Cooking With Kids: The Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook (and Disappearing Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Cookbooks for children are funny things. I find that the majority of them fall into two equally awful categories: the food looks like something a child could easily make but that no one in their right mind would eat, or the food is super cute but requires tons of work from the parent to puree 10 different sauces to create a painter's palette of fruit and veggie dips or to cut out sails from patterned paper and thread them onto toothpicks to insert into your carefully crafted chicken salad boats (and yes, those were specific references). As the parent of a child who loves to cook, I want recipes that look delicious, don't take hours, and actually allow my child to do most of the work.

So, here at Lulu the Baker, we will be doing a series of children's cookbook reviews! Up first is The Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook. We bought this book on one of our semi-weekly trips to the craft store. My daughter loves the Disney/Pixar movies, so Lightning McQueen, Woody, Sulley, Mike Wisowsky, and Ratatouille on the cover captured her attention immediately and she plunked herself down in the middle of the aisle and started reading.

Good Things:
-Disney has made a real effort to make the recipes healthy. Any bread product called for is whole grain, dairy products are all low-fat, and each recipe comes with nutritional info.
-The pictures look nice and the food looks appetizing (for the most part).
-We've made only 3 recipes from this so far, but all were good. The chocolate chip cookies were exceptionally tasty.
-The directions are great. Very clear, very detailed.
-The cookbook also has excercise ideas and fun food trivia on each page.
-Each recipe also includes a list of utensils to be used while preparing that dish.

Bad Things:
-My little chef is quite young, so this probably wouldn't bother the parent of an older child. The book doesn't distinguish between which parts of the recipe should be done by the child and which should be done by an adult. Not a big deal; any grown-up worth their salt can just use common sense to figure that one out, but it'd be nice if it said, "Get a grown-up to help you put the baking sheet in the oven," or something like that.
-Lots of recipes call for bottled dressing, pre-cooked chicken, cake mixes, canned chili, etc. But again, asking a 6-year-old to bake a cake from scratch probably wouldn't work!
-As an adult, I find the pages really bright, busy, and kind of overloaded, but my kids LOVE it.
-A few of the recipes look barfy, but only a few, which I think is pretty good for a children's cookbook.

Overall: I think this cookbook is great for little kids who want to start helping out in the kitchen. The recipes are easy, fairly healthy, and actually look appetizing. Older kids who are interested in cooking can probably find a better book out there, but for small children, this one is great.

Disappearing Chocolate Chip Cookies
from The Disney Magic Kitchen Cookbook
I was kind of curious as to how these cookies would turn out. They were delicious right out of the oven and really good the next day too. They are the texture of pumpkin cookies: light and cakey.

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375. Put oats on a cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes or until toasted. Remove from oven, pour into a blender or food processor, and grind. Set aside. Beat butter in a large mixing bowl for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined. Add yogurt, eggs, and vanilla and beat until combined. Add flour, oats, and chocolate chips, stirring between each ingredient. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 375 degrees for 9 minutes. Remove from oven; cool on a wire rack. Makes a whopping 60 cookies, no joke!

Sweet Melissa Tuesdays: Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream

My husband and I got one of those cool Cuisinart ice cream makers for our wedding. You know, the one with the bowl that goes in the freezer and never needs ice. We were really excited about that gift. We even got the extra bowl so that we would never have to wait for the other one to be washed, dried, and refrozen. I guess we thought we'd be making ice cream twice a day or something. Anywho, we tried it once, it failed, and that was that. Then, in February, the Daring Bakers challenge called for homemade ice cream. I believe it was the night before the challenge was due that I finally got around to digging our ice cream maker out of the garage. But the bowl has to freeze for at least 24 hours before it'll work (which I think was the problem the first time we tried it), so I had to scramble around and borrow one from a friend. Not wanting to be unprepared for the rest of my ice cream-makin' life, I stuck our bowls in the freezer just in case I ever needed them again. So when I decided to go ahead and make last week's Sweet Melissa recipe for Brown Sugar Vanilla Bean Ice Cream even though I'd missed the posting date, the stars aligned perfectly to give me exactly enough heavy cream (seriously, TO THE DROP!), a ziplock full of tahitian vanilla beans from ebay that I thought I'd zip through and haven't, and a pre-frozen bowl just waiting to be used! And the resulting ice cream was delicious. Carmely, rich, smooth; the kind of ice cream you'll store your ice cream machine bowls in the freezer for.

Karen from Karen's Cookies, Cakes, & More chose the recipe for this week (Thank You Karen!) and has posted the recipe for the ice cream, along with hot fudge and butterscotch sauces, here.

Give-Away Winner!

So here's something crazy. My mom is always telling me that a bunch of family members read my blog, which surprises me because they never leave comments. So who should leave the winning comment on my one-year anniversary give-away? My aunt! Ha ha. Life is funny, isn't it. I love you Aunt Gigi, and thanks for a wonderful reunion; we will definitely be back next year! And many thanks to everyone who left well-wishes!

Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary (and Daring Bakers and SMS and a give-away!)

Wow! Today is momentous on three levels. First, we have a great Sweet Melissa recipe for the week, Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies, which you can find by clicking here.


Second, we have a great Daring Bakers recipe for the month, Half Blackberry-Half Chunky Applesauce Bakewell Tart, which you can find by clicking here.


And third, it was one year ago today that I wrote my first post for Lulu the Baker! Wow. And my 100th post is just around the corner (as in, this post makes #96). If I had planned it just a little better, they could have coincided, but I'm not that organized. I actually am really organized, but not in this case!

In honor of my 1 year anniversary and my looming 100th post, Lulu the Baker is having a give-away. And boy, is it fantastic. I put together a lovely little bunch of things that I would love to get, so I hope you will too! The lucky winner of our give-away will win:

• the latest--and, I believe, inaugural--issue of Mixing Bowl, the new all-cooking-all-the-time publication from Better Homes and Gardens
• a package of King Arthur Flour Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin Mix, which I'm having a hard time parting with :)
• a cute, magnetic list-makin' note pad featuring an oven mitt and tea kettle
• a Wilton 9-inch angled spatula, for all your spreadin' needs
• a Wilton mini Noah's Ark cookie cutter set
• 350 white mini baking cups (also from Wilton, so you can tell I went shopping at Michael's)
• 25 clear cellophane bags for treats
• 35 adorable Martha Stewart labels for said treat bags
• a spool of brown and white striped baker's twine to finish off the treat bags
• 2 really cute (if I do say so myself) kitchen towels, embellished by yours truly

Phew! That took ages to type, and one of you lucky readers can win it all! Just leave me a comment below. And tell your friends! You don't have to blog about it or anything (although I certainly won't stop you from doing so); just spread the word! I will randomly choose a winner on Monday, July 6th!

June Daring Bakers: Bakewell Tart with Blackberry/Spiced Apple Filling

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. You can find the recipe for this lovely tart on both of their blogs.

One of the things I love about the Daring Bakers Challenges is that half the time, the item we are baking is something I've never even heard of before. This month's recipe, the Bakewell Tart, falls into that category. Baking something completely new to me always adds an extra ounce of zing to an already exciting time; not knowing how something is supposed to look or taste or smell makes it fun!

We didn't have a lot of artistic license over this recipe; we were required to make the crust and frangipane (aka, almond stuff) recipes provided. But sandwiched in between the two we could put basically anything we could spread on a crust. I actually made strawberry-raspberry-ruby red grapefruit preserves specifically for use in this tart. The preserves were completely from scratch--no store-bought pectin here!--and smelled absolutely heavenly while cooking. And they tasted really good and bright and summery...but I just didn't want to put them in my tart!

So I used blackberry jam (from Costco, but it is made in my state, so don't take too many points off for using something store-bought) on one half, and homemade chunky applesauce on the other. The recipe for the applesauce is here, and I encourage everyone to make some this fall. It is amazing; people say it tastes like apple pie filling, and they don't mean it as a compliment, but how is that a bad thing?!

As of posting time I had yet to taste the Bakewell Tart; the month got away from me, and then the day got away from me too! But it is out of the oven and quite pretty, and I managed to snap a few pictures in the fading 8:30 PM light. Thank goodness for my northern latitude! I would never get pictures of anything if it didn't stay light for so long!

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

These cookies wildly surpassed my somewhat low expectations. I like chocolate-covered strawberries, and I love orange and chocolate flavors together, but other than that, I'm really not into fruit and chocolate pairings. As a result, I was skeptical about these dark chocolate cookies filled with dried cherries, even as Melissa Murphy, the author of the Sweet Melissa Baking Book, assured me that they were delicious in the recipe's forward. I was even less excited when I took them out of the oven, because I didn't think they were very pretty. So I ate one. And I liked it. So I ate another one. And another. And another. And another. And another. Yes, that is six cookies! And then I had two more the next day. They are really good cookies! The flavor of the cherries didn't come through as an overt, fresh cherry flavor. It was subtle and just a little tart, much like a dried cranberry, and gave the dark, rich chocolate of the cookie a little punch of zip.

Two tips if you're going to try these, and I do suggest you try them:
1) Do not bake them for 15 minutes, which is what the book says to do. Maybe 12 or 13, unless you like crispy cookies, in which case, by all means, leave them in for the full 15.
2) If your dried cherries are the size of quarters, like mine were, try snipping them into fourths with a pair of kitchen shears. This will spread the cherry love a little.

A big thanks to Megan of My Baking Adventures for choosing this week's delicious recipe. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting her blog, she posts a great weekly ice cream series called The Weekly Scoop, which is awesome for these hot summer months. She also has this week's recipe, so do swing by. And to see a list of the other Sweet Melissa bakers, click here.

I Love Cubans!

OK, so I've never met anyone from Cuba (at least that I can remember), and I'm not a cigar-smoker. I'm talking sandwiches here, people! Years and years ago, my dad told me about a place near his office that made these tasty Cuban sandwiches with roast pork, ham, mustard, and dill pickles on grilled bread. That's the first time I ever heard of Cuban sandwiches, but over the years I've seen recipes pop up here and there in magazines and on TV. The thing is, I never got around to eating one, even though they sound like they'd be right up my alley. So when I was writing up my menu and shopping list for this week, I decided to give them a whirl and see how they turned out. In a word, PERFECT! I really am sorry that I didn't try making these sooner, because they are quick, easy, and extremely delicious.

I decided to wing it with the recipe instead of making someone else's version of Cuban sandwiches. If you look them up on Wikipedia, it lists both the traditional and nontraditional ingredients, so it is pretty easy to figure out what to do. I started with country style boneless pork ribs, seasoned them with a garlic, oregano, salt and pepper rub, then simmered them for a few hours with some chicken broth and a bay leaf. When the pork is ready, all you have to do is shred it with a pair of dinner forks. I am trying to feed my family less processed fare, so when it came to ham, I opted for a presliced natural ham without additives from the deli section. Traditionally, Cubans are made with swiss cheese, but I'm really, really not a swiss cheeser, so I opted for the much tastier provalone. Add some dill pickles and a little mustard, panini it up, and you're done! So, so, so good. There really isn't anything else I can say, except thank goodness I have enough of everything left over that I can make one of these again for lunch tomorrow!

Cuban Sandwiches
If you are cooking the pork the same day you want to serve the sandwiches, please note that it requires a few hours of prep and cooking time. Very easy; just requires some forethought.

1 1/2 lbs country style boneless pork ribs
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon minced garlic
olive oil
1 14-oz can low sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
8 slices deli ham
8 slices provalone cheese (or swiss, if you're masochistic)
mustard
dill pickle slices
4 sandwich rolls or large hamburger buns
butter

Combine salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic in a small bowl. Rub both sides of boneless pork ribs with spices, and let sit on the counter for 1 hour. Heat a small amount of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet or dutch oven, and brown pork ribs on both sides. Add broth and bay leaf, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer pork for 2-3 hours, until meat is very tender and falls apart easily. Remove pork from skillet, shred, and set aside.

Preheat your panini press. (If you don't have one, preheat 2 nonstick skillets. You put the sandwiches in one skillet, then put the other skillet on top and weigh it down with a nice, heavy can of something.) Lightly butter the outsides of the hamburger buns. Spread the inside of the top buns with mustard. Layer pork, ham, pickles, and cheese on the bottom bun, top with the mustard-slathered top bun, and cook in your panini press until outside is golden and cheese is melted.

Serves 4