cooking

 

From st autumn

 

I loved these pumpkin projects.  I like to make a sample of the projects before camp and it’s always fun to see what the kids do with the materials provided.  They always find a way of personalizing their work.  I’ve seen paper bag pumpkins before.  They look like paper sacks stuffed and painted….cute.  Our paper bag pumpkins were little works of art!!  This was a two day project.  Each child  started with a pallet of yellow, red, and a little dab of golden color .  It was fun seeing the kids mix their colors and create orange!!  We talked about how pretty the bright clear spots of red and yellow looked with the blended orange.  The kids put the paper bag on one hand and painted with the other.  I saw these beautiful (I think they’re beautiful) pumpkins on the website That Artist Woman .  We found twigs and real leaves in the yard to complete our project on the second day.  The fun thing the kids did was not limiting themselves to one stem or one green pipe cleaner to finish off their pumpkin.  Some pumpkins had fist fulls of moss covered sticks attached and a whole range of green fuzzy spiraled tendrils….wonderful!!

 

 

 

More Pumpkins!

 

Our other pumpkin project was made of yarn….very simple.  I found this project at Make and Takes.  We changed the yarn from red to orange and changed a little red apple to a little orange pumpkin!  The kids wrapped yarn around a piece of cardboard 80 times!!!  It was an opportunity to have fun with counting and they ended up with a sweet little pumpkin.

 

From Collages

 

More Pumpkins!!

We made Pumpkin Cookies a couple weeks ago and I promised to post the recipe.  Here’s the 2 cookie recipe we used at camp made with whole wheat flour and honey  and another recipe for pumpkin cookies I’ve used for years that make lots of cookies.  As you can see by the condition of “The Great Pumpkin” recipe it has been well used.  I’ve gone from using the full amount of white sugar to none to finally settling on “about” half the original amount.  I don’t usually make these cookies as large as the recipe calls ….too big for little ones.  When my kids were little I made these with the stem, no white sugar and outlined with orange buttercream frosting and two little buttercream leaves on top….plenty sweet

 

We had a busy day at camp. Started by picking blackberries then everyone made cheesy pretzels. I wanted to try dyeing Queen Anne’s Lace with food coloring but my prototype didn’t work very well so I went ahead and picked a big bouquet of flowers for the kids to cut blossoms from to make “flower arrangements” in baby food jars. I encouraged the kids collect greenery from around the yard to add to their creations. The pretzels were left to rise while the kids played and had fun with their craft projects.

 

The pretzels were delicious!  I’m always amazed how well the recipes we use turn out.  The recipe may call for 1/2 teaspoon of yeast but the kids sometimes measure out 1/4 teaspoon or 1+!  If the grown up has an eagle eye they can compensate with the other ingredients or add a little something more to make the  concoction  closer to the recipe.  One way or another our baking always turns out great.  Here’s the recipe for our pretzels

 

From st anne’s lace cheese pretzels

Cheese Pretzels……makes 2-4

 

½ tsp yeast

3 TB warm water

Let dissolve

 

½ tsp sugar

½ cup flour

2 TB grated Cheddar cheese

Stir & Knead

 

Cut into 2/4 pieces

Roll into “worms”, shape

 

Brush with beaten egg

Sprinkle with kosher salt …. I’ve also sprinkled sesame seeds and garlic granules !

Bake at 425degrees 15minutes

 

Enjoy

From Collages

We took a recipe for cloverleaf rolls and made Snowmen “people” rolls.  Here’s the recipe for individual portions:

Cloverleaf Rolls makes 2 rolls

1/2 tsp dry yeast

1/2 TBL warm water

1/2 tsp veggie oil

2 TBL butter milk

3TBL unbleach flour

beat vigorously

1/2 tsp sugar mix

(Sugar Mix : 1TBL sugar, 1/4 tsp salt ,1/8 tsp baking powder, 1/8 tsp baking soda)

2TBL + 1tsp whole wheat flour

stir vigorously

Knead dough until smooth

Form 6 balls, place 3balls each buttered muffin tin.  Cover, rise 20minutes, bake 400 7minutes

 

From Drop Box

 The kids stitched their felt starts with some help from their moms.  Some of the moms made their own stars……sometimes we want to do our own thing!

 

From dim sum pie!!!

Fun day baking at Smiling Tree…..oh yes we had some issues….some of the buttery pastry on the pumpkin pies broke off and caused smoking and of course the smoke alarm kept screaming at us!!  Pastry leaves on our pumpkin pies made up for the droopy crust and the apple galettes were beautiful (no pictures).

At the end of the day I realized I couldn’t have spent my day before Thanksgiving in any better way.  By baking with my wonderful, sweet kids I get to be part of their Thanksgiving day too; a real treat for me.

 

From dim sum pie!!!

While our pies baked we had time to play outside and make  nature craft pine cone turkeys with leaves and acorns. It was a wonderful day topped off with a warm and cozy dinner with my family.

I made all the pastry for my pie baking workshop this morning and a couple “extras” for my family Thanksgiving celebration.  The workshop is Wednesday and the kids get to choose between a pumpkin pie or apple galette (rustic single crust pie)

 

From st pastry thanksgiving

Nine pie crust = 2 1/4 pounds butter, that’s a lot of butter!

Here are the ingregients for the pastry:

1 1/4 cups unbleached flour

1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1cube of butter

1 egg yolk

5 tablespoons iced cold water

I use a food processor to mix my pastry and if you really want instructions on how to make a “perfect”  pie crust let me know and I’ll give you detailed directions.

NOTE:  keep everything cold…..I put the flour and butter in the freezer the night before to get it really cold

 

 

 Try this simple “recipe” for a fun Halloween project/treat.

This was a fun project, not really cooking but food related.  We did this sometime over the summer.  I was on a spider kick because there was a big garden spider spinning its web at our front gate.  We made these cracker, peanut butter, pretzel spiders and oak gall spiders another day.  

 

From st spider crackers

More cooking……..we made Apple-Raisin muffins; funny how we all used the same recipe and they all turned out so differently. These recipes are so forgiving!

 

From st wheelbarrow leaf art

Recipe for 2 Apple-Raisin Muffins

Flour Mixture …I mix this before our little bakers come to class

1 cup sifted flour (sift before measuring)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

2TBL sugar                                  Mix dry ingredients……..this is enough for several batches (6?)

Here’s the recipe we used at FUN School:

2 1/2 TBL flour mixture

1tsp oil

1 TBL milk

1/2 TBL beaten egg

Stir to moisten mixture….Do not overmix!

2 tsp chopped apple + 7 raisins + a pinch of cinnamon…….push fruit into batter without much stirring

pour into two paper-lined muffin tins.           

    Bake 400 degrees about 13minutes

I’m going to try this one again…..not my favorite recipe but great for kids…..I’ll let you know how it goes.

River loves seasoned seaweed

Justine sent me this quote from the book, “Fun & Fancy Sushi” pretty good words to live by even if you don’t make onigiri!