New Year, New Challenge: 30 Days of Cooking with the Kids

It's been a year and a half, and I am back in my cooking rut. Gone are the days of cooking beef stew, casseroles and homemade soups. Polish sausage, store bought pasta sauce, and tacos are as gourmet as I get these days. In my defense, my lack of cooking is mostly due to the fact that when I do cook homemade meals my children stick their tongues out at it and ask for Easy Mac instead. I adopted the philosophy, "Why cook if no one is going to eat it?" I feel like a horrible mom for saying this, but it's true. I hate spending an hour in the kitchen preparing dinner and watching all the food go straight off their plates and into the garbage. It saddens and upsets me.

So, when my dad asked what to get the kids for Hanukkah, I asked him to get them kid friendly cook books and kid sized kitchen utensils. My theory is that maybe if the kids help me prepare the food they will be more likely to eat the food regardless of its ingredients. They got two cookbooks(Sesame Street: B is for Baking and Better Homes and Garden: New Junior Cook Book) and the most adorable kids baking and cooking sets from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macys. When the kids opened these gifts my brother, Eric, immediately said that I should blog about the kids' cooking expeditions. I was excited and touched that my brother remembered that I had blogged and figured if he enjoyed reading my blog maybe others did too. So, here I am.

Since they will basically be ruling the roost, here are some updates on the kids. Austin turned 4 in November. He is crazy about dinosaurs, bugs, and anything Disney. He makes me laugh everyday with the stuff that comes out of his mouth. He is seriously one of the smartest kids I know and not just because he is mine :). He loves helping around the house, so I am hoping that he really takes to this challenge. Peyton turned 2 in September. She is ALL girl and a total drama queen. She adores Austin and basically follows him around all day and mimics everything he does. She is obsessed with the kitchen. She is constantly taking her stool from the bathroom and bringing it over to the kitchen counter to see what I am doing. They are both such amazing kids, and I cannot wait to start this challenge and create lasting memories with them.


Day 1: Circus Waffles with Cool Whip and Blackberries

We had an amazing play date today with Dianna, Maggie and all the kids. The kids spent 4 hours running around, laughing, and eating. To say that they were tired when we got home would be a huge understatement. Therefore, I knew we needed to eat something fast and something yummy because they were going to be in bed EARLY, and I didn't want them going to bed hungry. I wasn't quite prepared to start the challenge tonight and did not have any of the ingredients I needed for the recipes in their cookbooks, but I did have the adorable circus waffle maker that my beautiful and wonderfully generous co worker, Barb, sent us for Christmas. I figured, " What's more kid friendly then elephant and lion shaped waffles?" I quickly went on allrecipes.com and found a fast and 5 star recipe for waffle batter. And, Viola..the challenge began.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat waffle iron. Beat eggs in large bowl with hand beater until fluffy. Beat in flour, milk, vegetable oil, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla, just until smooth.
2. Spray preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray. Pour mix onto hot waffle iron. Cook until golden brown. Serve hot.

BEST PART: You can keep leftover batter in the fridge tightly sealed for up to 48 hours!!! Or you can make it the night before for a quick homemade breakfast. We have about 8 waffles worth leftover that I will use for breakfast tomorrow. I think I may add apple to it as an added bonus.

Kitchen Play by Play: The kids were ecstatic about using their new bowls and utensils. They both washed their hands, rolled up their sleeves and pulled their stools up to the counter. I decided to put everything in the blender to make it easier for the kids. I cracked the eggs straight into the blender and whipped them for about 45 seconds. They each have their own set of meauring cups and spoons and took turns measuring out all the dry ingredients into their medium sized bowl. It was freakin' adorable. I dumped the dry bowl into the blender and then measured out all the wet ingredients. I lifted them each up so they could pour it into the blender. They each pressed the button on the blender and got a kick out of the noise. Within 2 minutes we had the perfect consistency. They helped me clean up and put away all the ingredients. Then I sent them into the living room to play while I made the waffles. I had preheated the waffle iron when we started preparing the batter, so it was good and hot. I sprayed it with Pam and each set of waffles took about 1 minute to cook. I gave both kids 3 waffles(1 of each design) and topped them with coolwhip and fresh blackberries. Side note: Costco had blackberries for $2.99 for an 18oz container. This is a ridiculously good price especially since they were phenomenal! No picture tonight because I wasn't sure I was starting the challenge until about 30 minutes ago, but starting tomorrow there will be visual representations of our masterpieces!

The Verdict:
Nicole: They were so yummy. They were light and fluffy. I think in a Belgium waffle maker they would have been out of this world. This particular waffle maker was designed to make thinner waffles which is perfect for the kids. Adding the cool whip and blackberries made this feel like I was at a five star restaurant eating Sunday brunch. I give it a 4.8.

Paul: Had snowboard/ski club tonight. He will weigh in on future recipes though.

Austin: He ate all three of his and only one of the waffles had cool whip on it. He ate the other two plain. He gives it a 5. He did not, however, enjoy the blackberries. He is more of an apple man.

Peyton: She went straight to the blackberries. Ate about 10 of them before she even noticed that anything else was on her plate. She then looked over and saw me putting a piece of waffle, a blackberry, and a dip of cool whip on my fork and insisted on having a fork as well. She then proceded to copy my strategy and take down 2 of her 3 waffles. She doesn't really understand the rating scale, but based on her nearly empty plate I would say that she gives it a 4.5.