December 12, 2013

Cooking With Books~ Gingerbread Baby

Stephanie Cooking with Books, Frineds 2 Comments

Well today was our last Cooking with Books today and we chose one of the best books ever! Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett is the most adorable gingerbread boy book ever. However I ordered the book and it didn’t come it! Ahhhh…..thankfully on Jan Brett’s website, there is a short video with her reading most of the book to some kids! So we watched that instead! Then it was time to bake! We made dough, rolled it out, cut our ginger boy and girls, and then decorated them! Then it was in to the oven with them! 8 minutes no more or less! We didn’t want our gingerbread babies running around the house! They had fun, we had fun, and there was lots of yummy gingerbread. The best part was that just as we finished our cookies, the book I ordered, finally made it here! So we were able to read it together after all! Here are some pictures!

So there you have it! It was an amazing end to a great year of fun! Now, we are on to the next plan! What will it be? Hmmmm….don’t know, but it will be awesome!

November 12, 2013

Cooking With Books~

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Today was our cooking with books day! Our book today was Pino and Signora’s Pasta. This is a sweet book all about a cat who discovers that the best meal is one that is made with love! In the story, Signora makes pasta! So today we made pasta with the kids. They made a simple egg noodle dough, rolled it out, cut it, and boiled it! Presto! Lunch! 😉 They ate them all up despite the fact that they were a little thick and chewy. I think that they had fun with it and it was something really different that none of them had ever made. Want to see what they looked like? Well….here are the pictures!

So there you have it! 🙂 Noodle making 101 today and it was an experience! 🙂 I love that our monthly cooking days allow us to try new recipes that we otherwise wouldn’t have. One more left for the year though!!!! Now what will we do next year? Science, field trips…..hmmmm who knows! Happy Baking Everyone!

October 3, 2013

Cooking with Books~ Pumpkin Man

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Today was our October edition of cooking with books. I had a great plan and had a couple of great books, but I couldn’t find then at the library in time. So I got another one. My first choice was Too Many Pumpkins, my second was Pumpkin Day, but the one we read was The Pumpkin Man of Piney Creek. It was a sweet book about a girl who wanted to make a jack-o-lantern, but her Pa had to sell them all. The only one they saved was for her mom to make pie with. The pumpkin man gave the girl a pumpkin in the end. It was a book with lots of jack-o-lanterns and pie! So we made some little jack-o-lantern pies! They were so simple and yummy. I bought some pie crust, the kids cut it out in pumpkins cut out faces in them, made some filling, and put them together! Done! It was simple and yummy.

So there you have it! To be honest, these smelled so good while they cooked! I wanted to eat them all! But I didn’t! 😉 What is your favorite fall treat to make with the kids!

September 11, 2013

Cooking With Books~ Apple Cake

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Are you ready for fall? That is the question I keep hearing here. However, with the 100 degree weather we had here today, I can say NO. But it is September and I know that it is coming! 🙂 So in order to start getting us into the mood of fall cooking, my friend and I picked an apple recipe for this month’s cooking with books! Turned out it was YUMMY! Our book is Apple Cake : A Recipe for Love. And here is what the recipe in the back of the book turned out!

It was a lot of fun for the kids to cook this one! There were a lot of steps so there was lots for them to do! I love our cooking day! Have your gotten cooking lately with your kids?

July 14, 2013

Cooking With Books~ July~ Ice Cream

Stephanie Cooking with Books, Frineds 2 Comments

Well as promised, here is our Ice Cream making fun from the other day! It was the July edition of our cooking with books fun! We read the book Ice Cream: The Full Scoop by Gail Gibbons and it explained how ice cream is made. After reading the book, we made a simple ice cream mix with half and half, whipping cream, and sugar. All of this was mixed in the old fashioned ice cream maker. The maker needed ice and salt placed around the drum. Thankfully this maker had a motor attached to the top of it so there was no hand cranking needed. Or so we thought! It motor decided not to work right, so we tried using the hand mixer instead. After about an hour it was still really soupy….then it was Dad to the rescue! My friend’s husband came home, fiddled with the motor and got it working! hooray! So we had yummy ice cream after all (don’t worry we had some from the store as a back up just incase)! It was a day full of yummy treats, lots of playtime, and summer fun (even a tornado warning to make it interesting)!

And the picture of the baby is just because she is too cute! She didn’t get any ice cream though! The kids had such a fun time together and it was fun as always! Besides, what is more summery then ice cream?

June 26, 2013

June~ Cooking With Books

Stephanie Cooking with Books, Frineds, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Today we had our monthly Cooking with Books day! Once a month, my friend and I get the kids together and read a book. Then we cook the food that they make in the book! So far it has been a HUGE hit with the kids! Today it was my turn and I found a book called Pond Day by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. In the this book, Buddy and his mom go for a walk around a pond. For lunch they bring some turtle sandwiches! So planned to go to a pond with the kids and make our sandwiches there. However, it was supposed to storm, so fortunately my friend’s mom has a pond behind her house. She was kind enough to let us play there so that if the storm did happen we could head inside! We were lucky though, aside from a few heavy sprinkles, we were able to play outside in the pond the whole day! We started off with our story and then we made lunch like Buddy! The kids had fun “cooking” up their sandwiches! In the story Buddy also had wheat crackers and cookies to eat! 🙂

After all lunch, the kids all wanted to play in the pond! It was hot, there were suits for everyone, and well…it was pond day! 🙂 There was a lot jumping and smiling and splashing! They even played through the rain! It was a pretty sad (and sandy) moment when they realized that they had to start getting ready to go home! I think that signifies a pretty good time! 😉

April 9, 2013

Cooking with Books~ Tyler Makes Pancakes

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Today I am posting a little early since it is my anniversary and my hubbie and I are heading out! I have no idea what we are doing, but I am sure it will be fun! He is the best man I could ever have and I love him endlessly! He is amazing. Anyway, on to other things before I write a 20 page paper on why I love my hubbie (it could be longer even)!

Our book for this month’s Cooking with Books Segment is by Tyler Florance the chef! He wrote a book called Tyler Makes Pancakes! The book is about a boy who wants to make pancakes for his mom and dad. The boys head out to the store to get what he needs, and as he shops he discoverers where the food he needs comes from! I really liked the book. It was well written and fun. Plus the recipe in the back for pancakes was AMAZING! Seriously. I photocopied it because it is my new go to pancake recipe! They are made with whole wheat flour, but they are fluffy, sweet, and light! Crazy good! Let’s put it this, I thought that the kids wouldnt eat them because they were whole wheat, but I ended up having to whip up another whole batch and we ate them all! I thought it would be fun to let the kids add whatever they wanted to the pancakes as they baked. So we had blueberries, mini chocolate chips, sprinkles, and nuts. Plus there was butter and real maple syrup to top the pancakes with when they were all done. It was YUMMY!

Here is the invitation that Bunny designed. I was told I needed to do the writing! 🙂

Everyone got a chance to help with the cooking! I think that they all think that there is not enough of it! 😉

Here are the amazing pancakes! Like I said they are GOOD! In the story, Tyler also has bacon and melon to eat with hi s pancakes, so we did too!

I love cooking with the kids and cooking with good friends is even better! Question for all of you: How do you like to cook with your kids? What works and what doesn’t?

Happy Cooking!

March 15, 2013

Cooking With Books~ Pretzels by the Dozen

Stephanie Cooking with Books, Frineds 1 Comment

Sorry about the long break there! I have been having computer issues and we ended up getting a new one! Which means I have been adding alot of programs and trying to get the hang of Windows 8! But everything is up and running and I hope to get you some more amazing posts about what we have been up to!
The other day was our Cooking with Books Day! We read a really sweet book about pretzels and how we came to have them and what they represent! Plus it follows a lovely number order as you count to 12! Pretzels by the Dozen is a little hard to get since it is out of print, we found it on our library search sight. We started by reading the book, and then we started making pretzel dough. We made two different kinds of dough, one white (the recipe was in the book) and the other was from Weelicious (by the way my new favorite food resource! Everything is good!). The kids loved all the measuring and we even got some fraction conversions in too! 🙂 After that the dough got to rise and the kids got to copy a little poem about the pretzel to share with friends! When they finished, the dough was ready to roll into pretzels and bake! We made some salted ones and some sugar ones! They were both pretty good! The kids wanted to eat them all! 🙂

Yummy! I am loving this monthly get together! Wonderful food, awesome friends, and great books! What’s not to love? Happy Baking!

February 18, 2013

It’s Lent!

Stephanie Cooking with Books, Family moments, Feast Days 1 Comment

Well seeing as I have been a little lazy in my blogging, I will share today what we did on Ash Wednesday. I set out to have a a feast day celebration each month at the beginning of the year, so this month I thought we should celebrate the beginning of Lent! I saw on Catholic Cuisine that they made an ash Wednesday cake that was made with cake crumbs and pudding. It was really to help remind the kids of the ashes that they received at church! Seeing that they had to crumble up the whole cake, they thought it was a perfect idea!

We had a lovely talk about Lent and about the things we could do to love Jesus more. Pup decided that she could work on the sign of the cross. It was all her own thought. She had been making crosses out of paper and drawing Jesus on them the day before. She was so sweet and she made 3 of them. I pointed to them and said it was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I explained the trinity a bit to her. She loved the idea and said it was just like the sign of the cross. Se was so excited about it and I think that it was what inspired her to work on the sign of the cross this Lent. I thought it was a beautiful idea!

Bunny really didnt know what she wanted to do, but she did grab a money box to give to the poor and she said she wanted to fill it. I told her if she needed to earn money she could work in the house to make some money to give. So she has been working really hard scrubbing floors and cleaning windows! The money has mostly gone to the box for the poor. I am proud that she is willing to try hard to help others!
As for me, I have quite a few books that I am going to try and read. As well as stepping back computer time in the mornings! I want to make time to pray together as a family too. This is our plan for Lent! I wish you all a very blessed season of preparation!

February 6, 2013

Cooking With Books~ Pinkalicous

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Today was our second Cooking With Books day! Last year my friend and I decided that each month we would get the kids together to do a craft. This year we thought it would be fun to read a book and cook something from that book! Last month we did Soup Day, this month it was Pinkalicious! I love this book and so do my girls! If you dont know the story, a girl and her mom make pink cupcakes and after eating a bunch of them, the girl turns pink! The doctor tells her the her pinkatius can only be cured by eating green food! Since she hates green food that is a problem. I wont tell you what happens though! 😉 I found some fun idea for decorations online, so we put some simple things together to make it pretty!

So after reading the book, we made pink cupcakes! I didnt use a cake mix and it took me a long time to find a recipe that looked good. I finally found one and it was pretty good. I wanted to make them from scratch since we were baking! All the kids got to help and they loved it! When they were baking, the kids got to play and I got to get things together to make frosting.

For the frosting, we made a basic buttercream. I dyed most of it a light pink and made a pipping bag of darker pink for making pretty swirls. Then it was time to frost! Oh Yes….this is what everyone was waiting for! Time to ~~taste~~ frost the cupcakes! Everyone cupcakes looked great and everyone ate them right after they were done! Who needs lunch?!

I made lunch all green to cure our pinkatitus! 😉 We had green mac and cheese, green grapes, celery, cucumbers and pears. Plus we had green juice to drink. Food coloring is an amazing thing! The kids thought I was a little crazy, but they all agreed that it tasted just like normal! I love messing with their heads a little bit! 😉

Pinkalicious is a great book and a fun one to cook with! I cant wait to see what we have planned for March! Happy Schooling and cooking everyone!