Cooking Empowerment (& a Birthday)/Friday Flavor

Ok, so I thought I'd keep the birthday thing under wraps on social media. But a couple family members had other ideas. Thanks daughter #1 and Only Sister. I say that with my sweetest reminder that they too will be celebrating someday.........

At least my Mother-in-law tried to sweeten the deal for real with this personal cake.

It. Was. Wonderful!

Thank you Nancy :)

Kirsten surprised me with flowers, balloons and a lovely little package. 

Thank you for making my day special!

#LoveMyDaughters

Fast forward to Thursday,

we worked on a lil' recipe with the children.

This was on Pinterest and as you can see, we altered it a bit to fit my ingredients on hand.

Have you ever tried Pear Honey? It was one of the substitutes for the maple syrup. 

The doubled batch made enough to fill that pitcher in the end.

With special permission, I can show you the 'action'. Just look at the intent on those faces!

Sure added some Flavor to my day.

Hope you'll be back next week for more Friday Flavor!

Baked Veggie Bites/Tasty Thursday

Tasty Thursday

Back in March, we used this book for Mud Pies. Delish!

 Tuesday, we tried the recipe above, Veggie Bites.

Zucchini fresh from the garden was our vegetable choice.

Love breaded zucchini. 

Love pretty much anything breaded.

Assembly line for the young chef.

Not quite sure how these were supposed to be edible. 

I even sprayed some extra butter on them, turned them once again, (actually 4 times) and still they were gritty and mushy. 

Breading was non existent.

Definitely not a keeper. 

We had Doritos instead for snack. 

Dad's. The Sugar On The Donuts/Tasty Thursday

Tasty Thursday

Pinterest, you saved the day. I'm not usually too sure of Pinterest cooking ideas, but this time you came through. I wanted the kids to cook for their Father's Day gifts and with a little hesitation, I dove in with this Pin:

Link here

So we bought those refrigerator biscuits and cut out our donut shapes.

Melted butter and Cinnamon/Sugar mixture ready and waiting.

I did the frying part --- in Vegetable Oil. (I would not try baking these. Frying is the only way to go)

After a slight cooldown, I let the kids do the dunking. 

Aren't the marker covered fingers just the sweetest thing ever?!

Love Cookin' With Kids!!

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part/ Tasty Thursday

Tasty Thursday

Yesterday, I jumped the gun and posted a preview on Facebook of our Cooking with Kids activity for the week. Couldn't help myself.

They have such a good time. Even if it were real mud, they'd have just as much fun. 

But it was not real mud.

We made a 'pie' together.

We even adapted the recipe to create our own Gluten Free version.

The recipe only calls for 1/3 cup of flour so it was pretty easy to use the g-free equivalent.

It's really a glorified brownie with fudge topping instead of an icing. We also chose to use non-dairy whipped topping from the freezer section due to the price of whipping cream. Have you seen the cost of a pint of that stuff lately?? Oh. My. Goodness!!

The freezer variety was on sale for 88 cents. 

No homemade whipped topping today little dearies. Sorry.

Honestly, the waiting is the hardest part.

Humpty Dumpty/ Tasty Thursday

 We had a little bout of cold weather this week in Central Missouri.


So to keep from getting cabin fever (Cabin being a C word),

We proceeded to avoid this listlessness by keeping busy with various activities.

There was Art for Letter A.

Bead Stringing and Balance Beams made from masking tape since we have all ages and stages in my home.

Our Feat of the Week was

"C"ooking Cabbage soup.

What on earth would possess someone to make Cabbage soup with a group of very young children you may ask?

It began with reciting a nursery rhyme,

"Humpty Dumpty".

During the course of our conversation,

Ben, age 3 tells me that Humpty Dumpty ate Cabbage Soup.

I don't know where that came from but I went with his information and ran with it.

We got out my trusty phone and looked up images of cabbage soup online.

I asked him if he would like to make some soup and he insisted that it needed to be this

Cabbage variety.

And so it began.

Ben is the Sprinkler kind.

Macoy mastered the Scoop.

Lindley must cook a lot as she is peeking into the pot and arranging it :)

Signs of a future chef I'm absolutely sure!

My favorite picture is of Hudson who is unable to wait for my help.

I really didn't have much spillage believe it or not.

And the question everyone is asking.

Did they eat it?

Here are the results:

Macoy, age 4,  ate 2 bowls.

Ben of the Humpty Dumpty statement drank his broth.....two bowls full. He's 3 1/2 respectively.

Lindley and Hudson, both age 2, ate some but the jury is still out on their opinions.

They really liked the polish sausage addition the most.

After all, you can dip them in ketchup.

And, yes, we served ketchup on the side.

That is a topic to be saved for another Tasty Thursday though.