Kids in the Kitchen - Chex Mix

I've been meaning to make Chex Mix since the holiday season started and I got boxes of each cereal for less than a dollar. Nice! To make matters worse, The Pioneer Woman (whom I cannot get enough of these days) posted a recipe that is close to the original but uses fresh garlic. My parents are coming in to town tomorrow so I figured this would be a good snack to have around. Unfortunately, it is too good and we made it on Monday....which means it's almost gone. I do have enough cereal for another batch. Mimi did have lots of fun measuring everything out - and Little Bit had lots of fun sneaking cereal from the bowl :) See the link above for the recipe. Enjoy!

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Jesus' Birthday Cake

My girls have been asking for some time about decorating their own cake. We always make a birthday cake for Jesus, so I thought it would be the perfect time. We frosted our cake with chocolate buttercream (because I was dying to make a chocolate buttercream) and we tinted some white frosting red and green. I just let them loose with the frosting and a bunch of sprinkles.....you know where this is going, right? Sprinkle overload! WooHoo! They sure enjoyed themselves :)

These were easy for the little hands to work with....I thought pastry bags might be a little too hard.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kid in the Kitchen - Gingerbread Houses!

I picked up Halloween Gingerbread house kits after Halloween for .99! I saved the black and orange decor for next year, whipped up some royal icing and used leftover (hidden) Halloween candy. I'm hoping to pick up some clearanced houses after Christmas as well. What a fun and cheap project! They are VERY sturdy. The girls gave them to our neighbors on each side of us.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies

I found this recipe in an AllYou magazine many months ago and finally got around to making it. I wish I had tried it sooner as it will be a great breakfast for the girls. Lots of protein and whole grains. We modified it a bit. It is GOOD!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

1 cup milk

1/2 cup ice

1 banana (frozen works best)

2 Tbs peanut butter

1 packet instant oatmeal (I thought I had banana but it ended up that all we had was blueberries and cream. It was yummy anyways....peanut butter, banana, and blueberries. Who would have thought?)

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth. Pretty easy, even for Kids in the kitchen!

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Pumpkin Seeds!

I tore out recipes for spiced pumpkin seeds from the last issue of Redbook and I found a keeper! The Sugar and Spice seeds are so very good. They will be a holiday tradition in this house. I'm not actually sure if anyone else likes them but the baby and I cannot get enough :) I would try the savory recipes but would feel bad if they weren't nearly as good. We had fun with this recipe. Even Little Bit joined in (as she always tried to do).

Sugar and Spice Seeds
Ingredients
1 cup(s) pumpkin seeds
3 tablespoon(s) melted unsalted butter
3 tablespoon(s) sugar
1 teaspoon(s) pumpkin-pie spice
1 pinch(s) kosher salt
Directions
Clean pumpkin seeds: Rinse under cold water and remove all the pulpy strings. (This is best done before the pulp dries.) Dry seeds thoroughly.
Roast pumpkin seeds: Heat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with nonstick foil. Toss seeds with melted unsalted butter, sugar, pumpkin-pie spice, and kosher salt. Place on prepared baking sheet and roast 15 to 20 minutes, or until browned.

Separating the seeds from the goo.

Playing with the goo. Getting the goo on the floor.OK.....I felt like a cooking show. After separating the seeds you are supposed to let them dry, which I find takes a few days. I had roasted a pumpkin a few days earlier so had dried seeds on hand...we used those so we could do all the steps at once. The ones that she just separated will have to dry a few days.

Mixing in the spices. Posing. Cheesing.The finished product in all of their glory.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Honey Milk Balls

Little Bit is at the point where she only wants to eat oyster crackers and hot dogs. SO, I broke out my baby food (and toddler food) bible - Super Baby Food, by Ruth Yaron. It has so many good toddler foods that I don't know why I forget to use it more often. For our Kids in the Kitchen post Mimi made Honey Milk Balls. Grind 1 cup of oatmeal in the blender until fine (Do I get Worst Mom of the Week award, for letting my 1 year old operate the blender? Look how much fun she is having ;)

Mix 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, and 3/4 cup powdered milk, along with the ground oats in a bowl. Stir.

Make into bite sized balls. They need no refrigeration.

And look! Little Bit is eating them. This is a success!

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Easy Apple Turnovers

Mimi is really enjoying her time with me in the kitchen and asks every week what we can make. This week was her idea. She wanted apple pie so we compromised with apple turnovers.

Easy Apple Turnovers

Filling:

2 or 3 apples, peeled and chopped, we used Golden Delicious which is a great cooking apple

2 Tbs melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tbs flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pie Crust - we used store bought, hence the "easy" in the title.

Glaze:

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1/8 tsp cinnamon

2 or 3 tsp apple juice

Mix the filling ingredients and set aside. Cut each crust in half and then in quarters (this is a great time to introduce fractions to a 4 year old, really, she dug it). Fill each triangle with about 1/4 cup filling, fold over, seal edges with a fork (this was Mimi's favorite part and took her time to make sure it was done right). Prick tops with a fork. Bake at 375 for 20 to 30 minutes, until they are golden brown. Let stand for 10 minutes then top with glaze and a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar. Enjoy!

They are delicious and Mimi will feature them at her future restaurant, which she told me will be called The Four Musketeers. It's funny because my husband and I were just talking about what if one of our darlings didn't want to go to college but wanted to go to chef school or something like that (totally OK with us, but hard to swallow when you never questioned the "life after high school route", which we always assumed would be college). Then, out of the blue, Mimi told me she might be a cook when she grew up. Maybe she heard us talking :) Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts! I'm using this for my Kid Friendly Friday post as well. Join along by posting your Kid Friendly project, activity, recipe, etc. below. Have a great weekend!

Kids in the Kitchen - Pickle Rolls

Today over at Sacred and Profane a new Blogstyle Iron Chef ingredient was unveiled. Pickles. The recipe has to have pickles as a main ingredient. I hadn't picked out an after school snack or a Kids in the Kitchen recipe for this week yet so this was PERFECT. We used to make these all of the time in college. I haven't made them since then (that's a LONG time) but don't have any other recipes that use pickles. It's a stretch!

Cream Cheese Rolls

Ingredients: Pickles, cream cheese, and lunch meat (I like it with ham but all we had was turkey and it worked well).

Lay the lunch meat on a plate (double it if it's thin). Spread on cream cheese. Put a pickle in the center and roll it up. We would slice them for cute looking appetizers but for snack just eat the whole roll! I like to do them with the little pickles but pickle spears work as well. Simple and tasty. Bigs favorite part was fishing the pickle out of the jar. Mimi refused to use a pickle at all.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts! And if you have a good pickle recipe submit it for the Iron Chef competition at Sacred and Profane.

I googled pickle recipes and really want to try pickle bread, pickle soup, and pickle cheeseburgers.....but just not in time for the competition. There's only so much pickle my family will put up with :)

Kids in the Kitchen - Popcorn Ball Ice Cream Cones

We made these that I saw in a magazine a while back. Any popcorn ball recipe you have would work (colors would be cute).

Spray your mixing bowl with cooking spray. Measure 8 cups of popcorn into bowl. The recipe called for 2/3 cup slivered, toasted almonds as well. You could add all sorts of stuff to them for variety. Did you notice Little Bit in the background scooping popcorn??

Melt 4 TBS unsalted butter in a medium sauce pan. Add a bag of marshmallows and stir until melted. Add marshmallow mixture to the popcorn and mix until well coated. When it's cool enough to handle, spray hands with cooking spray (or coat with butter), Fill cones with popcorn and make a ice cream scoop looking ball on top. Cut holes in a box so the cones can cool standing up.

Cute, huh? They are fun eating. Especially if you don't like your hands to get sticky.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Rice Crispy Treats with a Twist

Is there a better way to make something more fall-ish than to add candy corn? Mimi and I made rice crispy treats with added candy corn for her teachers. They are SO good. I used the recipe on the box....you know where to find it :)

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!!
Mimi and I made Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream for Emma (it's her favorite!) while Little Bit looked on. This was an easy, no-cook recipe and was FANTASTIC. Do you like the picture of them sampling it to make sure it was OK? :) After we put it in the ice cream maker and the girls went off to play, I couldn't stop sampling it from the little hole in the top of the maker. It was incredibly creamy and smooth!

SO SO SO SO SO Good!

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

I put these in the blender for 3 minutes and mixed on slow until the sugar dissolved.

Add

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons peppermint extract

a few drops of green food coloring

a handful of chocolate chips

Blend again for just long enough for the food coloring to mix in.

Add to the ice cream maker and freeze according to manufactures directions.

Freeze for a few hours before eating, unless, like us, you enjoy soft serve ice cream.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Pizza Kitchen

I made pizza dough and let my girls make their own pizzas. Fun stuff! I'll share my dough recipe next week but use premade if you would like. Publix is even having a sale on their bakery pizza dough if you are down south.

Get some dough. Let them pull it, roll it, stretch it, shape it. Add pizza sauce (for us is was tomato paste, sauce, and spices mixed) and toppings.

They said it was THE BEST pizza they had ever eaten and have made plans to open a pizza kitchen :) They said I could sell my ice cream at it if I would like. They are so kind.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Kids in the Kitchen - Chocolate Covered Bananas

These were among Aida Mollencamp's recipes as Mexican Chocolate Frozen Bananas - the chef for next week's challenge. Thought they were too easy for the challenge but PERFECT for Kids in the Kitchen!

The actual recipe is linked above but we just melted some chocolate melts and cinnamon in a plastic bag (omitted the oil it calls for). The girls drizzled it on the bananas, smeared it around with their fingers and covered them in toppings (coconut and sunflower seeds). We did this at breakfast time so they would have plenty of time in the freezer for an after school snack.

Go over to A Little Fun With Me and Lu to check out more Kids in the Kitchen posts!

Enter my giveaway for $50 from Cookware.com!