C is for Cooking

I don't know about any kids that you may know, but Lila Jane loves to cook and eat and talk about cooking and eating...

I learned really quickly that when making anything in the kitchen if I didn't give her a task than she'd give herself a task and that task usually involved trying to grab the knife and/or trying to touch the hot stove.

Last summer a friend suggested just letting her hang out in the kitchen and helping, that turned into letting her "help" by washing off the fruit or trying the ingredients and morphed into adding more and more task as she got older and could do more. She helped make appetizers for Valentine's Day and helping with the dishes (what is it about the kitchen sink that draws kids to it?), and puts food into measuring cups. It can get messy, but who cares, she's learning and it's fun!

Enter...Dora and Diego Let's Cook!

Overview from BN:

Dora and Diego teach kids to make awesome (and healthy!) recipes-and learn Spanish along the way.
Just in time for the tenth anniversary of Dora the Explorer-the top-rated preschool program on commercial television-comes Dora and Diego Let's Cook, a cookbook from Nickelodeon that gets kids safely exploring and learning in the kitchen. Guided by Dora and Diego, kids will help measure, stir, shape, and decorate 50 exciting and super-tasty recipes like Pirate Adventure Pizza Coins and Incan Quinoa Pudding-all while learning Spanish words and phrases.
These simple, delicious recipes emphasize healthful ingredients children ...

If you have a kidlet that loves Dora and Diego as much as my kidlet, owning this cookbook is a must. It has a lovely guide at the beginning that helps parents figure out age appropriate tasks for their kiddos to do as they create things like Dora's Backpack Snack Pack, Diego's Silly Snake Sticks and the two we, or should I say Aunt Nellie and the tiny person, made Boot's Banana Pancakes and Tico's Nutty Stuffed French Toast (you can look at these recipes more closely on Amazon).

I look forward to buying more ingredients for these simple recipes and creating more of these wonderful concoctions. There's a silly face salad that Lila Jane is just itching to try.

It also makes excellent bed time reading.
Yes, Lila wanted Aunt Nellie to read the Dora cookbook at bedtime.

The Recipe for Success

I love recipes and I don’t care where they come from. I’ve found some of my best recipes online, sure, but I’ve also acquired recipes from magazines, books, church fundraisers, friends and their parents.

Some of my favorite recipes come from this really cool recipe box that I got at an estate sale. In this recipe box are notes and coupons dating as early as 1930. This lady cut out recipes from magazines, the backs of boxes and containers and collected them from friends (I know because she dated these recipes and wrote down the name of the person from whom she got the recipe). I’ve made several recipes from this box; one cup salad, peanut clutters with condensed milk and sour cream cake to name a few. It’s amazing to think that this woman’s family considered this box unimportant and sold it with a pile of other junk for about $5.

As I’ve been looking through my recipe books for something to make for New Year’s Eve, I’ve realized that I’m also a collector of recipe books. This all started when my friend was cleaning house and gave me a box of her old recipe books. In this collection were a set of Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks dating from 1967, our favorite to use is titled Favorite Ways with Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Game Birds. Its recipes detail using bone in chicken and the book tells how to cut up chicken (p35), how to have an elegant dinner; complete with menus (starting on p57) and “Wine Cooking and Serving Suggestions” (p63).

I’m also a sucker for the people on the Food Network and own many cookbooks from my favorite TV show hosts. Sure I know that you can get most of their recipes free online, but you don’t get cute informative introductions and sidebar comments online. Our favorite Paula Deen is The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook (I just got my sister a copy for Christmas, so she wouldn’t steal mine, since college she’s been stealing my cookbooks J), which we use soooo much some of the pages stick together, our favorites seem to come from the dessert pages like Better Than Sex? Yes! (not sure what we’ll call this cake when the tiny tot gets older--this lady calls it Heath Bar Cake). I also have every Rachel Ray recipe book. Our favorite is Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. I think it would be daring if we tried each of these meals all in one year, so far we just stick to the ones we like such as Mac-n-Cheddar with Broccoli.

A cookbook that I treasure (from the same lovely lady who brought me the box of cook books ) is from a now defunct bed and breakfast called Andy’s Catch and this book is full of delicious, wonderful breakfast and brunch foods (side note:  I can eat B&G every day of the week and any time of day is the perfect time of day for breakfast) including breakfast casserole and breakfast pizza.

My latest find is a cook book I received from a friend for Christmas Are You Hungry Tonight? Elvis’ Favorite Recipes. I’ve already tried the infamous or should I say notorious Fried Peanut Butter sandwich and am looking forward to rockin’ the kitchen trying out all his favorite breakfast recipes. This book also has the recipe for his 6-tiered wedding cake and a meatloaf recipe I can't wait to try, as I have not met a meatloaf I didn't like. My favorite meatloaf recipe comes from Reader's Digest Kitchen Secrets (p237).

Well, gotta go whip myself up something to eat all this talk of food has made me hungry.

I’m looking forward to digging through all of these recipes for the perfect New Year’s Eve foods! If you have any suggestions feel free to send them my way.

Just a Handful of my Cookbooks...