Pretend Lasagna

November 19, 2017November 19, 2017Leave a comment

Pretend Lasagna (6).JPG

I love getting my son in the kitchen with the kid-friendly recipes from High Five magazine, and this month’s recipe was particularly ingenious. Lasagna made with ravioli instead??? This is a hack grown-ups are going to want to steal as well! Vary the amounts or types of veggies below, to suit your family’s taste.

Ingredients:

1 (24-ounce) jar pasta sauce
1 (10-ounce) package ravioli (such as Soy Boy), thawed
1 cup shredded Daiya mozzarella
1 cup chopped baby spinach
2 tablespoons sliced black olives
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs

Have your child spread a thin layer of the sauce in the bottom of a 13×9-inch baking dish.
Top with half of the ravioli.
Sprinkle with half of the veggies and half of the cheese. Repeat the layers (sauce, ravioli, veggies), ending with a final layer of cheese. Sprinkle with the herbs.
Adults, cover the dish with foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake a final 5 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving.

Indian-Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

November 1, 2017November 1, 2017Leave a comment

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (5)

As promised from our pumpkin carving post, we didn’t toss the seeds this year, but saved them instead for roasting! There are so many ways to spice your pumpkin seeds, but this year we gave them an Indian flair (thanks to a recipe from Little Passports) to honor both the American holiday and Travis’s Indian heritage.

Ingredients:

Seeds from 1 pumpkin
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Rinse your pumpkin seeds very well, then transfer to paper towels and pat dry.
In a bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Add the pumpkin seeds and stir to coat.
Arrange the pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes, until golden brown.

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Note: Travis really enjoyed spooning out the sugar, so we ended up with closer to 2 teaspoons sugar in our recipe.

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Good thing everyone around here has a sweet tooth!

Mexican Horchata

October 30, 20171 Comment

Horchata (4) Happy Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos! The holiday, a traditional Mexican festival honoring ancestors and children’s spirts, starts tomorrow and runs through November 2. You can celebrate the holiday and teach your child a bit about international cuisine with this hands-on recipe. This suggestion from High Five magazine was a fun way to introduce my son (normally an almond milk drinker) to rice milk.

Have your child help scoop 3/4 cup uncooked white rice into 4 cups water; let soak overnight.

Horchata (1)

The next day, transfer the rice mixture to a blender, along with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup + 2 tablespoons rice milk, and 1/2 cup sugar.

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Adults, run the blender and process until very smooth. Travis preferred to step away for this step, as it was loud!

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Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a pitcher. Stir well before serving.

Here is my very happy horchata taste-tester! After a few sips, he decided he is sick of milk, so “from now on let’s have horchata.”

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Patience is a Virtue

October 27, 2017October 27, 20172 Comments

Pumpkin Cookies (6)

Ah, the age-old question, how to teach patience to a preschooler when there is so much to do and see and explore. Because let’s be honest – waiting is hard! But to drive home the idea that patience and waiting are worth the wait, cookies are the perfect teaching tool. Yes, cookies! They only take about 20 minutes, which means you’ll have to wait, but not too long. Did Travis make it through our experiment? Read on and find out…

We picked a pumpkin cookie recipe because, well, it’s autumn. This recipe had the added bonus of only using three ingredients!

In a bowl, we mixed:

1 (13-ounce) package spice cake mix*

1 can pumpkin puree

1 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Travis was a big helper with the stirring…

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…But immediately asked if he could taste both the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Cookies (1)

Oh, and the chocolate chips. Hmm, was this good waiting? I decided that a little nibble wouldn’t hurt.

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We popped the cookies in the oven and baked at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes.

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The cookies are good warm, but even better the next morning for an a.m. snack after they had completely set and cooled. So see, patience is a virtue!

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*Be sure to check ingredient lists in any pre-made cake mix for items that are not vegan. The spice cake mix from Namaste Foods was perfect, but comes in a 26-ounce bag. Measure out about 2 and 1/2 cups mix to equal 13 ounces.

Pumpkin Waffles

September 17, 2017Leave a comment

Pumpkin Waffles (4)

Walk into any Starbucks and it smells like pumpkin spice lattes these days, so the season of all-things-pumpkin must be upon us. We dove into the fall trend with this pumpkin-flavored waffle batter at home, a perfect opportunity for your little sous-chef to pour, stir, mix, and more.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 Ener-G eggs
1/2 cup non-dairy milk
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup melted Earth Balance butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt; set aside.
In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, pumpkin, butter, and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until combined. Heat a waffle iron coated with cooking spray according to manufacturer’s instructions, then add 1/2 cup batter per portion and cook for 5 minutes, until set.
Serve with your favorite maple syrup!

Pumpkin Waffles (5)

Harvest Pasta Salad

September 7, 2017September 7, 2017Leave a comment

Harvest Pasta (3)

This make-ahead pasta salad, recipe care of High Five magazine, is chalk-full of veggies like late-summer tomatoes and fresh corn. Bonus points if you make your own pesto with the last of summer’s basil, though I confess we used a jarred version (made with kale leaves instead!)

Ingredients:

8 ounces penne pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup pesto
1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup vegan Parmesan sprinkles
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup cooked green peas
3/4 cup cooked corn

Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain and toss with the olive oil. Let cool
Meanwhile, whisk together the pesto, mayo, and lemon juice in a large bowl – definitely a kid-friendly step!
Add the cooled pasta, then sprinkle with the Parmesan, salt, and black pepper.
Fold in the tomatoes, peas, and corn, and serve cold.

A is for Apple

September 6, 2017September 6, 20171 Comment

A is for Apple (4)

Kids have the jitters before meeting a new teacher or as they’re heading back to school? Sweeten the deal with this adorable homemade lollipop.

I used Yum Earth’s vegan hard candies to replicate a recipe that originally called for Jolly Ranchers. Yum Earth colors won’t quite be apple red or leafy green, but I came close with colors from their Citrus Grove variety pack, a pink-ish red for the apple and a pale yellow-green for the leaf.

First came the excitement when I announced to Travis that we were going to make homemade lollipops!

A is for Apple (1)

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and place 4 of the red candies in a square.

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Bake at 275 degrees F for 4 minutes – they should be just slightly soft. Let cool for 1 minute, then push into the shape of an apple. Push a lollipop stick down into the center of the apple.

Place a green candy at the top for the leaf. Return to the oven and bake an additional 4 minutes. Shape the “leaf” at the top of the apple, once out of the oven, then insert a piece of pretzel stick as the stem.

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Yup, Travis thought this was the neatest lollipop ever!

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Rainbow Kebabs

August 27, 2017August 27, 2017Leave a comment

Rainbow Kebabs (3)

As fun as it is to draw the rainbow or craft with the rainbow, it’s even more fun to eat it! Make these simple kebabs for a healthy and educational snack.

Start off with some fine-motor skills practice by letting your child use a kid-friendly knife on some of the larger fruit pieces, like pineapple and melon. Smaller items (blueberries, grapes), don’t need to be cut.

Rainbow Kebabs (1)

Now assemble all of your fruits on a plate, making sure you have something in every color of the rainbow. Suggestions are as follows:

Red: strawberries, raspberries

Orange: oranges

Yellow: pineapple

Green: kiwi, honeydew

Blue: blueberries

Purple: grapes

Encourage your child to thread the fruits onto their skewer in rainbow order. Travis was so busy stealing nibbles of fruit that he let me assemble most of them, though! He was most excited by the pineapple, which I don’t buy very often: “I want a yellow one!”

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If you want to add whimsy to your skewers, consider a marshmallow “cloud” or two!

Overall, this snack ranks high for being both healthy and fun.

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Sweet Strawberry Pizza

August 6, 2017Leave a comment

Strawberry Pizza (5)

Pizza for dessert? Yes please! We absolutely had to try this recipe from High 5 magazine. It can take some searching to find frozen pizza dough that is vegan, but Wholly Wholesome and Gillian’s both fit the bill. Be sure to thaw the dough ahead of time, or you’ll be caught with frozen dough when you promised your little chef that it’s pizza time!

Adults: First line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Next, I enlisted Travis’s help to roll our dough into a large oval. The dough was a little finicky, but between rolling, patting, and stretching we got it into a rather free-form oval/rectangle on our baking sheet.

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Travis loved the next step – brushing 2 tablespoons melted Earth Balance butter over the top of the dough – this was like painting with butter!

Strawberry Pizza (3)

I had sliced 12 strawberries for him ahead of time, so all Travis had to do was arrange them over the top of the dough. I stepped in just to make sure they didn’t overlap too much, but otherwise left this step up to him.

Strawberry Pizza (2)

Finally, we combined 2 tablespoons coconut sugar and 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon in a small bowl, and sprinkled evenly over the strawberries.

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Adults: Bake the pizza at 375 degrees F for 23 minutes. Dessert is served!

Fruit Ice Cream

July 28, 2017July 28, 20171 Comment

Fruit Ice Cream (6)

With just-picked fresh fruit from a recent pick-your-own-berries excursion, we made fruit ice cream! Any fresh berry would work well here, and we tried both blueberries and strawberries.

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