Category Archives: Cooking with Kids

Cooking with kids; kids in the kitchen

Sep 26Kitchen Science: Cabbage Juice Chemistry

After teaching cooking classes to children for 8 years, I didn't realize that I'd ever head back to the traditional classroom to teach biology again. But I have good news on many fronts: I love it. Even more than I thought I would. All of my recent experience setting up cooking classes for children has made it much much much easier to set up labs for my biology students. And finally, it is awesome to see how many labs I can do with my students that connect to food. Take our...

Aug 16Summer Camp: Our Iron Chef Challenge

When planning our cooking summer camp, I wanted the students to be able to showcase their new culinary skills and confidence. We decided that an Iron Chef Challenge on the final day would be just the strategy. The kids selected their own teams, evaluated the ingredients we had on hand, and then planned their menus. After approval from me, they began to prepare their food. The grand finale was their "camera challenge" where they had to present their dishes to the rest of the class, some guest...

Aug 9Summer Camp: Day 3: Our Moroccan Menu

On Day 3 of our summer cooking camp, we focused on Morocco. Here is the menu, generated by my campers... Kehillah Cafe: African Beauty Rock’n Moroccan Carrot Soup: Creamy vegetarian carrot soup with a touch of honey Zesty Broccoli Braised with Olives: Al dente broccoli with olives and garnished lemon zest Couscous with Dried Apricots and Pistachios Moroccan Harcha: Delicate patties made from semolina flour and butter, topped with a drizzle of honey

Aug 1Summer Camp: Day 2 – Our Mediterranean Menu

Today, our summer camp students created a delicious menu from the Mediterranean. I must confess, there is nothing quite as sweet as hearing 14 students begging for seconds of Falafel! Kehillah Cafe Special Menu of the Day: Nóstima Noshes: ("Nóstima" translates to "delicious" in Greek, the theme of today's class) A Waffle is for Breakfast…but a Falafel is for any other meal. Try our unique Falafel Scramble – Who needs falafel patties when you can scramble together this Mediterranean...

Jul 29Summer Camp: Day 1 – Our Italian Menu

During the first day of this summer’s cooking camp, my students thought that our food was “awesome enough” for us to open a restaurant. So, we decided to capture the experience and share it with you. They called our restaurant the Kehillah Café, to honor the name of our camp. Here is our Menu of the day…Written in the words of 14 students, in 3rd – 5th grades… (This was quite the exercise in food writing and the use of synonyms and adjectives!) Kehillah Café Menu El Awesome...

Jul 27Trying our Zoku for the First Time: Pudding Pops...

My mom loves to surprise us with fun gifts for our family kitchen. And as much as we love to receive these gifts, I think it thrills her equally to hear about our adventures in the kitchen using them together. So, today's post is dedicated to her. Thanks, mama, for our new Zoku! As I was browsing through the pages of my recent issue of Cooking Light magazine, this pudding pop recipe caught my eye. I thought it would be perfect to try in our new gizmo - and yowza - it was awesome! After...

Jul 25Cooking with Kids - Raspberry Almond Cornmeal Cr...

Cooking with Kids – Raspberry Almond Cornmeal Crumble

My son and I haven't been getting along very well lately. In fact, I have been pondering a post sharing some of our struggles - but I am not sure if it would betray him or his right to privacy. At the same time, it might be useful to any of you out in cyberspace experiencing challenges raising your kids - especially to know you are not alone. But this is not that post. Instead, this is a mostly a photo essay, showing how we spent our afternoon today. We bonded. Over dessert. And it was...

Jul 22Cooking with Tweens at Star Academy

After their shopping trip to the farmer's market, the middle schoolers at Star Academy were excited for our cooking class together. And after worrying a bit about eating kale, they devoured our meal with gusto! Now that we had the ingredients, we had to prepare them and cook them up. We walked down to the Star Academy Kitchen and we started cooking. We had an amazing day cooking our creations and eating them. We tore off Dinosaur Kale leaves and then we massaged the dinosaur kale...

Jul 20A Healthier Take on Shaved Ice + Giveaway!

We love shaved ice...but not the artificial colors that usually come with it. Call me crazy, but I don't love the blue and red tint that colors my children's lips and teeth for the rest of the day. Thanks to West Bend, we got the opportunity to test out an Ice Shaver and try our hand at creating some flavorings that I could be proud of. The best part? You can win all of these awesome products, too (the details are below). And look at these adorable silicone molds and cute holders... Making...

Jul 13Making Homemade Dog Treats with Kids

It never ceases to amaze me how much filler and junk is included in pet foods. I don't know about you, but I'm not so sure that I'd like my pets to be eating ground up feathers or other random inedible animal parts. One of the best parts about cooking with kids is that you can learn about ingredients together. When I was little, I used to tease my mom for reading all of our food labels. I figured that if we wanted to eat something, we should just buy it. But she knew better. (Did...