Cooking With Kids

Since I brought it up in the last post, I thought I should go ahead and start the series of posts about this.  This all started about a year ago, when I was cleaning out my office and found a book of recipes that were to be paired with children's stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the Little Red Hen.  At the time, I was desperate for programs to fill the gap between my summer and fall programs and something that would help fulfill some goals on my 5 year plan.  I really like to cook, and we'd had cooking programs for adults, so voila!  Cooking with Kids was born.

The first one we did was nursery rhymes and stories.  We made a quick wheat bread (source: here) for the Little Red Hen, Pigs in Blankets for the Three Little Pigs, and a snack platter for various nursery rhymes, including; Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, and Curly Locks.  We really tried to emphasize literacy for all ages, from reading the recipe aloud, to picking out the correct measuring cup.  We had the kids tell us the stories, and then chose a few to come up and help us make the recipes.  It was good, but the kids got restless, so we changed the format.

Little Red Hen's Quick Wheat Bread

Ingredients

½ c white whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

½ c sesame seeds (optional: extra for top)

½ c flax seeds (optional: extra for top)

1 tbsp sugar

4 tsp dry active yeast

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 ½ c water, warm to the touch

Directions

Prepare a bread/loaf pan by lining with parchment paper. Perfectly fitting to the an is not necessary as the dough will help weigh it down and expand to fill out the pan.

Combine flour, salt, sesame seeds, flax, and sugar. Make a small well and add yeast. Mix vinegar and water, and pour into flour mixture. Stir until well

combined. The dough will be sticky, no need to knead.

Spoon the dough into the loaf pan. Smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Top with extra seeds, if desired.

Place loaf pan into a cold oven. Set oven to 350° F (Yes! You will preheat the oven with the bread inside). Bake for one hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool and slice.

The next one we themed around princess stories.  This one we decided to make interactive for ALL the kids, so we made a sign-up sheet and had enough for every kid to make some.  The problem with that?  Some who signed up didn't show, and some who showed up had never signed up.  Doesn't seem like that much of a problem, but I had like, 15 people who hadn't signed up show up and I turned them away, they left, and then it turned out I could have accommodated them. :/

We did Snow White - again, having the kids tell me the story- and then we made dip for apple chips (found here). (You'll find other recipes for apple dip that also have granulated sugar and toffee chips, but for children?  Less is more, right?  Do you really want children hyped up on sugar in your library?)  I had them tell me the story of The Little Mermaid, and then I let them try kale chips I had made. (Almost all of them tried it and wanted more!) Finally, they told me about Alice and Wonderland, and we made cucumber sandwiches together.  This one I had a couple of kids less than thrilled about.  One wanted it without the cucumber.  Or without the cream cheese.  I can't remember.

Finally, we tweaked it one more time.  We decided to do a picky eaters edition, and this time we read the books (which was a way more viable option than before).  The first book we read was The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania Al Abdullah.  A wonderful story about two friends who have a little disagreement over a hummus pita and a PB&J sandwich.

I've done this book before and we made PB&J sandwiches and I had premade hummus to try, but with allergies nowadays, I just decided to try and make my own hummus.  One of our kids' cookbooks had a recipe for pizza hummus, so I went for that.  It came out a little grainy, but overall tasty.

The second book we read I featured in my food-themed story time.  I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child.  I was planning on making mashed potatoes to go with this book, because that's one of the first things my grandmother let me help cook.  We have VERY LIMITED cooking resources at our library, however, so I just read the story and told that little anecdote, encouraging parents to do the same with their children.

Finally, we read D.W., the Picky Eater.  A classic book, and one I'm sure many of my parents of picky eaters could relate to.  D.W. has an EXTREME hatred of spinach and acts up SO much, that she's banned from eating out with her family.  The finally relent for her grandmother's birthday, and she chooses something off the menu in a hurry.  When she tries it, she likes it - and it turns out to be essentially spinach pie.  

So I made spanakopita! And because I'm a total glutton for punishment, I made the little triangles, and not the pie.  Remember - people were trying samples, so it was easier to give them a triangle than a slice of pie.  It just took waaaay longer for me to make.  The kids were not so thrilled with it - especially since I wouldn't tell them what was in it at first.  The adults kept coming back for this.  The kids?  The pizza hummus.

I will be doing more of these posts! From now on, however, each one will probably be devoted to the different themes we did.