Family Fun

  I am a child of the 80's.  So one year years ago I thought my kids needed toys I had.  Why because they made me happy.  Not thinking of what currently makes kids happy. Tablets, Ipods, XBox and more.  It made me happy and that's all that mattered.

Enter the Easy Bake Oven.

  I have had one in the closet for a few years.  It wasn't gone and forgotten it was just waiting to be appreciated and used under adult supervision.  After a special request for food to cook in it was rescued.  The oven was pulled out!

 

 Now I have seen a variety of meals to cook in it.  From nachos and Mac and cheese to cakes and cookies.  The only dilemma is will it work in only this specific oven or the oven we have.  I have also looked up homemade recipes but based on reviews haven't taken a leap to see if the recipes are really reliable.

  On this day little Miss made chocolate chip cookies with chocolate frosting.  She was so excited and allowing her the independence from start to finish was exciting for her.

 The packages come with all the ingredients.  You just may need to add water.  She was responsible for reading the directions, preparing the cookies and I observed her putting them in the oven and taking them off the pan.

  She made the cookies, and frosted them any way she wanted.  Some she dipped, others she spread chocolate in the middle and we tried to drizzle but, that didn't work real well.

Over all the recipes worked for the oven we had.  They were easy for her to read, understand and follow.  She was pleased with her final product and ate them happily.

These are definitely a snack for little people!  What was one of your favorite childhood toys?

Bucketlist Idea for Kids

  One unconventional idea I had for my daughter (only because she was a little older) was to get her in the kitchen and more familiar with the surroundings.  I wanted her to help prepare 3 meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Along with desserts: cookies, cake and pudding.

  We won't make more than one item a day and even after the items are made I ask her what she used to make it.  My hope is after a few times, we will make a binder of recipes for her reference and eventually she'll be able to make items independently with supervision.

  First meal was dinner!  Spaghetti to be exact.  A full meal with many deviations but easy to make.

Getting the noodles out was the easy part! Breaking them in half was more of a challenge.  Is it really necessary? Probably not but I break them out of habit.

Ground turkey was our meat of choice.  Open the container easiest with a utensil then the disaster I could foresee coming with just a 2 hour finger poke fight with that plastic.

  I opened the jar for her.  She is still practicing how to open her milk from McDonald's.  Young chef we add a little water to the jar to get all the sauce!

  She did great.  She knew all ingredients and I actually cooked the meat for her. Otherwise I would probably put her in a full body chemical suit to cook up sizzling meat in a frying pan.

  Sadly I didn't snap a picture of the finished product but rest assured it looked like all other spaghetti dishes.  Sadder news was that for the record I have proven over and over again even when you let your children cook with you doesn't mean they are going to eat it.

  She ate her garlic bread and slurped up some noodles but the majority of her meal was not consumed.  I can't wait for the day to come where she eats.  Maybe that's another reason I'm getting her in the kitchen more often.