B is for Busy Days

Things have been very quiet here on the blog since the start of the year.  Mind you it's the only place things have been quiet around here.

Bear and Bee have started Prep this year which is the first year of formal schooling here in Queensland.  I went back to work for the first time since the girls were born.  I am very fortunate to have gained a job in the library at the same school as the girls.  It sure makes drop off and pick up a whole lot easier.

It is a brand new school so I have been spending a lot of my own time there getting things organized.  Now that we have a good routine and many of the resources in the library have been processed I plan to spend more time back here on the blog and interacting with you on social media.  I have heaps of ideas for blog posts and lots more on my to do list.

But for now I have a big announcement to make.  I think I have put it off for long enough - not that I meant to put it off! 

If you are a follower of Christie Burnett and the amazing Childhood 101 blog you may have noticed that the three foot cooks have been making regular appearances.  I was so excited when Christie approached me about becoming a regular contributor on Childhood 101.  How cool is that blog?  And such a wealth of information too.  So every 2 months now Bear, Bee and myself will be contributing a guest post to Childhood 101.

So far we have made -

Healthier Vanilla Cupcakes.

Homemade Tortillas for Taco Tuesdays.

Hot Cross Scones.

I will be posting a short extract from each of these guest posts here on the blog.  But make sure you click on the links to take you to the full posts over on Childhood 101.

While you are there check out the other guest contributors.  It is such a fabulous group to be part of.

And keep an eye on our facebook page.  I will let you know when our next guest post is done as well as all our new blog posts. 

I am going to get my act together with the newsletter too so if you subscribe it's an easy way to keep up to date with our cooking adventures.

O is for Olympics Dessert

With the Olympics being held in the UK at the moment I decided to make the British dessert, Eton Mess, with Bear and Bee.  It was an opportunity to use some of the beautiful strawberries we got from the Strawberry Fair last weekend as well as combining two of my favourite ingredients, meringues and cream as well as being a great recipe for kids.

As you will see from the photos, Bee was left to cook this by herself (with my help obviously) with Bear having decided that she’d rather spend time with her dad.  So I took this opportunity to just guide Bee through each of the steps and let her do them herself (I had already premade the raspberry sauce). And I am so glad I did. She was so proud of her efforts and couldn’t wait to serve the results to her dad and her sister.

The only downside to this plan was that the dessert looked nothing like Eton Mess (well maybe a melted version of one).  Bee was very enthusiastic with her mixing and loves the colour pink. So when she added the raspberry sauce to the cream and yoghurt and saw that it was turning pink she didn’t want to stop mixing.  The end result still tasted really good.

 The basic recipe for Eton Mess I got from here.  There are lots of different versions out there so feel free to change it.  Instead of meringue nests I used mini meringues.  They were too difficult for Bee to crush so she just put them in whole.  Which was fine as they were bite sized anyway. I didn’t bother putting the raspberry sauce through the food processor either, I just pushed it through a sieve with the back of a spoon.

This is such a good recipe for kids.  There is no heat involved if you pre make the sauce. Or you could use a store bought raspberry sauce instead.  The steps are simple enough for kids to do by themselves and the results look impressive. There is also a good balance of fruit/yoghurt and meringue/cream so you don’t have to stop the kids (or yourself) having seconds.

 

Bee cutting the strawberries.

Mixing the yoghurt and the cream.

The mini meringues were a little hard to crush.

Plating up the Eton Mess.

 

Our very pink Eton Mess.

Have you tried a no-cook recipe with your child? What was it and how did it turn out?

O is for Olympic ring biscuits

Well, we were going to make Olympics inspired biscuits using ideas from posts on Tip Junkie and I Can Teach My Child.  However, as anyone who has planned an activity for young children will know, things do not always go to, well, plan. 

I thought I would show Bear and Bee some photos of the Olympic rings biscuits from the blogs above and talk about how they are like the ones used in the sport Daddy has been watching on TV lately.  Bee, in particular, had other ideas.  She saw the biscuits and immediately latched on to the colours. ‘Rainbow biscuits mummy’, was all she kept repeating and when it came to cutting out the biscuit dough there was no way she was using the boring rings.  So I made the Olympic rings biscuits and Bear and Bee made whatever shape they wanted.

Bear cutting out her biscuit shapes.

 

We used the World’s best sugar cookie recipe from the I Can Teach My Child blog post for the biscuit dough, some egg rings, small containers and biscuit cutters.

Instead of waiting for the biscuits to cook and cool before being able to ice them, we used the idea of painting the uncooked biscuit shapes first from The Chocolate Muffin Tree using evaporated milk and food colouring.

  

Bee painting her biscuit dough shapes.

Judging by Bear and Bee’s concentration, this was the best part. I was impressed by how easy the painting was and how good the colours looked even after baking.

My attempt at Olympic ring biscuits.

The finished Olympic ring biscuits.

Bear and Bee's painted biscuits.

 

My tips when making these biscuits: 

•  Roll the dough out as thin as possible.  It really does puff up a lot. I know it says that in the original post but I didn’t realise just how puffy the cooked biscuits would be.  It didn’t matter to Bear and Bee, though.  They still loved them.

• Use only a small tin of evaporated milk for the paint – you won’t need the whole tin as the paint goes a long way.

What cooking activity have you done with your child, that didn’t go to plan?