Corn Saute
I love quick side dishes so when we saw Corn Saute from Melissa D'Arabian we wanted to give it a try. The recipe does call for red peppers but because the green are half the price we opted for those. I do agree the red would add some much needed color to the completed dish.
Today I thought I'd teach my Little Chefs how to cut in a line. The green pepper was cut in long strips. I showed them how to line up the strips and then cut cross wise. This not only cuts the peppers quicker, but it ...
Chocolate and Nectarine Burritos
It is fruit season and we love to eat many varieties fresh, but we have also been finding other ways to incorporate fruit. We ALWAYS have tortillas in our freezer. We like buying the uncooked kind. We take only one package out of the freezer to defrost and use at a time. Sometimes we cook a few more tortillas then we need. That is fine because we put the extra cooked tortillas in a ziploc and keep it in the refrigerator.
As we were wondering what to do with some nectarines we acquired ...
Almond French Toast
Since we love French Toast so much we decided to try another new variation! Almond French Toast has a few more steps then other versions so this recipe is for the intermediate Little Chef. The first step is to toast the almonds. In a small saucepan add the almonds and stir them frequently for 5 to 10 minutes. Ours took 10 minutes on medium heat.
The second step is to compile the dipping mixture. We like to start with the eggs only in a shallow dish. This way if my Little Chefs get any ...
Aileen’s Punch
Do you ever have a party and want something new to drink? We wanted to find a recipe we haven't tried before. Aileen's Punch was rated highly on Allrecipes so we decided to see how we liked it.
This recipe is easy to prepare. Any Little Chef can execute this recipe with the help of opening the cans. Everything should be chilled and thawed in the refrigerator. We like our beverages very cold so this is a crucial step. Make sure you have a very large punch bowl and combine all the ingredients. ...
Spaghetti Gelato
Spaghetti Gelato is so fun to make with Little Chefs! This idea came from Cafe Bella Rue. You can make this for a fun dessert or would even be great for April Fool's day! Actually, my Little Chefs LOVE planning Halloween parties. This would be a spooky dessert if we named it bloody brains! It would even be great for April Fool's Day.
The key to this dessert is to freeze the rice strainer and the serving plate. I had to explain this to my Little Chefs. If the gelato or ice cream is cold ...
Mango and Kiwi Sauces
Whenever we watch cooking shows and they make desserts they usually have beautiful sauces to compliment the main part. It doesn't look that hard to make so we decided to give it a try for the first time ever! We found these mango and kiwi sauce recipes within a dessert recipe. We always need to have a recipe when we try something for the first time. I'm trying to teach my Little Chefs they need to have a base knowledge before they start creating their own recipes.
To our surprise both ...
Simple Candied Orange Peel
It's funny how the title of this recipe has 'simple' in the name. I suppose it really is simple, but it is very time consuming! We have seen candied orange peel on a variety of cooking shows and decided to try it. We went to the store and grabbed a couple oranges along with the usual; milk, eggs and yogurt.
The first step is to cut the oranges in a way that you can take the middle out with very minimal damage to the outside peel.
We just cut the oranges into segments then ...
Preserving the Harvest: Blanching and Freezing Green Beans
We have discovered it is fun to not only learn to cook, but to also learn where foods come from and how to preserve them for later. We have dehydrated apricots, made jam and froze apricots for a crisp. We were given some fresh green beans from Grandpa’s garden. Of course we had some for dinner last night, but we still had A LOT left. I thought it would be great to teach my Little Chefs how to blanch and freeze green beans. Because of the boiling water involved adult supervision/help is an ...
Egg in the Hole Grilled Cheese Sandwich
When school was first out and the Little Chefs are very excited for the "best summer ever." At our first summer lunch at home Little Chef A said, "Can we NOT have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at all this summer?" In the April 2012 Food Network Magazine there was a tear out with 50 different grilled cheese recipes. We read through them all and chose a few we thought sounded good. The first one we wanted to try was Egg in a Hole.
We found this recipe to be quick. It is very ...
Preserving the Harvest: Apricot Jam
Fantastic Thursday is still up. Link up what you have been up to and see what others have been doing.
Remember the apricots we got from my parents tree? We dehydrated some, made apricot crisp with some and we even froze some apricots to make apricot crisp later. We STILL had more so Little Chef A was amazingly helpful and made apricot jam with me. She stayed with me from beginning to end! She was VERY proud of herself for this accomplishment!
She is the one who takes a PB&J; sandwich to ...
Preserving the Harvest: Dehydrating Apricots
My parents have an apricot tree that was ready for harvesting. On Sunday we stopped by and picked some apricots for preserving. The Little Chefs were eager to pick because they were able to climb the tree! Later they were eager to help because that meant they were able to sneak A LOT of tastes!
I showed them how to safely half the apricot, after it was washed, to take the pit out.
The next step was to cut each half into thirds. It seems each time I dehydrate I cut the fruit in a ...
Crazy Cajun Butter Grilled Corn on the Cob
We LOVE corn on the cob. When we are grilling it is super easy to throw a few ears of corn on for a side dish. This time we decided to do something a little different. We have seen on cooking shows different flavored butters you can put on the corn before grilling. We found a recipe for Crazy Cajun Butter Grilled Corn on the Cob and decided to give it a try. All the ingredients were familiar to us and already in our pantry. That is always a major factor for choosing a recipe!
The ...
