Happy Halloween!

We've survived Hurricane Sandy. Not sure I'll survive Hurricane F&P inside my house. F's school is closed for the rest of the week and there are good chances that P's school will do the same. The city is in total chaos. But we were very lucky and our region was not affected.

Since all our Halloween plans have been cancelled for the day, we are now trying to find alternatives. Most of the traditional parties in the city have been cancelled as well. The best bet would be to do the trick-or-treat in the building, but the kids are not very excited about this alternative. We may head to one of F's friend's building or we may try, like we did last year, East 78th street.

Anyway, Halloween started early this morning. The kids decided to wear their costumes as soon as they woke up. This year P decided to be the lion he didn't want to be last year and was happily roaring all around the apartment.

Since we were forced to stay at home during the last few days, we baked and decorated some Halloween cookies that F was suppose to give to his friends at school today. We'll have to postpone that. In the meantime, take a look at the cute cards that we ordered from Meema Design for this Halloween.

Cooking with Children: Easy Apple cake

Last weekend we went apple picking and returned home with 10lbs of apples. So we decided to try a very very easy apple cake recipe that came in one of the kids' French magazine. It is a really easy and fun recipe to do with the kids.

So put on your apron and write it down (or print it out):

You will need:

• 3 apples
• 3 eggs
• 125gr of butter at room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder

Instructions:

• Peel and cut the apple in small cubes 
• Mix together the eggs and the sugar in a large bowl 
• Add the butter, the flour, baking powder and finally the apples. Mix everything well (you should have a very sticky dough). To make it more fun, you can ask the kids to mix everything with their hands. We did it and that's why we don't have pictures of the other steps.
• Cover your baking pan (I chose a square one) with a baking sheet
• Bake for 40min in the oven, previously heated at 360F.

I thought the cake was a little too sweet for my taste. So I would maybe put a little less sugar next time.

Hope you like it!

Cooking with children - Making popsicles

We've had some really hot days in New York lately. So the other day we decided to make some home-made popsicles. The good thing with this ice cream "maker" is that you don't need to wait for hours to have your ice cream. They are ready in a few minutes.
Of course, the kids helped me. Otherwise it wouldn't have been fun at all.

I cut the watermelon...

...and they placed the pieces into the blender (F had the idea to put it on the ground, so P could reach it as well)

P.S: This is a great way to give some fruit to the picky eaters!

Cooking with kids - Chocolate covered strawberries

This is an easy, easy, easy recipe to do with kids. It's entertaining and no time consuming. You just need some fresh strawberries, semi-sweet chocolate and that's it.

Yesterday evening, the kids where a bit agitated, but it was too early to send them to bed. So we decided to cook. However, it was too late to make anything fancy, thus the idea of making some chocolate covered strawberries. We just had 8 beautiful and big strawberries left. We used about 120g or 4oz of bitter-sweet chocolate, some lollipop sticks to make it easier and that's it. 

While the chocolate was melting in a double-boiler, at medium heat, I cleaned the strawberries. Then the kids helped me insert the lollipop sticks. We let the chocolate melt completely, stirring occasionally. Once it was ready, since I was afraid the kids would burn themselves with the hot pan, I put some chocolate on a big spoon so they could dip the strawberries in.

We placed our treats in the refrigerator and thirty minutes later, voilà, we had delicious chocolate covered strawberries. 

Play with your food!

The other day I got inspired by this post in Babyccino Kids (a great blog/website about everything related to kids) and made these little pear and grape cars. My children loved them. And they even had the idea to create an airplane using strawberries as the winds.

Before eating them up, we made a race and the cool thing is that the wheels, made out of grape, do actually turn.

Weekend achievements

For a first timer I think they were quite successful

I think we did pretty well. Here's what we managed to do this weekend.
From my list:

• Homemade chicken broth - CHECK
• Chocolate chip cookies - CHECK
• Movies - CHECK (The Iron Lady - Meryl Streep is as always A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, the movie is so-so)
• Read and rest - as usual... less than I should

The boys helping me with the chocolate chip cookies' dough

Out of my list:

• Visit to the Met - F and I went to see the Arms and Armor collection, as well as the Egyptian Art collection. I thought it was a good outing to do with a boy who loves to play with his fake swords.
• Central Park on Sunday - It was a little bit chilly, but it was sunny and the park was wonderful.

Have a nice week!

Cooking with children - Pizza

Here's another fun idea if your kids like to help you out in the kitchen. Yesterday, we decided to bake some home-made pizza. And this is how we did it.

Servings: 1 or 2 16" pizza (depending on how thin you like your pizza)
Ingredients:

To activate the yeast you will need:

• 1 small bag of active yeast
• 1 tbsp of warm water
• 1 tsp of sugar

For the dough:

• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3 cups of flour (you may need some more, depending on how sticky is your dough)

Preparation:

First, you will need to activate your yeast. In a cup or small bowl, mix together the yeast, the sugar and the water. You should obtain a smooth kind of cream. Let it rest until it doubles in size (around 20 minutes).

Then, in a large bowl mix together the warm water, the yeast, and start adding the flour. At this stage, I prefer using a spoon, because the mixture is extremely sticky. However, when the flour starts to blend with the water and starts to have a better consistency, I like to hand kneed it. If after you've added the 3 cups of flour your dough is still sticky, add some more until you obtain an easily maniable dough.

Let it rest in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for at least 4 hours, at room temperature. In our case, we prepared the dough in the morning to have it ready for dinner.




 

When you are ready to eat your pizza, preheat your oven at around 500F (or at the maximum temperature your oven can handle). Dust your working area with flour and with a roll open your dough (you can also put some more flour over the dough, to make your work a little bit easier). Sometimes I make a regular round pie and sometimes I like to make a rectangular one (Napolitan style). Yesterday, the kids made round ones.

Lighlty grease a baking sheet with olive oil and bake your pie for about 15 minutes. For the small ones that we baked yesterday, we only left them for 10 minutes in the oven. I like to put some tomato sauce before baking the pizza.
 
Once the crust looks golden and crispy, you can take the pizza out of the oven. At this point, I usually put some more tomato sauce, cheese and any other topping I'd like (pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, etc). I place the pizza for another 2 to 5 minutes in the oven, until the cheese is completely melted and it's ready!

Cooking with children - Gnocchi

Rush hour. Bath time. Dinner time. The kids want your attention. They are running and screaming all around the house, while you are in the kitchen putting sugar in your stew instead of salt and feeling the nerves on the edge of your fingers. Relax. I have an idea. Tight on your apron strings and put your kids to work!

I don't do this very often, but whenever I decide to cook gnocchi (Italian little potato dumplings), I ask F. to help me out. He's been doing them with me since he was 3 and he's getting really good at it.

They are very easy to do and here's how.

For 4 servings:

Ingredients:

• 4 large potatoes (or the equivalent to 1kg) 
• 2 cups of flour
• ½ cup of grated parmesan
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp of butter at room temperature
• Salt

Preparation:

1. Peel the potatoes and boil them in salty water. Cook until tender.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the parmesan cheese, the egg and the butter. Reserve.
3. Once the potatoes are fully cooked (a knife should go through easily), while still warm, mash them with a fork, a potatoe masher or a food mill.
4. Combine to the mashed potatoes the mixture you had prepared earlier.
5. Start to add, little by little, the flour, kneading gently until forming a firm but still slightly sticky ball.
6. Dust your work surface with flour and start dividing the dought into little balls that you will then shape into rolls, like "snakes" and, finally, cut them into little dumplings or gnocchi. While doing this, dust your hands and work surface repeatedly with flour.
7. Cook the gnocchi in boiling and lightly salty water until they start floating to the surface. Using a strainer spoon, drain the gnocchi and put them in the serving bowl. Mix with the sauce and serve immediately.
8. Gnocchi go well with many sauces. Personnally, I like to serve them with a simple tomato sauce. Other suggestions could be a bolognese sauce, pesto sauce or even just melted butter with some sage (burro e salvia sauce).

Little "snakes" ready to be cut

Et voilà!

Weekend update

Here's where we've been strolling around this weekend.

With the kids:

The Aquarium at Coney Island.

I also have to confess that it was my first time in Coney Island. We will definitely need to come back to see more.

On sunday we went to see a great play for kids from 2 to 5 years-old. My two boys just loved it! And I think it's quite fun for adults too. If you are interested, don't wait. White is playing until November 13th and the tickets are selling fast.

 Grown ups only:

1. Dinner at Milo's - one of my favorite restaurants. The spreads and the Milo's special as appetizers were delicious and the St. Pierre was delightful. As a dessert, I always order their Greek yogurt with honey.
2. Margin call - available on Apple TV. Good movie about the last financial crisis.

Oh, and I was almost forgetting. We baked some cookies for F's bake sale at school. We frequently bake cookies together. It's a fun activity to do with the kids.
Imagine how proud F. was this morning when we told his teachers that some of the cookies had been prepared by him.

It seems that these where a success and sold out fast.