Do you have some people on your list that have a sweet tooth? If so, why not bake them up some sweet treats customized to their own tastes.

If you’re feeling like venturing beyond the Christmas cookie, there are other options. Two of our favorites are chocolates and suckers.  Soph in particular likes making the chocolates, she actually came up with the idea for the ones we make on her own (you can see them in the picture). We buy Dolci Frutta chocolate to dip fruit in, like strawberries and bananas. Soph thought since it tastes so good, and since she can melt it so easily, why not make pour it into molds and make fancy chocolates. Then she decided we should get some of the white chocolate Dolci Frutta and decorate the chocolates–so we did!

Another fun candy we like to make is suckers. We adapted our larger suckers from a recipe we got from the Barbara Beery, Pink Ponies Cookbook.  (which we recently reviewed.)

For ours, we made different shaped molds out of aluminum foil. The Christmas tree was made freehand and the star was made by forming the foil around a star-shaped cookie cutter.  The important thing is to keep bottom of the foil mold as contiguous as possible; any cracks or holes will mean leakage. For the stick, you could buy official sucker sticks, but we used skewers that we cut in half and removed the sharp tip. Then we stuck them through the side of the foil and about half way up the middle of the mold to make sure they’d be sufficiently covered by the sucker.

Once the molds were complete, we took some jolly ranchers, put them in a plastic bag and smashed ‘em with a hammer. This is fun, but make sure to let the kiddies know that a jolly rancher does not require over-the-head, slamming force to break, a few taps are sufficient to break them into pieces, and that’s all that’s necessary.  We took the broken pieces and placed them in the molds.  Our molds were a bit over 1/2 inch high and we filled them to the top.

To melt them into suckers, we placed them in a 350 degree oven for about 6 minutes. Watch them carefully! Once they are melted, promptly remove them and set them some place to cool. If you leave them in too long, they will burn–burnt jolly rancher does not taste good, trust me.

Once they cooled, we removed them from their molds and wrapped them up all cute with treat bags as covers and sparkly ribbon.

If you want to get fancier with your suckers or candies, you can find hard candy molds online, but for those, you pour the hot sucker syrup into the molds which we think is a bit riskier than melting in the oven–especially when the kids are helping.

These are just a couple of sweet treat ideas from the kitchen. If you’re not a candy maker, a gift of cookies, brownies or bars would be appreciated by any lover of sweet things. Plus, a gift from the kitchen is just as much fun to make as it is give (and receive!).

Happy family cooking everyone!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. Checked out our 2 Kids Cooking Recipes page for all of our holiday recipes

If your looking for a way to spread the joy of cooking this holiday, why not give the gift of a meal! We’re not talking a restaurant gift card here, we’re talking a Meal in a Basket (or other container of your choice). The cool thing about these, is that you can customize them to the person you’re giving them to–if it’s for a pizza lover, a pizza basket; for pancake lover, a breakfast basket, etc.

Another thing about these, if you are a coupon shopper like we are, you can plan ahead and get many of the items for the baskets at great prices. The ‘baskets’ don’t have to be baskets either, you could use a tray or a box wrapped in gift wrap–be creative!

Here are some of the Meal in a Basket ideas we’ve come up with:

Spaghetti Dinner Basket:
Along with ingredients like those suggested below, make sure to include your favorite pasta sauce recipe. You could also include a jar of your own homemade sauce, and instructions for how to prepare the meal.

• Spaghetti Noodles
• Canned tomatoes
• Italian Herbs
• Parmesan Cheese
• French Bread
• Mushrooms
• Garlic

Pizza Party Basket:
With this basket, you can include recipes for any homemade items you include, along with instructions for the crust if it’s a make-it-yourself from a recipe type. Just remember if you include things that need refrigeration, well, you’ll need to store it in the fridge before delivery.

• A box of pizza crust or a jar with the dry ingredients for pizza crust
• Pizza sauce (homemade or from a jar)
• Mozzarella cheese
• Pizza fixings you know they’ll like (Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, etc.)
• Bread sticks
• Salad in a bag

Chili Basket:
You can include whatever ingredients are appropriate for the recipe you include with this basket. If you decide to include a meat-chili recipe, you don’t have to include the meat, just point out the need for it in the recipe you include.

• Canned tomatoes (home canned or from the store)
• Chili and/or Kidney Beans
• Onion
• Chili spices (whatever our recipe calls for)
• Cornbread muffin mix (your own mix or a packet from the store)

Pancake Breakfast Basket:
If the person you’re giving this to prefers waffles, include a waffle mix instead. Make sure to include the recipe with additional ingredients and instructions.

• A jar filled with the ingredients for homemade pancakes
• A bottle of real maple syrup
• A couple other bottles of fruit flavored syrups
• Some pancake add-ins like: Chocolate Chips, Bananas, Blueberries
• Some Fruits for Fruit toppings: Strawberries, Blueberries, Bananas
• Any other pancake topping your giftee might like

Veggie Soup Basket:
Again with this one, include veggies that match the recipe you include.

• Chicken, Beef or Veggie Stock
• Veggies for the soup: Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Beans, Peas, etc.
• Noodles, rice, barley, if your recipe calls for it.
• A loaf of homemade bread (or a store bought bread that goes well with soup)

Stir-fry Basket:
For this one, include the stir-fry veggies you know the recipient will love, here are a bunch of different things you could include, but limit the actual thing in your basket to those that match the recipe you’re including.

• Stir-fry Veggies: Broccoli, Onions, Colored Peppers, Snow Peas, Green Beans, Water Chesnuts, Carrots, Asparagus….the list goes on
• Soy Sauce
• Ginger
• Teriyaki Sauce
• Rice
• Noodles

Dessert for Dinner Basket:
Who doesn’t like dessert for dinner? For this one, you can either include ingredients for recipes, or do some baking and include your treats and the recipes you used in the basket. Here are some dessert type ideas…just in case you couldn’t think of any yourself ;D

• Ice Cream Sundae – Chocolate Syrup, Carmel Sauce, Fruit Sauces, Nuts, Sprinkles, Whip Cream, Ice Cream Scoop
• Brownies – A homemade brownie mix with add-ins like chocolate chips, nuts, caramel
• Cookies – A couple of homemade cookie mixes and the recipes/instructions for them
• Cake – A homemade cake mix with frosting/filling (homemade or storebought) and decorating ‘stuff’

These are just  few ideas, use your imagination and we’re sure you can find the perfect combination for those on your holiday shopping list!

Happy Holiday Cooking Everyone!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. For gift ideas for the little cooks in your life, check out our  2011 Gift Guide now!

photo by Corvidean

Today is the day that this mom turns forty years old. Some call that over-the-hill. Others say 40 is the new 30. For me, forty is good. I am at a place in my life where I am happy and excited to continue moving forward. I have two amazing kids, a wonderful man in my life and a great plan for moving my life and work onward.

I am one of those people that is excited about getting ‘old’. Since my twenties I’ve been thinking of the things I can say and do when I’m in my 70s and 80s. Each year I figure I can get a little bit crazier and it’ll just be written off as ‘advancing age’. I guess that’s the biggest thing that each year teaches…be yourself.

When I was a teenager, I was very much myself.  I felt unstoppable with ideas and opinions and grand plans. Then life happened–not that life was bad, it’s exactly as it should have been. But while trying to be what I thought I was supposed to be, I lost some of that unstoppable-ness.

That life that happened (and is still happening), it has taught me. I think now at forty, I’m feeling a bit more unstoppable again. And, since I’ve experienced some of those ‘life happening’ events, I’m much better equipped to remain unstoppable.

Here’s to forty amazing years, and another forty+ crazy ones to come!

Happy November 29th Everyone!

Kelly

Photo: William Dickey; Styling: Rose Nguyen

Sometimes family schedules can make family cooking challenging. After school-practices, appointments, games…it can be difficult to prepare and eat a family meal together.  This doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t squeeze in some time in the kitchen having fun. With a little planning, the week can present itself an hour or two. We have three ideas for you and your kids spend that free time and they all involve fun together in the kitchen.

Idea 1:
Baking - When most people think about cooking with their kids, they think of baking, at least that’s my perception. The reason is because making cookies from scratch or mixing up or decorating cupcakes is a simple way to get the kids in the kitchen with you.

Here are some baking together tips:

• Take some time with the kiddies to pick out a specific recipe that you want to bake together
• Prepare the shopping list together as well, first checking the cupboards for what you already have, and then going to purchase the rest
• Plan the date and time you’re going to have your baking adventure and make sure there are no other distractions.
• Enjoy your baked creation together and share with others in the family that didn’t help!

Idea 2:
Food Related Experiments – If you have kids that are interested in science, or even just doing experiments with food, you can probably get them in the kitchen cooking and learning with a Science Experiment You Can Eat. We’ve made up our own experiments, some of them not so edible, but with this book by Vicki Cobb, you can investigate things from Suspensions, Colloids and Emulsions to Microbes and Enzymes. Each experiment has an edible component and an observation section to help summarize what you learned.

Idea 3:
Preparing Special Meals – By special meals, I mean things like Mom, Dad, Brother or Sister’s birthday, or maybe just because it’s Friday.  Any day can be a special day if everyone involved decides it is. By planning a special meal day and building up anticipation, everyone will be excited when the day actually arrives. Alex, Soph and I like to do party nights when we make snacky super items together, then spread out a blanket in the living room and eat picnic style while we watch a movie, or something on Netflix.

Here are some tips for planning your ‘special meal’ night:

• Pick the special day or event together. If it’s for a family member’s birthday, you can surprise them or include them. If you do include them, you can always plan a surprise part of the meal (like cake) that you make separately.
• Have everyone decide  ahead of time what they will be working on…who’s cutting veggies, who’s preparing marinades, who’s stirring and who’s pouring. It may seem like a lot of upfront work, but it will pay off with a smooth running kitchen.
• Don’t stop at the food, why not decorate up the table to match a theme?  Placemats and name cards can be made in advance, or you can just break out the picnic blanket and eat off of paper plates–whatever you decide.

We hope one of these ideas inspires you to set aside a few hours in the coming weeks to have some fun as a family, cooking up some tasty treats.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone,

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. Don’t forget to sign-up for our email list so you get your weekly recap of all or our ideas and the show!

Today we’re going to share our thoughts on six of Barbara Beery’s Cook Books. All of the books are filled with beautiful photographs of recipes that fit the theme of the book. The layout and design, as you can see from the photo, are very girl-centric and part of the appeal of the books.

The recipes range from baked and sweet to savory and sandwich-y and they are all on theme with the title of the book they appear in. Here are some highlights from each:

Spa Princess Cookbook: Time at the spa means relaxing spa treatments along with delicious spa treats. That is exactly what this book provides. In addition to the various smoothies, drinks and snacks, there’s an entire section for food-based (non-edible) spa treatments!

Pink Princess Cupcakes: This is a cupcake book, filled with cupcakes, all of them with princess flair. The first 12 page of the book contain Baking Tips, five basic cupcake recipes and several frosting recipes. The rest of the pages provide decorating information for the different kinds of cupcake cuteness.

Pink Princess Tea Parties: For a tea party, you need beverages and snacks, and that is just what you’ll find in this cookbook. Lots of sugary cookies, cakes and snacks, and a sandwich section with a few non-sweet treats.

Pink Ponies Cookbook: A few savory recipes are interspersed amongst all the sugary delights in this pony themed recipe collection. Unicorn Punch, Winner’s Circle Donuts and Pony Pops Cupcakes are a few of the concoctions you’ll find.

Fairies Cookbook: Magically sweet baked goods fill the pages of this cookbook. You’ll be sure to find the perfect Sparkly cookie, colorful beverage or frosted cupcakes in this Fairy Cookbook.

Mermaid Cookbook: This book overflows with sea-themed treats—Lots of fruit and yogurts, beach-y sandwiches, cool iced drinks; plus, some topical snacks and desserts.

As I previously mentioned, all of these books are, for lack of a better term, ‘girly’ and the majority of the recipes in each are baking-centric, sugary treats. These books are for girls who love sparkles, pastels, princesses and enjoy making pretty, sweet delights—Girls like my Sophia ;D
We own all of these books and Sophia loves them. She will browse through them for hours, planning what we’re going to try. At this point, we’ve only made a few of the recipes from the Spa Princess and Pink Ponies books, mainly because we just cannot eat that much sugar.

The recipes we’ve tried include: Marshmallow Cloud Fluff, Fairy Dust Lollipops, and Little Ponytail Puffs, and the Sweet Princess Sugar Scrub. Each was simple enough that there was something for any level of kid cook to help with—Mixing, cutting, spreading, decorating and compiling. All of the recipes are adorable with beautiful layout and photos, adding to the charm of these books.

The biggest downside to these books, in my opinion, is that nearly all of the recipes are sweet. Now, they are specialty cookbooks, and I am not a huge lover of sugary things, so that may be clouding my opinion. But, if you’re looking for healthy recipes, these are not the books to get.

For more information on Barbara Beery and all of her cookbooks, and to read more reviews, check out the Barbara Beery page on Amazon.com.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

First off, or disclosure’s sake, I’m going to let you know that we did not buy Teen Cuisine, we won it in a drawing from iFood.tv, and we’re certainly glad! It’s 200+ pages of recipes, information and tips, all aimed at the young, learning chef. The recipes included are a step-up from basic in complexity and flavor.

This cook book is perfect for a pre-teen, teen or young adult who is looking for a way to fancy up their cooking repertoire and learn a few things in the process. Although a younger child could, with assistance, prepare some of these recipes, they are designed for cook with a bit of experience under their belt.

Two of my favorite sections of this book are the Kitchen Essentials and Kitchen Equipment and Utensils sections. The Kitchen Essentials contains a list of ingredients that are used in the recipes throughout the book. It provides a brief description of each item, including the less familiar ones like Spelt Flour, Tomatillos and Chervil. The Kitchen Equipment and Utensils section, as the name indicates, is a list of lots of cool kitchen stuff. The list includes basic essentials, like Baking Sheets and Spatulas, along with a few specialty items, like a Fondue Pot and Juicer.

The kids and I have tried a couple of the recipes from the book: Crisp Oven Fries and Not-An-Ordinary Grilled Cheese Sandwich. We’ve actually made the fries more than a few times cuz they’re so good—seriously tasty OVEN-BAKED fries, totally true. We’re planning on posting more on both of these recipes, but for now, we’ll just say we liked ‘em.

If you have a super picky eater—and hence, a super picky teen-chef on your hands—the recipes in this book might be a bit adventurous for them. These recipes are for a palette that likes variety, or at the very least, to try new foods. But, the book might also inspire them to become a bit more daring in their food selection and get them to branch out, you never know.

To see more reviews or get yourself a copy, check it out a Amazon.com.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. Don’t miss any of our Kids Cooking related Product Reviews…sign-up for our email list!

In the picture that accompanies this post, you see a letter from my dad, Alex and Soph’s Grandpa. It contains two recipes, one is a family recipe from his childhood the other a ‘tasty dip’ recipe that he thought we’d like. My dad sends letters the old fashioned way, ink on paper written in meticulous cursive–He doesn’t have a computer or use email or the internet. We like getting stuff in the mail–especially when they it includes family recipes.

Whenever I get a recipe that family members have passed on to me, it is usually accompanied with a story about who always made it, what time of year it was prepared and memories of how it tasted. I take those recipes and tuck them into the recipe book that my mom gave me when I was in college. It’s one of those small three-ring binder recipe books with blank recipe card-like pages, ready to be filled with ingredients and instructions. When she gave it to me, it had a few of our families favorite recipes already hand-written in it. And now, I continue to add to it.

Currently, these family recipes are not in a very organized state, just pieces of paper, stuffed into the binder. Lately I’ve been thinking of other ways to preserve these recipes and pass them on to my kids and other family members. Here is what my time thinking has lead me to:

1) I’m going to go through my binder of collected recipes, organize and write down my memories of each.
2) Next, I’ll ask family members to supply additional recipes and memories the memories that go with them.
3) Then, I’ll find appropriate family photos to go with each recipe and ask family members for additional photos as necessary.
4) Finally, I’ll compile the recipes and photos into a cookbook using Lulu.com

Once the book is complete, I’ll order copies and give them as gifts to my kids and the rest of my family. I hope I have time to get this done before Christmas, these kinds of gifts are always my favorite to give and receive.

Happy Family Recipe Compiling Everyone!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. Please share ways you preserve your family recipes with a comment.

Download Your Guide Here!

I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but if you’re like me, you’ve already started doing your holiday shopping.  That’s why we’re getting our 2011 Gift Guide: The Best Gifts for the Mini-Chef in Your Life out right now. It’s filled with ideas categorized in the following sections:

-Kids Cooking Kits
-Kids Cooking Tools
-Kids Cooking Accessories
-Kids Cookbooks
-Kids Cooking Toys

Once you’ve browsed through, we’re sure your mind will be sparking with ideas for the little cooks in your life.

Enjoy the Gift Guide and Happy Holiday Shopping!

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

We’ve all heard the saying ‘ Knowledge is Power’ and we all know what it means. The most important thing though, is that it’s true. When you know all the facts about something, the choices you make are educated and any consequences are expected–if you smoke and get lung cancer, well no surprise there. No surprise if you’ve been told that smoking gives you lung cancer. If you haven’t been told, then smoking isn’t an educated risk, it’s a matter of pure ‘like’ or ‘don’t like’. It’s the same with food choices. And, lack of knowledge is probably even riskier with food, because we have to eat.

Food education is more than just telling our kids to eat their veggies, it’s telling them the why…that’s the knowledge part. You can restrict your kids access to certain foods because they’re bad for them. Or, you can teach them about food, the good, the bad and the ugly. I recommend the latter.

Here are my four recommendations for continuously encouraging kids to make the right decisions by talking to them and teaching them about food:

1. Cook with your kids.
   Kids that can cook will become adults that can cook. Plus, cooking your own real food is healthier.
2. Talk about the food your eating and how it helps you.
   Meat/protein makes your muscles strong, milk/calcium is good for bones, etc.
3. Teach you kids about proportions and how much of each type of food your body needs.
   Super Healthy Kids has  an awesome dinner set to help with the discussion, but there are lots of websites with visual aids as well.
4. Enforce Balance. There are no foods my kids can absolutely not have, but moderation is what I preach. A cookie is o.k., but not 10 cookies. I also enforce balance by limiting unhealthy food to nothing if healthy food is not eaten (i.e. if you don’t eat your beans, you don’t get dessert).

The thing is, you are not always going to be with your child to control what they eat. When they are at school, or friends houses, and when they grow-up and leave home.  The temptation of unhealthy foods is still going to be there and chances are, our kids are going to eat some of them. That’s o.k. They will survive. Plus, if we’ve done our job teaching them about the differences between healthy and less healthy foods, as well as provided the benefits and risks, they will make the right decisions.

Soph with her Healthy Kids Plate

As parents, we all want what’s best for our children and that is especially true when it comes to their health. A key element of being healthy is the food you eat. With kids and all of the not-so-healthy food messages they are exposed to, it’s important to reinforce positive messages about food choices early.  There are lots of resources out there to assist parents with this healthy eating education and here are a couple of our favorites.

Today I Ate A Rainbow Kit

The ‘Today I Ate a Rainbow’ Kit allows kids to interactively and colorfully see what fruits and vegetables they’ve eaten for the day.  By working toward their daily goal of eating a food from each color of the rainbow, the kids learn the healthy goal of eating a rainbow. The kit is also helpful to remind Mom and Dad to keep lots of rainbow foods on hand!

I Can Eat A Rainbow

For the youngest eaters in the family, the ‘I can eat a Rainbow’ book is colorful and fun way to start learning about healthy eating.  Similar to the ‘Today I Ate a Rainbow’ kit, it teaches the goal of eating food from every color of the rainbow.

Healthy Kids Plate

The Healthy Kids plate emphasizes the recommendation that half our plates be fruits and vegetables and it’s divided to ensure proper portions of each food group–and for those picky eaters who hate their food touching. It’s dishwasher safe, BPA Free, Lead Free and 100% Melamine. The plate not only teaches children how to eat more healthfully, but it also reminds Mom’s and Dad’s to give their kids more fruits and vegetables.

Healthy Kids Dinner Set

This set emphasizes the same benefits as the plate alone, but in addition, includes a Bowl measuring one full cup–this means you can fill it with one cup of veggies and know your kids are meeting recommendations for vegetable consumption. It also includes a one cup glass to encourage drinking water!

I know that as the mom here at the two kids household, I’m always looking for creative ways to reinforce healthy eating habits. These fun tools will help you and your kids get an early start at learning how to have a healthy diet. We hope you like them as much as Alex, Sophia and I do.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone,

Alex, Sophia and Kelly