Kids Cooking

• Thanks so much for keeping this site alive (if barely). I love y'all's ideas!
  
  First off, let me say that I think the whole idea of making warm memories by letting your kids cook with you is highly overrated. I'm a fairly low-key person, but Addie and Stuart can have me chewing on my Pampered Chef rubber spatula within five minutes.
  
  BUT, they enjoy it. As long as I view it as Good Training instead of a Good Time, we do fine.
  
  Here are two things they enjoy making:
  
  Parfaits
  
  
  
  This is an old kid-friendly standby: fruit and yogurt. I have a safety knife that they can use to cut up the fruit, which makes it even more fun for them. But the real deal with these parfaits is that we add chocolate graham crackers or, on occasion, crumbled cookies. Forget the granola. Put in a little bit of junk, and they'll love the whole thing!
  
  We layer:
  
  * Vanilla yogurt
  
  * Strawberries, blueberries, or bananas
  
  * Chocolate graham crackers or some other yummy crunchy sweet
  
  

It makes a good breakfast or a side dish at supper. If Stuart will eat it, you know it's kid-friendly.


Chicken Smorgasbord

Take two chicken breasts and cut them into four pieces. Make a "bowl" of aluminum foil for each piece. Season each one differently: barbecue sauce, Italian dressing, basil and oregano, cinnamon and ginger, dill, etc. Drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it moist. Put the "bowls" into a casserole dish and bake at 350 or 375 for, oh, half an hour (until the chicken is at 180). When it's done, you have four different flavors of chicken to choose from, plus really yummy broth.

Addie and Stuart love choosing their seasonings. My job is mostly to say things like, "Um, that's enough dill!" or "No, no, don't put basil with cinnamon. Probably won't taste good." This dish is especially good with couscous.

-- SJ

Easy Enchilada Sauce

Ben is allergic to soy and I've discovered that most premaid enchilada sauces have soybean oil. Recently I found this recipe in Cooking Lightmade some adjustments and discovered an easy recipe. It is yummy!

1 t olive oil
1/2 C diced red onion
1 t minced garlic
1/2 C vegetable broth
1 T chili powder
1 T honey
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t salt
28 oz can crushed tomatoes

Heat in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; saute 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir in everything else. Reduce heat; simmer 30 minutes. Yields 3 cups. (We used it to feed 6 people.)

I made some yummy black bean, corn, and zucchini enchiladas but the sauce would go well with chicken or onion/sour cream enchiladas.