Yep, November 29th is the Mom’s official birthday. This year will be my last in my 30′s and I’m looking to make a great one. I have so much I want to accomplish in the next 365 days, but my main goal is to spend as much time as possible with my kids, boyfriend, family and friends while working toward getting my day-to-day life looking the way I want it to. To help me achieve this goal I’m continually looking for ways to incorporate family time into every day activities and prioritize.

That is part of the reason the kids and I do our cooking show. It gives us an opportunity to have fun together in the kitchen and goofing around on camera. Alex has fun helping tape shots and assisting with technical stuff and Soph loves planning the food we’ll make and making sure everything looks perfect. Although I do love cooking, the best part is that my kiddies are with me

Since I’m still recovering from the holiday weekend, and the Sunday Thanksgiving meal the kids and I had together (since they were with their dad on Thanksgiving), that’s all I’ve got for now.

We hope you all had an awesomely delicious Thanksgiving.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

If you’re like we are, you and the kids cook more than you eat–It’s a great problem to have, and everyone loves it. And, since we all know Thanksgiving food isn’t just about food for ‘the Meal’, why not use those Thanksgiving leftovers as an excuse to spend some time in the kitchen with the kids and whip up some ‘extra’ treats to share?

Alex and Soph will be with their dad this year for the holiday, but luckily, with all of my recipe testing, we’ve have plenty of these traditional leftovers on hand to work with

Cranberries:
Despite that fact that very few of us eat them, a cranberry dish of some sort is always present at our holiday table. Since I hate throwing out food, I end up eating most of them myself, which isn’t horrible, but can get a bit old. A couple weeks ago, though, as I was watching the Food Network, Melissa D’Arabian’s Cranberry Salsa recipe inspired me. This year, my leftover cranberries will become one of the following:

• Cranberry Barbecue Sauce – I thought of the idea of cranberry barbecue sauce all by myself, but realized that someone else probably had first. Of course I was right; so, I picked out one I thought sounded delicious and tried it…I made this recipe: Spice-Rubbed Turkey with Cranberry Barbecue Sauce, using a whole chicken instead of Turkey, but the sauce is tasty on its own. I think it’d be good with pork, too. I also think that even though the recipe calls for whole cranberries (and that is what I used in my test), it would be fine with that cranberry gelatin stuff—if that’s what your family has on hand.
• Cranberry Salsa – This is the recipe that inspired me to do more with my cranberry sauce than just eat it all myself. I haven’t tried it yet, but will be soon…it sounds good and the reviews on the Food Network site look promising.

Mashed Potatoes:
I love mashed potatoes. Because of this I tend to think that we need many more pounds of them than is actually necessary to feed the guests that are dining with us. Perhaps a subconscious attempt to ensure leftovers? In any case, in addition to just heating them up and eating their potatoey deliciousness themselves, here are a couple ways the Two Kids family deals with over-abundant mashed pototatoes:

• Fried Mashed Potatoes – Oh yeah! Melt some butter and throw in the potatoes. Let ‘em brown and then flip ‘em to brown on the other side. Depending on the moisture level of the potatoes, this can take a while, but they are sooo good with eggs and toast for breakfast. You could do ‘em up patty style too, my kids love making food into patties.
• Perogies – Alex and Soph are half Polish and perogies are a holiday tradition. Although we don’t always make them on Thanksgiving, leftover mashed potatoes almost ensure they will be made within a few days after. You can check out our recipe for perogies or, watch just how we do it on Two Kids Cooking TV: Perogies.

Squash:
I know squash isn’t on ever family’s Thanksgiving day table, but as I’ve said in my other squash obsessed posts of late, Alex and I love it, so it is always there for us. Here’s a couple of ways we enjoy it that would work well with leftovers:

• Squash Soup – This simple recipe highlights the squash in a light, yet still creamy soup that’s great on a cold fall evening.
• Squash Cakes – Squash is related to pumpkins and these cakes bring the family resemblance home. They’re like pumpkin pie in a neat little cake—drool inducing if I don’t say so myself

Sweet Potatoes:
Due to the presences of the aforementioned squash, sweet potatoes do not make an appearance on our Thanksgiving table, BUT, because I know they do for many, I was curious. I did some searches and now I think I’m going to try sweet potatoes just for this bread:

• Sweet Potato Bread

Bread:
Although I am not a huge bread fan myself, Alex and Soph both like it. Plus, you’ve gotta have bread of some sort on a traditional Thanksgiving spread, right? Anyway, if you have some leftover, or just want to buy extra to make this recipe, we strongly recommend it:

• Bread Pudding – You can see just how we make our favorite bread pudding on Two Kids Cooking TV: Bread Pudding. The recipe is from the Joy of Cooking, and if you don’t own this edition, the book is worth it just for this recipe.

Alex, Sophia and I wish all of you a food and fun-filled family Thanksgiving. After the rush of ‘the meal’ is over, we hope you take some time in the days that follow to spend together, cooking up some left-overs.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Mom

I’ve had a bit of a squash obsession lately, partly because it’s been the time of the year when squash is abundant and partly because Thanksgiving is coming. Every year the kids are with me, part of our meal includes squash and there are always leftovers. So, even though the kids are at their Dad’s for Thanksgiving this year, we’ve been squash recipe experimenting for next year!

While I was thinking of ideas of things to make with leftover squash, Squash Cakes popped into my head and seemed like a viable idea. So, I did what I always do and checked out what recipes I could find online. None of the recipes I found were really what I was looking for, but I did come across one that I tried (Herbed Squash Cakes).

The recipe was good, but instead of using TVP (mainly because I had no idea what it was until I googled it), I used extra squash. This made the cakes a bit soggy and they really didn’t stay together well. Plus, I was looking for more of sweet cake–less herb, more sugar.

The recipe I came up with follows, and, if I do say so myself, it’s pretty tasty (especially with a little honey drizzled on top).

If you’re kids don’t like squash, after tasting these cakes, they might just change their minds….enjoy!

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Mom

We know that not every family serves squash on Thanksgiving. For many, sweet potatoes are more common, but here at the Two Kids Home, squash is always on the table. It’s one of Alex’s favorites, and with all the gardener’s we know, we usually have a few on hand this time of year.

When we’re going to have guests over for a meal, we tend to get excited and over do it on the quantity, especially at events like Thanksgiving. (Yes, ‘we’ means ‘me’, the mom, but the kids get excited too ;D) And even though it’s not consciously intentional, Thanksgiving leftovers are awesome–that’s what this recipe is designed for, leftover squash. That being said, if you’re up for it, you could serve a squash soup course as part of the meal; if you use this simple but scrumptious recipe, everyone will love it

For this recipe, we sort of squished two other recipes together…or parts of them at least. It’s easy enough that kids of most ages can help with various parts, plus the simplicity of the ingredients allows the squash-tastic-ness to shine through–(ok, that might not be a word, but you know what we’re saying).

Here it is:

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

Remember tracing your hand and turning it into a turkey for Thanksgiving decorations? I guess every American child who’s attended kindergarten or first-grad has done it. How about turning that handy turkey into the theme for this year’s decorations?

Begin by having each of your children make the legendary hand-turkey. Take it to the copy shop, or scan and print extra copies. Now, get ready to have some fun with your kids!

Turkey Cake – Rolled fondant is a wonderful decorating material for cakes. Its pliable, dough-like consistency makes it more like working with a pie crust than with icing, but it tastes sweet and wonderful. Roll fondant out as directed (or make your own fondant). Let the kids place a piece of waxed paper on top, then place one of the turkey copies on top of that, taping it in place. (For multiple children, turkeys may overlap or stand in a row.) Kids can gently ‘trace’ their drawing onto the fondant. A dried pen or back-end of a spoon works great as a stylus. (Check after a couple of strokes to make sure they’re pressing hard enough, but not too hard.) Once the picture is transferred, remove waxed papers and let each child ‘paint’ their turkey with food coloring–we used gel food-coloring because water-based food coloring isn’t great for fondant. Carefully lift fondant and place on top of the cake, smoothing edges and sides. Let the kids put a row of candied corn around the bottom of the cake.

Cupcakes may be decorated to match, using just the turkey’s heads and dabs of color around the edges of the fondant icing ring.

Placemats – Let kids print their turkey onto printer paper, mount on 11×14” piece of coordinating colored paper and laminate each placemat.

Invitations – Use the same turkeys to make place cards or invitations, overlapping the drawings to put them all on a single invitation or putting a single bird on each.

Tee-Shirts can be made of the turkey-birds by printing them onto tee shirt transfers ahead of time. Make sure to make a shirt for grandparents and have the artist sign their original design.

Hang the original artwork in a prominent place around the dining room. A collection of each child’s turkeys, simply matted and hung, looks wonderful.

Imagine the pride your little ones will feel as they look around and see the family feast adorned by their original artwork. Alex and Soph get it all year long, mainly because they are my personal decorators ;P

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

On Saturday, November 13, Minnesota received it’s first heavy snowfall for the 2010-11 winter season. That day also happened to be Faith Lutheran Church’s Annual Holiday Craft Fair in Forest Lake, MN. As we drove to the show to set-up our booth with all of our favorite Curious Chef Kids Cooking Tools, we were a little worried that no one would come–top busy playing in the winter wonderland. But, we should have known that we hearty Minnesotan’s won’t let a little snow get in our way! Although we know the snow did keep a few people away, we had lot of visitors stop by and test out all of the Curious Chef Tools we had at the ‘Try It’ table. And, we gave away another 8 Pc Cutlery & Serving set at our booth, which tons of people signed up for, but, the lucky winner was–Jean Taylor of Chisago City. We know Jean and the kids in her family will have a great time putting these gourmet kids cooking tools to work!

We had so much fun chatting with everyone who stopped by about food, cooking and Curious Chef Tools. Sophia had fun shopping too…she managed to find some sparky snowflake earrings and a gift for her Dad. Alex splurged on some caramels, but decided to save the rest of his earnings for helping out at the booth. And the Mom, well I splurged a bit on a Spoon Key Chain, made by Glen Kinney from Spoon Bracelets and More (Cambridge, MN). I just love spoon jewelry, from rings to bracelets and key chains–maybe it’s the whole food/cooking/utensils thing? Who knows, but I love it. Oh, and we also won a door prize We picked out an awesomely scented handmade soap in a cute holiday basket with a Santa wash cloth from Whoopsy Soaps–Soph and I can’t wait to try it!

Anyway, we’ll be hitting the road again in December for Appleton MN’s Holiday Craft Fair and we’ll be sure to let you know how it went.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

P.S. If you need some non-traditional Thanksgiving Family Cooking Ideas, be sure to check out our Thanksgiving episodes

On October 23, the kids and I hit the road and headed west…out to good old Benson, MN. Benson is actually the town in which this Mom was born. The reason we were out that way was to spread our joy of family cooking and our love of Curious Chef Cooking tools with western Minnesota at the 8th Annual Holiday EXPO!

All of the visitors had lots of fun with our ‘Try It’ table, where they could test out the Curious Chef Tools with Play dough (homemade, of course!) or with a carrot, for peeling and cutting testing (You can see more pics from the Benson show and other stuff the 2 Kids is up to at our Flickr page). We also let visitors sign-up for a chance to win their own 8 Pc Cutlery and Serving Set–the very set that got the 2 Kids family hooked on these awesome Kids Cooking Tools. The winner was Debbie Himley of Benson, MN–We hope she and her kids have lots of fun testing out the set.

We’re going to be heading back out to good old western Minnesota for Appleton’s Holiday Craft Fair on December 12. Our ‘Try It’ table will be more gift oriented at this show–we’ll help visitors make their own ‘Gift in a Jar’ to purchase for someone special. It should be lots of fun, so, if you’re in the Appleton, MN area, mark your calendars:

Sunday, December 12, 2010
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Appleton Holiday Craft Show
Appleton ’52 Wing Auditorium
50 East Rooney Ave.
Appleton, MN

In the mean time, Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

P.S. Curious Chef tools make great gifts for kids who love to help in the kitchen, and our Two Kids Shop offers FREE Shipping on all orders of $30 or more PLUS a FREE Curious Chef Knife–check it out!

This week we share a blast from our summer featuring a Family Baking Competition. This competition was Sophia’s idea…big surprise I know. If any child can think of a way to consume large amounts of desserts with full approval of their mother, Soph has thought of it–did I mention he was the bake-off judge?

Anyway, Alex, Grandma and I all presented our bake-off best’s, along with a beverage, to super judge Soph….you’ll have to watch to find out who won

I’ll have to say, we had so much fun, the sugar overload was well worth it.

We hope you enjoy the show and encourage you to try your own family Fairy Berry Bake-off!

Happy Family Cooking!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

P.S. Don’t forget to become a Fan on ‘Facebook’ so you don’t miss out on any of our Holiday specials at our Shop