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Set aside some blustery winter afternoons to make sweet snacks for your kids to share.
With the intensified hustle and bustle at this time of year, cooking with your little ones can get put on the back burner—but we need to remind ourselves what the holidays really mean and find time to have holiday fun with our kids.
So, fire up the stove: who knows what pint-sized Martha Stewart or Emeril may be budding in your very own kitchen?
Never leave young children alone to cook, cut, chop, slice, dice, or otherwise use sharp instruments. Likewise, children should not be in the kitchen while the stove or oven is on unless you are there. Teach them to stay clear of dangerous situations: Mock touching the stove by saying, "Hot! Ow!" to show toddlers and younger ones what can happen if they touch it, and remind older children to be careful around the burners, too.
Don't forget to turn pot handles toward the back of the stove so eager hands can't grab them. Use up your back burners first.
Read the recipe and ingredients together. Gather everything you will need in one spot; then figure out what each step of the recipe is asking you to do.
Make the kitchen more child-chef friendly by getting a tall, sturdy chair or footstool so your youngster can better see the countertops. Make or buy child-sized aprons, kitchen utensils, and potholders. Teach kids to measure out ingredients with measuring cups and spoons. This not only proffers their cooking skills, but takes math out of the realm of school-only and into real life.
Cookie Hands: Put a personal twist on store-bought cookie dough. Have your child trace his hands in the dough., cut out with a plastic knife, and bake. Add red frosting for fingernails, white for a big diamond ring. Bake as directed.
Apple Surprises: Core an apple. Place on a cookie sheet. Let your child fill it with granola cereal and then shake some cinnamon on it. Bake until the apple begins to get soft. Drop chocolate chips on the top and continue baking until the apple is soft and the chips are melted. After it cools, wrap in colored plastic wrap with a bow. Your child can cut out small tags for writing instructions to reheat about five minutes. This is also a nice snack to leave out for Rudolph.
Chocolatey Drawings: Melt chocolate in a double boiler, then pour into a frosting bag with a very pointy tip. Tear off a generous arm's length of waxed paper and cover a cookie sheet or flat platter with it. Let your child play with dribbling names, designs, or greetings of melted chocolate onto the waxed paper. Cool in the refrigerator until hard again. Gently peel the waxed paper from the designs. Place on top of cookies or cakes, use as place cards, wrap very, very gently in a sturdy box with tissue paper and give as gifts.
Colorful Sweets: Honey is easily colored with food dyes. First gather clean jars with lids. Have the kids pour the honey almost to the very top. They can choose their favorite festive colors to add. Put the lid on and ask them to turn the jar upside down, then right side up several times until the mixture is even. If you buy plain white stickers at an office supply store, the kids can make labels for the jars with their markers, glitter, and glue sticks.
Two more versions of the above: Add freshly sliced fruits to the jar before the honey is added, or use the colored honey to dribble over whipped cream. Both of these suggestions can be served over cake, ice cream, or added to sparkling waters.
Snowman Goodies: Create a dessert feast around your child's favorite holiday story. For instance, a Frosty the Snowman dessert feast would include letting your child stack marshmallows into a snowman-shape then dotting with chocolate chip eyes, thin pretzel stick arms, and black licorice hats. To drink, what else but shaved ice? Top it with flavored syrups served in bowls that the kids have covered with black construction paper (to simulate Frosty's top hat). Your child can "shave" the ice by putting cubes inside a plastic bag and then smashing the bag with the backs of spoons. Nip the tops and bottoms from licorice strips to use as straws.
Winter Picnic: After you light up the tree or put the first candle into the menorah, have a picnic under the "lights" in the living room. Spread out a plastic tablecloth leftover from your summer camping trips (or buy one with a seasonal motif). Buy a loaf of your child's favorite bread. Alternate layers of peanut butter, bananas and pineapple. Slice the stack into quarters. Serve with devilled eggs you make together: After hardboiled eggs cool, peel and scoop out the yolks. Let the kids loose mashing the yolks with mayonnaise or low-fat dressing. Then have them spoon the yolks back into the whites and make designs with a fork on them. Peppermint tea completes the feast. Ask the kids to put a stick of cinnamon in each cup before you pour the tea.
Construct a Snack: Give the kids a jar of peanut butter to "cement" together a graham cracker "gingerbread" house. Lay out bowls of colorful candies as decorations. Those thin pretzels leftover from the Frosty feast make wonderful "logs." After everyone has had a chance to admire the house (and you've taken a photo of it), put on the kids' get-messy clothes and let them chomp down.
Edible Ornaments: The kids will love to mix together popcorn, peanuts, chocolate chips, raisins, pretzel bits and soft candies with honey in a bowl. Then let them get gooey by rolling the mixture into golf ball or tennis ball sizes. Spread a little powdered sugar on waxed paper. Roll the balls in the sugar to sop up the extra honey. These make great edible ornaments by tying a ribbon around them to use as a hanger. Don't forget to eat them before you stash the ornaments away for the season!
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