread, 4 pieces of turkey, and filled cups with mayo and mustard, just in case some kids liked those toppings. Then the kids made the sandwich and used a cookie cutter of their choice to cut out their sandwich.

Turkey Track Crackers:

I provided each kid with two large, round butter cracker and squirted some Cheez-Whiz in the middle of each. They spread the cheese around and then used chow mein noodles to create a turkey foot on each cracker. While they enjoyed making them, most of them took the noodles off before eating the cracker.

Turkey Cupcakes:

Make a batch of chocolate cupcakes. Provide a cup of chocolate icing, 1 Nutter-Butter cookie, 2 mini chocolate chips, 1 red Tic-Tac, colored icing in small tubes, feathers made from fruit rollups, rainbow Twizzlers, or rainbow Airheads.

Have the kids spread the chocolate icing on the cupcake. Then have them dab two spots of icing on the Nutter Butter to make the turkey’s eyes. Place the chocolate chips on the icing. Add a dab of icing to the nose area and attach the gobbler. Push the Nutter-Butter half way through the cupcake. Add the feathers and enjoy.

To make the feathers:

Cut Fruit Roll Ups into angled feather shapes and pull apart. Wrap around toothpicks and form. You can also use rainbow Twizzlers, if you can find them. I also used sour rainbow Airheads by threading them through a toothpick. I gave each kid 5 fruit leather feathers and 2 Airhead feathers. I’m using a new camera and I’m still learning how to best upload with it, so here are the pics, or at least links to some pics:

Turkey Cupcake

My kids’ cooking club was this last Friday and our theme was pumpkins and popcorn. The kids had a blast with this theme because the food was sweet and easy to make. Here’s what we made:
S’mores Popcorn:
1 bag of popcorn
1 box of teddy grahams
1 bag of mini marshmallows
1 bag mini chocolate chips

Supply all ingredients in separate bowls on the table. Give the kids a plastic bag and let them mix all the ingredients together. Have them shake the bag to mix it up. (This was the favorite part)

Fall Popcorn
1 bag of popcorn
1 bag of mixed fall candy (candy corns, pumpkins etc.)
1 jar marshamallow creme

Supply ingredients in separate bowls, or if you have a large group, pass the candy bag around and let each kid pour a little into the large bowl. Put all ingredients in a bowl, cover with marshmallow creme, and refrigerate while you make the rest of the food. This is also a good recipe for popcorn balls that doesn’t require cooking, just make it ahead of time and let the kids shape it. I sent this snack home in a baggie with the kids.

Pumpkin Spice Spread:
1 pkg. softened cream cheese
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. canned pumpkin
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 container Cool Whip

Put all ingredients except Cool Whip into a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Fold in Cool Whip and serve with cinnamon bread or other breakfast type bread. I gave each kid an ingredient to put in the bowl, beat it myself, and then had two more kids fold in the Cool Whip.

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
1 pkg. prepared sugar cookies
Orange icing
Candy corns
M&M’s
Mini chocolate chips

I saved some of the chocolate chips and candy corns from the fall popcorn recipe for this. Give each kid a cookie, plastic spoon with icing, and the candies. Let them decorate a pumpkin (or anything they want.)

That was what we did for pumpkins and popcorn. Next month’s theme is turkey tracks.
Here’s a pic from our club:

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.

If you’re an ingenious cook with a ton of recipes stockpiled away, then you probably think you don’t need inspiration when starting a kids cooking club. However if you want to make your kids cooking club an independent project for children, you need recipes that are easily assembled and quickly cooked. This leaves out a lot of favorite casseroles and soups. While nutritious and easily thrown together, these favorite dishes take lots of cooking time and possibly a lot of preparation.

So where do you find ideas for a kids cooking club? Well if you’re reading this, then you know that the Internet is a particularly great place for kid recipes. There are also magazines geared towards families and kids that have a section for recipes. You can check out Family Fun Magazine or even Simple and Delicious for some great ideas. Don’t forget about your local library, too. We just had a visit there and I came home with some great titles such as Cool Kids Cook, Passport on a Plate and Fun and Easy Recipes for Kids. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to leaf through a book for ideas rather than skim  the Internet. Plus, there are usually more pictures in a book.

 While regular cookbooks are a great place for finding good recipes, they aren’t always the best places to find recipes that can be tweaked for kids. Depending on how long you plan on your kids cooking club session to last, determines how complicated you can make a dish.

If you’re a mom who takes part in a playgroup, a grandmother who watches the grandbabies a few days a week, or just someone who likes to cook and has lots of kids in the family, then starting a kids cooking club might be for you. I am starting my own cooking club to take off in September. My club is called “Little Chefs” and is comprised of kids in my daughter’s playgroup. I’m aiming to have kids 3+, but I know there will be a few younger kids taking part, too.

My goal is to think of simple recipes that kids can cook independently. Simple dishes include deviled eggs, fruit pizza, cheese dogs, or smoothies. Ocassionally I will include recipes that adults need to help with, but my goal is to get kids cooking independently and learn a little about the cooking process, too.

If you’re interested in this, all you need is a group of 4-10 kids. I’m looking to cut the number to no more than 8 kids. (We have a large playgroup.) You need a place to host the cooking club; I’m using my house. And you also need a handful of starter recipes and a simple complementary activity. For example, I’m thinking of doing “Apple Men” as our first recipe since school will just be starting and apples are a fall food. If a recipe calls for any baking, I will read a related story to the kids while the food cooks. If the recipe is assemble and eat, I will read the story before cooking. The rest of the details I’ll fine-tune once I get “Little Chefs” underway.

Look for future “Little Chefs” recipes, activities and pictures once September starts.