Kids Missing from My Kitchen

Help! My four yo and kitchen helper has run away...to Memas! She hasn't been around much this week because
Mema has more time to cook and bake with her...

So I had to sneak over and take some pics of them together in the kitchen .

What were they making that day? Chicken and dumplings with coconut pie for dessert. The pie Bethany says she made ALL by herself Not bad for four, huh?

I have to share how she makes her chicken and dumplings because it is rather unique!

First you mix a Large carton of Chicken Stock, with a can of cream of chicken soup and a can of cream of celery soup, then put on the stove to boil.  Add 3 chicken breasts, bones, skin and all...

Remove the chicken when fully cooked and set aside to let cool.  Now it is time for the dumplings...

She takes two packages of canned biscuits and thins/stretches them out, dips them in flour and set aside.  Once all are prepared she adds them to the pot to boil approximately 10 minutes.  While they are boiling, debone and skin the cooked chicken.  Break the breasts into large chunks and add to the pot once the biscuits are done...Dinner is served! 

Au Gratin Potatoes

Sometimes, the best of menu planning, just doesn’t work and you have to be able to think on the fly.  That happened to me this week when I went to purchase scallops for the Scallops with Toasted Walnut Pesto .  I didn’t buy these ahead of time, because I like my seafood FRESH, well as fresh as it can be living in the mountains.  When I went to multiple stores, the seafood just looked ugly and oh my goodness the prices…12.99-17.99 per pound.  Sorry that just rubs me the wrong way for previously frozen seafood.  So, on the last few miles home, I have to think of something to cook.  Since nothing was out and thawed, I grabbed some Shake and Bake, frozen BLSL chicken breasts and started microwave thawing the chicken. 

Ok, main dish down now for sides…

I have a bag of potatoes that are going to start going bad if I don’t do something with them, a head of cauliflower from last time’s Bountiful Basket and some block cheddar…  Wheels are turning…smell the smoke….

Au Gratin Potatoes

Potatoes (I used about 1/3 of a 5 # bag)

1 can condensed Cream of Whatever soup ( I used Campbell’s 98% FF)

About a pound of cheddar cheese, shredded

Milk

Wash the potatoes and evenly slice, I did not peel mine, but if you have an aversion to skin you could.  I am the absolute worst slicer in the world so I use a mandolin. 

Pour the soup into a sauté pan and heat on med-low.  Once the soup has started to loosen, gradually add the cheese stirring constantly until all cheese is integrated and evenly distributed.  This will be slightly thick at this point and very sticky.  I gradually added some milk into the sauce, stirring constantly until the desired consistency is reached. 

Mixing in the cheese

Finished Cheese Sauce

At this point, since I had never attempted this before, I had to have the official taste tester check it out…

Exact Quote…” Are you kidding me??!!?? ( At this point I am thinking another kitchen failure)  This stuff is GREAT!!!!”

Yay!!! Success!!! Onto the oven…

I had a lot of potatoes to use up so this made enough for at least two meals…I did a 8x8 and a 13x9 glass baking dish.  If you did only one, it would be piled higher and extra cheesy, but this worked for us. 

Prepare the pan with cooking spray, preheat oven for 400 degrees (what the shake and bake had to cook at, you could also probably do 350, just a little longer).

I placed one layer of potatoes in a large mixing bowl, then spooned the cheese sauce over top and repeated until all the ingredients were layered.  Take a large sturdy spoon and mix thoroughly to ensure that each slice is properly coated, then spoon into prepared baking dish.  Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. 

After 40 minutes, remove the foil and add additional shredded cheese to the top if you wish ( I had some White Cheddar shreds just looking for love also, so what the heck.)  and continue baking until the tops are browned and beautiful…about another 15 minutes.

Hope this inspires you to get creative in your pantry ( LOL almost wrote panty, we won’t go there) !  What are some of your creative go to pantry dishes?

Meet me in the comments to share…  all comments will be acknowledged and responded to .

Getting Creative in the Kitchen

I absolutely hate the taste of pie crust...and I hate to eat the pie innards and leave the crust to go in the trash.  So I decided to create a pie/tart with a sugar cookie crust.



Apple Pear Tart

2 Baking apples
2 Pears ( I used Seckel that I had
    gotten from my Bountiful Basket)
1/2c sugar
1/8 c cinnamon
Sugar Cookie Mix (prepared as directed)
Cinnamon Cornflakes about 2 c.
2 tbsp butter



Make Cookie Mix and press into greased baking dish.  Thinly slice the fruit and place in a bowl.   Mix sugar and Cinnamon together and sprinkle over sliced fruit.  Shake well to coat all the slices.   

 Lay slices individually over the crust. 

Pulverize the Corn Flakes, melt butter, mix together and sprinkle over the top. 

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, allow to cool for about 15 minutes before serving

You can check out other yummy recipes here or here

Yes, this is a kids in the kitchen post and Bethany was very helpful making this...but once we sliced up the fruit and placed it in the crust, she was busy ...

It was too good looking not to try an apple of her own.

She was very good at adding the ingredients to the sugar cookie mix.  Shaking to mix the cinnamon and sugar and laying the seasoned pieces in the crust. 

As a side note, if I was to make this again, I would prebake the sugar cookie crust for at least 15 minutes.  The crust absorbed some of the juices out of the fruit and they didn't bake up as soft as I like.

Let me know how it works for you!

Kids in the Kitchen-Breakfast Burritos

I Love to cook with my kids,and fortunately they love it, too.  Most of my weekend days are spent in the kitchen with one of the two kids that are still at home.  I have decided to dedicate some weekly posts to our special times together and hopefully inspire you to let your little ones help with your cooking too.

This is Bethany and she is four years old.  She has been actively cooking for the last two years.  This has been kind of dangerous for us, because if we are not careful, when she decides she is hungry, she will go to the kitchen and start getting ready to cook for herself. 

Bethany already has basic baking and cooking skills, today as we made our breakfast burritos, she was able to stir the sausage as it browned.  After it was done, we cooked hashbrowns in the same pan.

Then we added the sausage back to the pan after the hashbrowns started browning.

Once the hashbrowns were done, in a separate skillet, we scrambled some eggs (yes, she can crack her own eggs, but we still crack them into a separate dish so that we don't have eggshell burritos).

Them combined everything together and seasoned with a little salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder.

We laid out our tortillas and started our math lesson.  If you fold a square piece of cheese in half you get how many pieces and what shape are the pieces, or should they be, if folded properly.

This was her new skill of the day, first we folded the burritos, then we burrito folded it again in a Bounty napkin (love these) and then one last fold into the aluminum foil.  The foil keeps it safe in the freezer, to cook them, remove the foil but leave the napkin and pop in the microwave for 1.5 minutes.  The napkin helps to keep some moisture on the tortilla as it cooks. 

Just a reminder, keep an eye on your child at all times.  Bethany cooked pretty much everything, but I was right there with her the whole time.

I hope that you found this post inspirational, meet me in the comments to talk about other foods you like to cook with your kids.