Cooking with Kids, Recipes and a bit more….

Last Friday I had opened up a copy of a new (and very cute!) cookbook, TIME for Kids Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook: Fun recipes for kids to make!:

And planned on an evening of fun with Walker (The Toddler) in the kitchen. Well…I got a bit more than I bargained for. Oh, Walker and I still had lots of fun and made tasty food. We just ended up with an ER visit for Alistaire (The Baby) for an allergic reaction. Walker and I had made “Nutty Putty”, an edible play dough, Alistaire ate some and within minutes had facial swelling. It was either the peanuts or honey, both of which he hadn’t had before.

Ouch. Sometimes it is easy to not worry by the 3rd child if none of the others have shown any signs of allergies. Although I am glad that it happened at home, 3 miles from an emergency room, and not in the mountains, while hiking! What is he allergic to? We don’t know yet. We are waiting on blood work to come back, on if it is a peanut allergy, and for now I am carrying medication and an Epi-Pen Jr. with me . I should know by next week hopefully ..and well, we will go from there. If that comes back negative, then we will see an allergist for more.

Baby and me, relaxing after everything calmed down –

 

But back to that Mommy n’ Walker cooking time. Someone was very excited and scooted his chair over and got ready. When I was little my Mom and I made a similar dough, which I loved eating. It was neat to see the recipe again. The book is full of recipes kids will have a blast making/helping with and more so, eating after! Lots of color photos, cute drawings and fun facts for them as well. A keeper of a book.

 

He had a lot of fun rolling out the dough and cutting out “cookies”, that he and Daddy nibbled on.

 

The Incredible Edible Nutty Putty (Page 78)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 Tbsp honey
• 1 cup instant nonfat dry milk
• Decorations: Raisins, colored sugar, candy sprinkles, etc (optional)

 

Directions:

Stir together peanut butter and honey in a big bowl. Add dry milk, stirring until blended.

Spoon a small amount onto a plate, or in Walker’s case, on a cutting board. Shape and decorate it by hand, anyway you wish, before gobbling it up.

Store remaining putty in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

 Walker’s notes:

A set of IKEA kitchen tools for kids is perfect for fun time with Mom! We rolled out and cut cookies and then scarfed them! Yum! Mom says Nordic Ware brand also makes mini-me tools…..check Target for those in the kitchen section.

 

For breakfast after everything settled down, we tried the oatmeal recipe on page 38. It was very tasty and the oats were a neat texture – they didn’t get mushy. Yum! This was a winner of a recipe.

 

 

Fun and Fruity De-lish Oatmeal (Page 38-39)

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup water
• ¾ cup apple cider (or apple juice)
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats (rolled oats)
• ½ tsp salt (we used ¼ tsp)
• ½ cup diced pear
• ¼ cup dried sweetened cranberries
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp pure vanilla extract
• ¼ cup toasted pecans, finely chopped
• ¼ cup milk (used unsweetened almond milk)

Directions:

Combine water and apple cider; bring to a boil in a large saucepan.

Stir in oats and salt; reduce heat to low, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add pear, cranberries, cinnamon, and vanilla, stirring gently to combine.

Cook 3 minutes or until oats are tender. Stir in pecans and milk.

Mom’s notes:

I used canned pears for the oats, I found small cans at our local Grocery Outlet store that have 6 mini pear halves. So for the recipe I used 2 cans. One can I chopped up, the second I used to decorate the top of the oats. Dad wanted a pinch of brown sugar on top as well 😉

~Sarah

FTC Disclaimer: We received a review copy of this book.