Master Chef

Emily is becoming quite the chef these days. She has been helping me bake muffins, cookies and cakes. She also made dinner by herself twice in the past few weeks.

The first dinner a la Emily was pizza. It was her first attempt at making dinner pretty much on her own so I thought we would take the simple route. I bought a package of “make your own pizza dough” and let her add the water and mix. She then spread it out on the pan and topped the pizza with sauce, mushrooms and black olives. Dinner was delish that night and I didn’t have to make it. For the most part.

 

 

The second meal Emily made was enchiladas. I didn’t follow a recipe, per se. I pretty much merged a couple of recipes to suit what I had on hand and what was easy enough for Emily to do on her own. And she did it all. She mixed the ingredients and filled the corn tortillas. She really enjoyed rolling them herself. Add some enchilada sauce and cheese. Voila! Dinner you can sink your teeth into. If you want to know the ingredients and how she made these yummies, let me know!

Bon appetit!

Baking on a rainy day

If your child is going to be sick (double ear infection), a rainy day is a good day to be stuck in the house. Monday was that day for us. It was raining cats and dogs. Poor Emily was absolutely miserable due to the infections so she stayed in her pj’s until a bath at 3:30.

I had some blueberries that were getting close to the end of their life so I decided we should make blueberry muffins. Only I was trying to make healthy blueberry muffins. I found a recipe for 100 calorie muffins. Should have been called “you might as well eat cardboard” muffins.Needless to say, they weren’t worth the 72 calories after using Splenda. I think it was the old fashioned oatmeal in them.

I am not going to share the recipe with you unless you want to get back at some grouchy neighbors or make your dog have the poops. But I did want to share some pictures of a poor sick, yet cute little girl helping make the muffins.

Kiddie sushi-style rolls

I love cookbooks. Plain and simple. Buying them, renting them from the library- it doesn’t matter. I just like recipes. My sister asked me awhile back if I had any good recommendations on toddler cookbooks. I gave her the name of a couple that I had and looked on Amazon for some more. I came across one that I wanted to check out.

I’m a try before you buy kind of gal so I requested it from the library. A month or so later (apparently, a lot of people wanted to peruse it) I got to go through it. There were tons of recipes in there! I think I will have to buy Annabel Karmel’s book. I did note some recipes that I HAD to try though.

Yesterday we tried our first recipe. I think it went over pretty well.

Kiddie sushi-style rolls

* Makes one portion

Ingredients
2 slices white bread, crusts removed
half a 6-ounce can tuna (she said “in oil”, I used “in water”) drained
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup (I omitted this)
2 drops Tabasco sauce-or to taste (I omitted this as well)
2 inch piece of cucumber, cut into strips
2 inch piece of carrot, peeled and coarsely grated

• Using a rolling pin, flatten the bread until it is about 1/4 inch thick.
• Mix the tuna together with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise, the ketchup and the Tabasco (if using).
• Spread the remaining mayonnaise over the bread.
• Spread the tuna in a line about 1/2 inch from one edge of each slice.
• Arrange the cucumber strips on one side of the tuna and grated carrot on the other side.
• Roll up from the filled end and press down to seal.
• Trim the ends to neaten using a sharp knife, then cut into three little rolls.

Voila!

Yummy!

Chocolate Cupcakes

Emily loves to bake so for Valentines Day I found this little baking mat at the Dollar Store. It had a recipe for chocolate cupcakes. I didn’t know if the recipe would be any good or not but I figured it was worth a try. Emily would love it because it involved adding ingredients together. We decided to try it out yesterday. I had bought some Easter cupcake liners and sprinkles for the occasion and we decided to send them with Daddy to work.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vinegar

Directions
Mix all of the ingredients well with a mixer. It should be brown and smooth. Free of lumps. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Cupcakes will be moist and delicious.

Buttermilk or milk may be substituted for water. Melted butter may be substituted for oil.

My notes:
I made the recipe exactly as is. They turned out ok. There weren’t bad but they weren’t Betty Crocker. If I were to make them again, I might try adding a bit of vanilla and possibly substituting milk to make it creamier. We also added a few chocolate chips to the top of each cupcake as well.

The recipe didn’t say how many cupcakes this made. I made 18. I would say, going off the basic recipe, that you should make 12. They don’t rise as much as boxed mixes.

Getting the liners ready

The best part- licking the beater

Mmm, apple pie

I2 made my first ever apple pie! It was *almost* homemade. I didn’t have the time or the energy to make the crust but I did make the filling!

I think it turned out quite nice. It was very, very tasty. And pretty. My mother-in-law didn’t want to cut it and deface the lattice work. In fact, I think I’ll go have another slice of it now. Wait, I really need to get it out of the house!! Freezer maybe?

I tweaked a recipe that I found on www.allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored and sliced

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and water; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes.

My tweaks: I added a tsp of vanilla, 2 tsps each of nutmeg and cinnamon to the apple mixture before pouring it into the crust. I also brushed the top of the crust with milk to help it turn a golden brown. I also put aluminum foil along the edges of the crust to keep it from burning.

It turned out really well. The only thing I would do different would be to bake it a little longer and my bottom crust was a little soft. Other than that, it was delicious!!!

Makin’ cookies

Sunday night we decided to make some cookies. And this time Daddy got to experience cooking with Emily! It’s fun, messy and lively!

Silly girl!!