Every parent knows that life with kids is always busy. Be it a birthday party or a dance class or a baseball game, there is an unending supply of activities that need to be attended. Parents also know that kids grow up fast…the time really does fly. That is the reason why I enjoy the time the kids and I spend cooking together. I cherish every moment I can squeeze in with those kiddies.

Plus, everyone has to eat. That means, if the family cooks together, they get to spend some quality family time together AND they get to eat!

Incorporating family time into the cooking process without adding stress can be more simple than you might think. There are three three simple tips I always follow when the 2 Kids and I are in the kitchen:

1) Choose a day and a menu together
Pick out a day of the week that works best for everyone. Alex, Soph and I cook together a lot, but there are days that we prefer, like Mondays or Fridays, when we get home from school earlier. Whatever day will allow the most relaxing, non-rushed experience is the best to pick.

Choosing the menu should also be a group decision. If everyone in the family actually likes the menu, or at least parts of it, the whole experience will be much more enjoyable.

2) Go over the game plan before starting
Just like with any group event, when everyone on the team knows what the goal is, the whole process goes much more smoothly. Every time the kids I make a recipe, we run through what we’re going to be doing first. Then, once we’ve all got the same picture in our heads, we divide tasks and work our way through each step. By choosing tasks in advance, we also prevent arguments over who will do what while we’re in the middle of making the meal–and we all know that’s a good thing

3) Plan for fun, not perfection
If you’re looking for everything to go perfectly smoothly…well it won’t. Even with the amount of time Alex, Sophia and I spend in the kitchen, we still end up with extra salt in the marinade, or half an egg in the bowl, or a tipped-over bottle of lemon juice, or–I think you get the picture. The thing is, it’s these little imperfections that make the whole experience fun. Plus, the memories you make will be priceless.

Yes, life is busy, but we all know that kids grow up fast. Family time is precious and cooking together is one way to get some of that time back.

Now go, get those kids and cook something together!

Happy Family Cooking Everyone,

Kelly, Alex and Mom

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!

Special family food nights for us range from a picnic dinner at the pool, to movie nights, to eating on the ‘fancy’ plates by candlelight. The kids and I will pick a night–during the school year, it’s usually a Friday–and then pick a menu. It’s my job to make sure we have all the ingredients and then on ‘the day’ we get home and start prepping food and cooking.

The ‘prepping food and cooking’ isn’t just a precursor to our family nights though, it’s part of them. Sometimes it’s the most fun part. While we prepare our meal together we talk, goof around, get excited about the presentation and taste—lots of tasting most of the time. Many of the ‘remember when’s’ we talk about later come from the time we spend together preparing for the actual event. Don’t they say life is about the journey, not the destination…

I have to admit though, lately we have not been doing our special family food nights. It’s not because we’ve been overwhelmingly busy with school activities either, I’ve just been working too much on other things. It’s time to refocus. The kids and I are going to work on having a special family food night at a minimum of one night a month, ideally two (the kids are only with me every other week, so every week they’re with me, we’ll try to do a special family food night). I think this might be something we need accountability for too, just like the veggie variety goal. We’ll be facebooking and tweeting how successful we are

What about your family, do you do special family food nights? Share with a comment!

Soooo, we were recently lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview celebrity Chef, George Duran. You might recall seeing him on TLC as the host of The Ultimate Cake Off or maybe on Food Network on Ham on the Street and Secret Life of… . With our Food Network addiction, we’ve definitely seen his shows and were super excited to ask him a few questions to share with you!

1. In your bio, you indicate you missed your mom’s home cooking when you left for college–Did you spend time in the kitchen with your mom and/or dad cooking when you were a kid? If so, do you have a particular memory you can share?I always love to tell people that my mother loved to over-feed me through her umbilical cord! The truth is that her food is beyond delicious and was the focus of my childhood! In fact, I remember clearly one time as I watched her knead sweet dough, I would steal bits and pieces of her dough and run to my room with it. I would then take the dough and press it onto the light bulb on my reading lamp and wait for it to “cook” into a mini-pizza. I was always passionate about cooking!
2. While you were at NYU studying communication, did you cook for yourself and your friends?At NYU I discovered the world of dinner parties in my apartment! It was magical! Friends would come and I would figure out how to cook cornish hen and serve it up. I was quickly learning that there was this incredible social element to food that I would someday share with the rest of the world!
3. When did you realize you wanted to become a chef, what was the key influence?I was passionate about television production throughout college, but I knew I had to merge another one of my passions to make it big. And food was an easy choice. I decided right then to fly out to Paris and take a 3 year culinary journey and boy did I learn a lot.
4. We love creative, fun recipes and your recipes are just that–what inspires you when you’re creating a recipe?My first inspiration is who is going to eat or cook the recipe. If someone is new to cooking, I will do my best to inspire them to cook a recipe without intimidating them with complex ingredients or difficult instructions. For example, I always have moms and dads come up to me and ask me where they can find some of my quick and easy recipes online.  And there is only one place I tell them to go and that’s ReadySetEat.com. This site has a database of recipes that use minimal ingredients, many of which can be made in 30 minutes or less! But, if they happen to be food connoisseurs, then I’m pulling out the big (French) guns and pointing them to recipes that will absolutely bewilder their palate!
5. I know how food and the interaction, preparation and tradition associated with it has affected me throughout my life. From your experience with food, what suggestions can you give to families that want to include/inspire/teach their kids with the ‘family food experience’?This is a great question as I just became a father and I look forward to bringing food into my child’s life! Remember to be active in the kitchen with your children! Listen to what they like and then encourage them to be part of the cooking process, even on a minimal scale (ie, ripping lettuce, getting their hands into the dough, etc.). Have them taste everything you taste and I guarantee that they will want to learn more. But if there is one thing you MUST do though it’s to ALWAYS sit together as a family for dinner (and even the other meals if you can). Oh yeah, and NO TV at the dinner table!

From August through October, fruits and veggies pop-up everywhere in booths and the back of pick-up trucks along the roadsides in Minnesota with ‘Just Picked’ signs–delicious produce straight from the farmer to you. By this time of year, fresh fruit and veggie time is just about over, but for us, some favorites are still in peak season:

Squash – Alex and I love squash. He likes it sweet and I like it with butter and salt but we both look forward to it everytime we cook it. Here are a couple of our squash recipes–make sure to check back in November when we’ll be sharing a new squash creation (it has bacon…oh yeah!):
Squash Cakes
Squash Soup

Apples – I get excited when the Honey Crisp Apples come out at the store, firm, tart and sweet–Mmmm. I honestly don’t ‘cook’ with apples that much, we prefer them in their purest form with perhaps a bit of carmel sauce. Oh yes, Soph also enjoys an apple pie or three ;D

Potatoes – a versatile and delicious vegetable. Here are some of our favorite potato recipes:
Garlicky Mashed Potatoes
Alex & Soph’s Perogies
Boxty (Irish Potato Pancakes)

Raspberries – Alex and Soph love raspberry season because it means Mom will buy fresh raspberries. Usually, the little containers they come in for the not so little price are more than I prefer pay. But, when they are in season, the kids feast.

And, since next week we’ll be sharing an interview we were lucky enough to get with chef and entertainer, George Duran, we thought we’d share a few fall ingredients he enjoys. George is the author of Take this Dish and Twist It, host of The Ultimate Cake Off on TLC and Ham on the Street and Secret Life of… on Food Network.

Here are George’s fall produce favorites and some tips he provided for each:

Eggplant: Eggplants are best during the beginning of fall and can be found in numerous varieties, shapes, and sizes. Look for firm and heavy eggplants and make sure the color is vibrant and the skin is shiny. Store eggplants uncut, inside a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.

Grapes: Grapes are high in anti-oxidants and peak during early fall. A fully ripened grape is wrinkle-free with stems still intact. Make sure that the grapes are not leaking any juice and look for bright colors, which are a sign that the grape is sweet.

Brussels Sprouts: If you see Brussels sprouts for sale on the stock, grab them right away! Choose ones that are bright green and firm. Yellow or wilted leaves mean that they have been stored incorrectly. Finally, try to select sprouts that are no larger than one-inch in diameter.

Zucchini: Look for dark green colors when choosing zucchini. Make sure the skin is firm and without any bruises. The stem should be moist and about an inch of it should still be attached.

Cranberries: Cranberries often come pre-packaged but the trick is to look for dark red colors and plump ones. Look to see that there are no berries that are shriveled and discolored.

Broccoli: Broccoli tends to be best during the fall. Bright green colors and firm stalks are a good sign that it’s freshly harvested. Most importantly, the broccoli florets should not have any yellow discoloration or wilted leaves.

Cauliflower: Cauliflower offers an excellent source of vitamin C as well as calcium and iron. Look for clean, creamy white colors with no spots or discoloration. The leaves should be bright green and firm. Make sure to look for mold, as it’s a sign that the cauliflower is not fresh.

Leeks: When buying leeks, look for firm white roots and bright green top leaves. The stalks should be unwrinkled and the roots should still be attached. Avoid leeks that have any yellow and wilted leaves.

Pumpkins or Butternut Squash: Choose pumpkins or squash that feel heavy for their size and make sure there are no blemishes on the skin. Feel for soft spots and bruises before purchasing them. Remember, butternut squash continues to ripen for many weeks after purchase, as long as they are kept in a cool, dry spot.

Sweet Potatoes: An excellent source of vitamins A and C, sweet potatoes should be medium-sized and firm all around. Avoid cracks, soft spots, and bruises and look for ones that are not refrigerated, as the flavors can alter if exposed to lower temperatures.

And there you have it, a list of produce and ideas for closing out this fall. We hope you all take advantage of the harvest and spend some time in the kitchen, whippin’ up delicious creations with the whole family.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone,

Kelly, Alex and Sophia

P.S. Have you +1′d Two Kids Cooking yet? Why not do it now?

Every night before Alex and Soph head off to bed they MUST have a bed-time snack. Now, I wish I could say that these snacks are always nutritionally optimized, but I cannot. Most of the time bed-time snacks are ice cream or something sweet. This is why our Orange Cream Smoothie is a popular bed-time snack, it’s sweet and cold and ice cream like.  And, since it’s made from Orange Juice, Milk, Yogurt and Ice, it’s not too shabby on the nutrition side either.

On this week’s show, the kiddies share this healthy bed-time snack recipe that is quick, easy and it does taste orange creamsicle-ish–which in my opinion means tasty!

We hope you enjoy the show and give the recipe a try.

Happy Family Cooking Everyone, Alex, Soph and Kelly

P.S. Make sure to sign up for our email list…we’re going to be doing some give-aways in October and if you’re on the list, you’ll get the details first!

In the July heat, cool and juicy melon is always tasty. This week Alex & Soph share one way we like to add a little pizazz to our melon by demonstrating how we make Melon Pops.

Our inspiration for this recipe came from: FamilyFun Magazine Whenever we’re feeling less than creative, this magazine is great for generating ideas that are family-friendly and fun. We usually throw in our own spin, but making a recipe your own is part of the joy of cooking, right?

We hope this recipe inspires you to create variations that your family will enjoy–from using a different melon, or smaller cookie cutters–get creative and enjoy the show!

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

P.S. Our next episode will be up the first week in August and we’ll share some summer beverage experiments we’ve been working on–don’t miss it!

It’s Monday! and that means it’s time for ‘The Kids Cook Monday!’ This week we’re resharing our recipe for Pizzadillas–essentially they’re quesadilla’s with pizza ‘stuff’ inside. We love this recipe because it allows each of us to customize ingredients and it’s lots of fun…not to mention we love pizza of all kinds

Our recipe is below and in the episode, Alex and Soph show you exactly how they make their own specialty Pizzadillas.

Pizzadillas

Main Ingredients:
Flour Tortillas
Cheese – Mozzarella, Cheddar, a Marbled variety, whatever you prefer
Pizza Sauce for dipping
Cooking Spray

Optional Ingredients:
Pepperoni
Sausage
Chicken
Olives, black and/or green
Artichoke hearts
Onions
Whatever you like on your pizza

Instructions:
The first thing you’ll want to do is prep the ingredients. Have the kids help grate the cheese, slice the olives, cut up the chicken, etc… Once you’ve got all your ‘toppings’ ready, give everyone a tortillas and have them start building their pizzas. Be carefull not to overtop or it will be hard to flip when the pizzadilla is in the pan. Once each person is satisfied with the contents of their pizzadilla, have them add the second tortilla to the top and you’re ready to melt it up.

Heat a pan on the stove top until it’s hot and then spray it with cooking spray. Next, drop in your first pizzadilla, cooking it ’til the first side is browned. Then, spray the side facing up and flip the pizzadilla over–Sophia (age 7) likes to help with the spraying part and Alex (age 12) and I usually take care of the flipping. After both sides are browned and the cheese has melted, lift it out of the pan and let it cool on a plate. Finally, it’s time for cutting! We usually cut ours into either 4 or 6 pieces.

Once your pizzadilla is cut to your satisfaction, serve with a side of microwave-warmed pizza sauce and you’ve got yourself a quick, easy and tasty meal!

Enjoy the show and happy family cooking everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

P.S. If you need some ideas on how to start a family cooking night at your house, head on over to ‘The Kids Cook Monday‘ for lots of tips, recipes and ideas.

We’ve been participating in the ‘The Kids Cook Monday‘ initiative for about a year now, so you’ve probably seen our posts about ‘em, or at least have a vague recollection of us mentioning them before; But, guess what? They have officially launched their awesome website! It’s filled with great resources to help families get in the kitchen together and have some fun.

What exactly is The Kids Cook Monday? Well, it’s an initiative that encourages families to keep-up or start a tradition of family dinners. When Monday is family dinner night, the meal becomes a fun event, ensuring that parents and kids spend quality time together every week, all year round.

You don’t have to be an expert cook to make a family meal together either–Parents can explore cooking with kids even if they’re novice cooks! The Kids Cook Monday website is filled with recipes that come with age group suggestions as well as “parent”, “kid’ and “together” cooking tasks. There’s also an information packed toolkit to help get your family started.

Studies show that children who engage in regular family dinners eat more nutritious diets, get better grades in school and develop better communication skills, so how can the modern family incorporate a regular, family mealtime? Alex, Sophia and I, along with ‘The Kids Cook Monday’ and the other organizations and bloggers on board are here to help your family answer that question. Go check out www.TheKidsCookMonday.org, look through their suggestions and ideas, and then get in the kitchen and start having fun!

Happy Family Cooking Everyone!

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

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!