Happy Friday, everyone! I’ve have some stuff to share with you today that I’m excited about!

First, for Cool Mom Eats I wrote an article about how to make pie dough and pie crust, with photos and tips. After all the pie recipes this week, you’re definitely going to want to check it out! I also put together a roundup of eggnog recipes to get your holiday on.

Remember a few months ago how Cate was in charge of planning the weekly menu and making dinner every night? She and I wrote about the experience and the article just published on Babble.

I started writing for the website Alpha Mom! I’m going to be writing a monthly article with Cate sharing recipes kids should know how to cook before they leave home. We kicked things off with omelets!

Last but not least, To the Market featured me as a Tastemaker this week! I had a lot of fun working on this piece with them, be sure to check it out!

When it rains it pours…things have been busy for me lately! I’m sure they are with you, too, but be sure to share your own stuff with us in the comments!

Happy Friday, everyone! I am spending today primping for tonight’s Heifer fundraiser in Beverly Hills. And frantically cleaning up the house for the babysitter. And primping some more. I could never live in Hollywood, it’s too much work to clean myself up for fancy parties! I made the mistake of looking at Google images of past years’ events, which just made me more nervous about all the primping. And everyone needs to send lots of happy-high-heel-vibes my way so I don’t fall off my shoes tonight. This is super important stuff I’m stressing about here.

I have one quick food link to share this week! Anna and I made Quiche in a Mug. This was a super kid-friendly recipe, where Anna pretty much made it all by herself! It was really fun and very tasty! Click here: Kid-Made Recipe: Microwave Quiche in a Mug

As usual, please share whatever you like in the comments! New finds, recipe links, your own blog posts, whatever! And have a fantastic weekend!

Happy Friday! Today I’m just gonna get right to it and share my food links for the week!

On Babble (the site is back up, yay!):

• 10 Totally Delicious and Creative Guacamole Recipes 
• 3 Kids, a Mom, and a Kitchen: Barbecue Chicken Salad

And food fun on Cosmo:

• 15 Ways to Make Tofu the Best Thing You’ve Ever Eaten
• 14 Unexpected Ways to Eat Cookie Dough
• 18 Grilled Vegetarian Meals That Taste Incredible

You know the drill, share your own stuff, too!

Making JELL-O JIGGLERS with my mom as a kid is a very clear and happy memory for me. I can picture the kitchen and the JELL-O like it was yesterday. For some reason making those JIGGLERS was super, duper exciting. I mean, what kid doesn’t like JELL-O, but JELL-O that you can make into shapes and then eat with your hands? For a six-year-old, that is living the dream.

Even though it’s such a fond memory from my own childhood, I have never made JIGGLERS with my own kids…until yesterday! I finally got my act together and we jiggled it up Halloween style. I told the girls the day before that we would be making Halloween JELL-O JIGGLERS and they talked about it non-stop for over a day. It made me so happy that the charm hasn’t worn off from generation to generation.

JELL-O has some fun recipes and projects you can make, so I went browsing the site for inspiration. I liked the idea of just making our own shapes, like these hands, but I loved the color of these creepy crawly JIGGLERS. I decided to make a sheet of the “black” JELL-O and was going to have the kids design shapes for the cutouts. When we actually started making the JIGGLERS, however, we decided to just use our Halloween cookie cutters. It was a lot easier and just as fun!

So, we grabbed our tin of spooky cutters and got to work. The girls divided up the cookie cutters between them and did a great job taking turns. Fitting all the shapes into our square pan was kind of like doing a puzzle. The girls were so happy the entire time we worked on the project, it did my heart good.

I hope this ends up being a lasting memory for the girls – I know it will be for me! The only thing more fun than being a kid is to be the parent watching the kid.

Spooky JELL-O JIGGLERS

 

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Author: Jane Maynard

Ingredients

• 1⅓ cup boiling water
• 1 package (3 ounces) JELL-O Grape Flavor Gelatin
• 3 tablespoons JELL-O Lime Flavor Gelatin
• 8×8-inch pan
• Halloween cookie cutters

Instructions

1. Mix grape and lime gelatin in a bowl. Add boiling water and mix for 2 minutes, until sugar is completely dissolved. Poor directly into pan and refrigerate for 3 hours or until firm.
2. Press Halloween cookie cutters into JELL-O, making sure to push all the way through to the bottom of the pan. Carefully remove cookie cutter – the JELL-O shapes should come out easiliy with the cookie cutter. Pop out onto a white serving platter (for high impact with the dark JIGGLERS!) and eat with ghoulish intent!

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The girls aren’t very ghoulish, but they sure are cute!

This post brought to you by JELL-O, making Halloween more wiggly for everyone. Check out more Halloween recipes here: JELLO.com/recipes. This post was sponsored as part of the DailyBuzz Brand Ambassador Program.

Today’s recipe comes from my 5-year-old Anna! She loves cooking and is very proud that her recipe is going on the blog this morning. So cute!

Yesterday in the car Anna kept telling me she wanted to make colorful toast. I honestly thought she was just making it up, but this morning I had her explain the process to me and discovered it was something she had done at preschool. Even though I was a little doubtful about how it would come out, I decided to just go with it and let her teach me something new.

The toast came out VERY colorful and it was actually pretty good! The top doesn’t get very crispy, but it still tasted good and kids are NOT going to notice or care as they bite into their favorite-colored toast! I wouldn’t recommend serving this colorful toast at your next brunch party for fancy adults, but it is definitely something fun to do with the kids on a summer morning!

Colorful Toast, by Anna Maynard

 

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Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Breakfast

Ingredients

• White bread (it’s more colorful that way!)
• Food coloring
• Milk
• Brush of any kind (pastry brush makes for broad coverage, smaller brushes allow for some design work)

Instructions

1. Mix a bit of food coloring with a bit of milk. Next you brush the milk on the bread “very delicately” (those are Anna’s instructions and she’s right on the money – don’t get too heavy handed with the milk or the bread will get too soggy).
2. Toast, butter and eat!
3. The top doesn’t get crispy, but the bottom does and there is actually a sweetness that is left behind as the milk evaporates. Very fun!

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The final product!

Add milk, a bit of powdered sugar and a swig of vanilla to the leftover colored milk for a nice drink to go with the toast!

Yesterday my girls and I went to Disneyland (thanks to the Babble team for a fabulous day!). The day was perfect. Today I am basking in the glow that is the light of my daughters, so I figured it was a good day to share two quick stories about them.

A couple of weeks ago I was playing with Owen in his room when Anna came walking in with a recipe card. She had found a Halloween food and craft book somewhere, had spent some time combing through the recipes and settled on one to share with me. She handed me the card and said, “Mom, this recipe is perfect for your blog. It’s easy to make but really cute!” Anna hasn’t even read my blog but she seems to have my messaging down pat! I still can’t get over the fact she was looking for content for my blog. So ridiculously cute. I will in fact give this recipe a try at some point and let you know what we think!

Last Friday when I went to Big Traveling Potluck, Nate had to make dinner for the kids. Cate suggested they make english muffin pizzas, which was perfect for the occasion. She was excited all week about dinner that night and couldn’t wait to teach everyone how to make the pizzas. She even wrote up directions.

2 quick notes. First, I love the after thought “Oh, get plates” at the top of the page. Second, why is she having us split the english muffins with a fork? She’s been hanging out with her dad too much.

I love these girls.

Also, it appears that I am raising future food bloggers. Look out, world!

Each week Cate, my kindergartener, gets to choose a book at the school library. This week she picked a cookbook, which I thought was really sweet. We sat down, picked out a recipe (a very tasty fudge recipe that I’ll share below), gathered our ingredients and got to work! After a few moments of me getting frustrated because Cate wouldn’t listen, we finally settled into a groove and had fun. And I had her cut the fudge into pieces and display them on a plate. She really had fun and was very proud of her hard work!

I have to confess something. Cooking with kids is not the easiest thing in the world for me. I try to be patient, and we usually settle into a groove…but incorporating my children into my cooking just doesn’t come naturally to me. But I want it to! I think it’s important for children to have positive experiences in the kitchen and to develop cooking skills that will serve them their entire lives. Plus, it’s supposed to be fun! SOOOO….

Does anyone have any tips for cooking with kids? I want to hear them! I’m sure some of you out there do a great job cooking with kids, while others may be more like me and struggle with it. For those of you who do have it figured out, I’m hoping some of your magic can rub off on the rest of us. Please share your tips!

Oh, and before I forget, the fudge recipe. YUM.

Cooking with Kids...and a Recipe for Cream Cheese Fudge

 

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From The Usborne Little Book of Christmas Cooking

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• ½ cup full-fat cream cheese
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 level tablespoon cocoa powder
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chipps
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 8-inch square baking pan and wax paper

Instructions

1. Lay the cake pan on a sheet of wax paper and draw around it. Then cut out the square just inside the line.
2. Butter the bottom and sides of the pan (or you can use cooking oil). Press the paper into the bottom of the pan then butter the top of the paper.
3. Put softened cream cheese into a bowl. Sift the powdered sugar and cocoa through a sieve into the bowl. Mix everything well (we used our beaters).
4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture.
5. Pour the chocolate mixture into the cream cheese mixture and stir until well mixed and creamy. Spread in the pan and smooth the top with a spoon. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until the fudge is firm.
6. Loosen the edges of the fudge then turn it out onto a cutting board and remove the wax paper.
7. Cut the fudge into 36 squares. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate 2 more hours. EAT!

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