Tag Archive for 'cooking with Iz'

Crispy On The Outside, Soft On The Inside

Published on May 7, 2010 in Cooking With Kids, food and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Zucchini Fries

I had a few zucchinis in the fridge and have been wanting to try to make some crispy zucchini fries.  These were so fun to eat.  Super crispy on the outside (probably thanks to the panko) and super smushy soft on the inside.  AND, Izzy, the 5yo who-used-to-eat-everything-and-now-doesn’t child, LOVED them.

“EW”, she said when they came out of the oven, “I am NOT eating that.  What is it?”

The rule at our house is you have to taste it.  If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, after all we should enjoy what we eat, mother nature worked hard to grow it and we take special care to make it, it should be yum to eat, right?

Well after the first one, there was the second one, third, fourth, fifth….she ate these before the raviolis.  We’ll be making these again, and the best part?  These are so easy a 5 year old could totally make them too.  It’s fun, all the dredging and rolling and sprinkling, it’s total tea party time.

Enjoy!

Crispy Yummy Zucchini Sticks

  • 4 Medium Size Zucchinis
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon flour
  • a couple sprinkles of your fave seasoning, I used cajun spices, but Italian or anything you fancy would be nice.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 1 cup of plain breadcrumbs
  • Olive Oil (spray if you have it)

Preheat oven to 475F -500F depending on your crisp factor (I did 500F)

Prepare a cookie sheet, brush or spray with olive oil, set aside.

Cut the zucchinis lengthwise in quarters, then into 3rds or quarters again.

Mix the flour, seasoning and salt together in a bowl.

Whip the egg whites until they are really frothy, almost until they form soft peaks, almost, in another bowl.

Put the breadcrumbs in another bowl.

Dredge the zucchini sticks in the flour mixture, dip in the egg whites, dredge in the breadcrumbs.

Place on prepped cookie sheet. Repeat until finished. Spray or drizzle sticks with olive oil.

Put in oven for about 20 minutes, turning half way through.

My Notes:

I used cajun seasoning and they were good, I think cumin would be AWESOME, and of course, the old stand by – Italian seasoning.

I used panko, the Japanese breadcrumbs. LOVED them, super crispy.

We really liked the super crispy outside and super soft inside, we cooked them for probably 25 minutes until the breadcrumbs started to turn super dark brown.

I think you could totally make a batch and freeze them after they’ve been coated with the breadcrumbs.  I’m going to add this to my “What to do with all the zucchini” part of the year and freeze a bunch for later.

Ode To The Cookie

Published on February 23, 2009 in food and recipes. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

If you’ve been reading along, you know that we’ve been cooking a lot together.  And making cookies.  I found a lovely recipe for sugar cookies, and the best part for us, there’s not much sugar in them.  It’s a super versatile recipe, you can add more sugar if you want, you can roll them, press them, mark them with and “I” and put them in the oven for Izzy and me!

I made a batch, and we only take off what we can roll thin with the rolling pin, and save the rest in the fridge for the next day.  Iz loves it (she’s not too into the sweet things).  I have a set of cookie cutters, yes, they are all Christmas shapes, but they are tiny, perfect for her hands and portion control, so we eat a lot of Christmas cookies.  Today, we rolled the dough into balls and stuck dark chocolate chips into the center.  DELISH!

Cookie Love

Here’s the recipe.  Enjoy! from allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
  2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
  3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Time Together

Published on February 8, 2009 in family, food and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

We’ve been pretty busy around here.  School, work, school, work, then finally the weekend!  Since I’ve started my full time job, we spend less time together as a family.  I love having my new job, I love the work, the people, it’s great.  Then there’s the mom-tug, and I can’t help but wonder what this means for my family.  My mind races back and forth, rests for a while on how good this is for all of us, all the while hoping Iz is happy with the arrangement too.

Movie Star

I’m pretty sure she is.  We’ve had a week or two of trantrums as soon as I would walk in the door, but they’ve seem to have subsided.  She’s pretty independent and fully confident.  She knows that I’m here for her and love her.  Makes me realize that starting her at preschool when she was 2 was the right thing (even though I lost sleep / was nauseous  over us being apart, and wondering HOW IS SHE GOING TO MAKE IT WITHOUT ME – but maybe it was how am I going to make it without her?).  She can totally handle herself in so many different situations, and she’s confident to know what to do when I’m not around.  It’s all good.

Twirly Skirt

So, now what to do.  It’s quality, not quantity, right?  You might have noticed, but we have a thing for food around here.  Food that we make. Nice slow food.  Food that we grow.  Healthy, complete food.  So we’ve been spending time cooking and we are having SO MUCH FUN!

Since I can’t start dinner at 3:45, and have maybe, 30mins to really make something before we fall on the floor when we get home, we’re making quite a bit on the weekends for the week.

Saturday morning, we made German Pancakes.

German Pancake

They are so easy to make, fun to watch and take less time to cook than our trad pancakes.  Izzy LOVED watching them puff up in the oven.  Iz has been a fantastic kitchen helper for as long as I can remember.  Now that she’s 4, I’m just blown away by her cooking ability.  She’s an excellent pourer, stirrer, cutter, and a super taster (except when there’s raw egg…).

The pancake was a hit, super yummy, and Iz and I even whipped up some whip cream, sliced up the strawberries and piled them on the pancake.

Dutch Babies

Here’s the recipe.  Enjoy!

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1 cup all-purpose whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 6 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Vanilla Extract – all to taste.  If you like sweet, you can add 1/4 -1/2 cup sugar.  We don’t want sweet, so the nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla was perfect for us.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Melt butter in a medium/large baking dish.  Keep an eye on it, you don’t want it to burn.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, milk, eggs and salt. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

Bake on center rack in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown. These can puff up pretty high, so definitely cook these in the center and remove the rack above it.  And, if your dish is shallow, put it on a cookie sheet so it doesn’t fall to the floor of your oven.

To make the whipped cream, chill a medium mixing bowl in the fridge for 20 mins.  I use Heavy Whipping Cream, pour  a pint in the chilled bowl, using your hand mixer, mix at the highest setting until you like the consitency.  We don’t add sugar, but if you want it sweeter, add a bit of powdered sugar to your liking.

* I think this would be really yummy if you added crushed apples or mashed bananas too it.  You could even add a mashed butternut squash, YUM!  The possibilities are endless.


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