Cooking Class

Annabelle has shown quite an interest in cooking, and asked for her own cooking class. So I let her pick out recipes she wanted to make with me from a couple kid's cookbooks we have. She wrote down all the ingredients she would need and took the list to the grocery store.

First was a fruity breakfast parfait: layer pineapple, raspberries, yogurt, bananas, raisins and toasted almonds. I did most of the cutting and she did the scooping/serving.

Next day we did fruit kabobs:

The kids loved skewering their own fruit.
The next day was a fruit 'N' juice Breakfast Shake: blend 2 bananas, 1 1/2 cups pineapple juice, 1 cup vanilla yogurt, 1 cup strawberries. Serves 4-6. To go with this Annabelle also made drop biscuits from the Bisquick box. Super easy recipes so far, and nutritious.

These recipes came from "Fun with Fruits and Vegetables Kids Cookbook" by Dole.

The next two recipes came from "The Rainbow Bakery" Children's Cookbook.

We made "Flying Apple Flapjacks"

2 TBSP butter

2 TBSP brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 cup thinly sliced cooking apple

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp salt

1. Heat oven to 400. Melt butter in 9-inch pie plate in oven. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over butter. Put apple slices on cinnamon-sugar mixture.

2. Beat eggs slightly in med bowl. Beat in flour, milk and salt just until mixed. Pour over apple slices.

3. Bake 30-35 minutes or until puffy and deep golden brown. Right away, loosen edge of pancake and turn upside down onto heatproof serving plate. Makes 2-4 servings.

This one was delicious! We doubled the batch, but should have made even more. One batch (as seen on one plate here) could serve 4 but really only serves 2 because everyone wants seconds.

Next and final recipe I'll list for now is "Fuitzzas" (Fuity Pizza Pies)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1 box (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding and pie filling

1 3/4 cups milk

1 can blueberry pie filling (or cherry or strawberry)

1. Heat oven to 375. Sir sugar, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Add flour and stir until soft dough forms. Divide dough into 8 parts. Press each part into 4-inch circles on ungreased cookie sheet.

2. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 1 min. before taking cookie crusts off cookie sheet. Cool completely.

3. Make vanilla pie filling as directed on box for pie directions, using milk. Spread about 2 TBSP vanilla pie filling on each cookie crust. Top each with 1 TBSP fruit pie filling. Makes 8 little dessert pizzas.

The first part of this recipe is a very simple sugar cookie recipe; easy for kids. I liked separating the dough into parts and letting kids make a ball and then flatten it out on the cookie sheet. A very nice alternative to rolling and cutting and making a big flour mess.

The pudding and fruit pie filling topping was an interesting alternative to frosting on a cookie. I liked it fine, but my kids didn't care for it.

Is that enough?! Annabelle has just loved being in charge of some breakfasts and cooking with me in the kitchen.