Train Snack for Kids

The train obsession still chugs along very strong in our home! We created a train themed snack to go along with one of our kids' favorite modes of transportation!

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Madeline Snack for Kids

This month for Virtual Book Club for Kids we read the book Madeline. Our kids created a snack to go with the story, too. They loved making and eating Madeline hat cookies! 

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Marinated Tomatoes Recipe

I'm sharing another one of my mother-in-law's very best recipes! It's simple enough that kids can cook it from start to finish and yet it's so delicious that our whole family gobbles these marinated tomatoes up no matter how many we make! Yum!

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Bat Snack for Kids

Want to hear a little known fact about me? I love bats! From the time I was a student teacher, I loved to do a bat science unit for Halloween and read Stellaluna to the class. Now I'm sharing this classic bat story with my own kids. We made a bat themed trail mix to to with the book! It's the perfect Halloween snack. 

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Lemon Ginger Ice Cubes for Refreshing Infused Water

Do you and your kids drink enough water to stay hydrated through out the day? We've started making lemon ginger ice cubes to flavor our water, increase health benefits, and remind us to drink up!

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Fruit Salsa Recipe for Kids

One food that I know our kids will eat endlessly when it's set in front of them is all types of fruit! Fruit salsa is great as a dessert or snack. It's perfect in the heat of the summer when you don't want to heat anything and the fruit is all in season but we love it any time of year. The recipe is super simple, too!

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Super Simple Microwave Strawberry Jam

This microwave strawberry jam recipe is super simple! You only need berries, lemon juice, sugar, and a bit of salt. No pectin or fancy canning equipment required so it's the perfect recipe to try when cooking with kids.

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Grape Sparklers

This may be our favorite Cooking with Kids recipe yet! We almost couldn't stop snacking on these delicious treats to take a picture. This recipe gives grapes a bit of crunchy sweetness from a secret ingredient: Jello!

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Duck Snack for Kids

This adorable duck themed snack is perfect after reading Make Way for Ducklings! The best part of all is that our kids made it completely independently, too!

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How to Freeze Your Own Cookie Dough

There is nothing better than freshly baked cookies but you don't always have the time or energy to make them from scratch. Instead of store bought frozen cookie dough we'll show you how to freeze your own cookie dough for homemade delicious treats anytime!

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Banana Pudding Cookie Cups

We're back with our Cooking with Kids series to share a no cook dessert recipe that is perfect for kids to create! B is for banana so we are making Banana Pudding Cookie Cups!

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Tips to Get Kids to Try New Foods

Magic occurred in my kitchen today while I was cleaning fresh fruits and veggies. My kids both tried a food they had previously refused without me even saying a word!

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Visual Grocery Lists for Kids

Allowing children to make healthy choices for their own meals encourages them to try and eat a wide variety of foods. These free printables help us inventory our produce at a glance, assist with meal planning, offer the kids wholesome snack choices, and provide a visual grocery list for shopping trips!

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Toddler Kitchen Practice

This is when I admit that I allow my two year old to use a knife to chop fruits and vegetables and you unsubscribe.  But wait!  I can explain, er justify.

The foods are soft.  The knife is dull.  This is a great task to practice fine motor skills.  She eats better when she takes ownership and pride in the foods prepared because she helped to cook them.

We had baked potatoes for dinner the other night.  I took the left overs out to chop and pan fry for lunch today.  E is standing in her Kitchen Helper.  This is something I lusted after since she first started helping me cook.  We considered trying to make a DIY version, but in the end we just bought one and it has been worth every. single. penny.  She uses it multiple times daily.  

After some exploration, I cut slices for her to chop.

While the potatoes were frying, we moved on to strawberries.

Those were more tempting to just bite.

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Snowman Lunch

When the kids came over for a snowman play date, we had a snowman themed snack and lunch planned.  In both cases, I gave the kids all the ingredients to make snowmen, but it was pretty much a flop.  They just wanted to eat without building.  Then once we modeled it for them E didn't want to eat and essentially "ruin" her snowman so she asked for more food.  

I had some prepped bread left over so the other day, I tried again.  This time I built it for her and presented it to her as a finished product.  

Originally, I thought if I gave the kids the snowman already made, it was not as fun for them because they didn't get to build it.  Just the opposite happened, though.  She ate his raisin eyes, M&M buttons, grape hat, yogurt mouth, and carrot arms and nose.  Then she asked for more to rebuild him!

We talked about how many eyes she'd need, so we were counting.  She liked the buttons to match so she was sorting by color.  She delicately added more yogurt to his mouth, using the spoon like a paintbrush.

In the end, observing her work taught me so much more about how to better present activities in the future in a developmentally appropriate way.

She was so proud of her finished snowman!  She ended up eating more this way.  

E's age: 24 months

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Baking Zucchini Muffins (and Bread)

We have a very generous friend who gave us two gigantic zucchini from her garden this week (Thanks!).  I steamed one and pureed it to freeze into cubes to add to pasta sauces and other recipes for added veggies.  But with the second one, we baked!  This was E's first experience baking with Momma in the kitchen.  We used Smitten Kitchen's recipe.

Just like when I taught kindergarten, I tackled this by planning, thinking ahead to what I anticipated the kiddo(s) to do, and prepping!  I shredded the zucchini while E was eating lunch.  When she got up from her nap, we began.  I put all the supplies on the table within reach so I could be assisting, taking pictures, and measuring!

I whisked the eggs, but let her do some of her own mixing at the end.  We added sugar, vanilla, the shredded zucchini, and oil, but instead of using a cup of oil, we used 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup oil to make the recipe more guilt free!  I buy the HUGE applesauce jars with no sugar added and freeze portions so it was really easy to thaw a bit in the microwave for the recipe (or a healthy snack).

I measured everything and let E do the dumping.  She was really concentrating, proud of her work, and successful at this!

Then we mixed the dry ingredients.  Flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  I found that if we needed 1 teaspoon of an ingredient, it was more fun to measure it into two 1/2 teaspoons so E got to dump in the ingredients often.  And it was a math work out for Momma, double and triple checking the recipe and dividing the portions!

We used 1/2 cup chopped walnuts after I gave E a piece at snack time to check for allergic reactions.  I think at this point she has had most nuts, but use your judgement and omit if you feel better doing so.  Oh, and you can use a food processor to do the chopping!

We added 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup chocolate chips.

I did the folding of the wet and dry ingredients together with E supervising.  I also poured the batter into the baking pans.  There were tears of protest about this, but the leftover chocolate chips were a nice distraction.

The recipe makes 24 muffins or 2 loaves of bread.  We did a dozen muffins (20 minutes baking time) and one loaf (an hour).

I don't have pictures of the final product but Smitten Kitchen does.  E and I ate 2 muffins for a snack before dinner.  They are THAT good.

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E's age: 18 months

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