QQQQQQFun One-Pot Meals Your Whole Family Will Love!Smart and DeliciousWays You Can Cook For Your Parents ,Kids’cookbookthe ultimateTIFFANY DAHLEFounder ofPeanut Blossom,“ In an age when children are more scheduled and technology- obsessed than ever, Tiffany Dahle offers us an appealing invitation to reconnect with them in the kitchen. This is a must-have for every parent and child!”—Melissa Bernstein, co-founderand chief creative officer at Melissa & Doug“ I am so excited about this cookbook because not only does it solve the challenge of getting food to the table, but it doubles as quality time spent with my kids. A total win-win.”—Holly Homer, bestsellingauthor and co-founder of KidsActivities.com “ This is a must-have book for parents who wish to help their kids learn to cook with simple and fun real-food recipes.” —Laura Fuentes, author andfounder of MOMables“ This cookbook is beautifully designed with easy instructions to get parents and kids involved in the kitchen. These family-friendly dishes will taste even better because the kids helped make them!”—Gina Homolka, author and founder of Skinnytaste learn to Cook awesome mealsThe Way You Like!Kids, are you ready to make the best meal of your life? This cookbook is going to show you step by step how to cook the way grown-ups do, but with your favorite flavors! And the best part is that your parents, siblings or sitters are only your helpers. YOU can take center stage chopping ingredients like a pro, stirring the pot and serving the final dish to your family or friends. These recipes are perfect for kids because they use simple ingredients, don’t take a lot of work and cook all in one pot or pan. Along the way, you’ll learn important skills, such as how to cut foods with or without a knife, how to brown ground meat for tacos, how to cook noodles for pasta dinners and how to use an oven safely. Your parents will be so impressed with what you can do! With so many tasty choices, you can enjoy a laid-back weekend morning by cooking up a wonderful breakfast treat for everyone, such as Cinnamon Sugar & Pecan Monkey Bread, Orange Blueberry Pancakes or Tex-Mex Sweet Potato and Sausage Skillet. Or choose an amazing dinner such as School Night Chicken Fajitas, Better Than Buttered Noodles and Magic Crunchy Coated Fish. You can even make your own favorite restaurant foods like Chicken Finger Dunkers or Mix and Match Seasoned French Fries. So, get out your cooking tools, put on your apron and let’s make your next perfect meal!Tiffany Dahle is a self-taught family chef and mom to twoawesome kid-chef daughters. As the founder of Peanut Blossom, she helps busy families cook real-world, kid-friendly foods. Her work can be found in Country Living, Parents, Woman’s Day and Melissa & Doug’s Play Time Press. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.PREMIUM BINDINGSTAYSOPENHANDSFREE9 781624 1458345 2 1 9 9 >ISBN 978-1-62414-583-4$21.99JUVENILE NONFICTION / Cooking & Food$21.99 USthe ultimate kids’ cookbook dahleIntroduction 11Dear Friends, You’re About to Completely Change Your Dinner Routine for the Better.I am not a trained chef. I’m something way better: a real mom who understands the reality of feeding a crazy busy family. My two daughters love to cook in the kitchen with me, so we’ve tried just about every cookbook for kids you can find at the store. They always left us feeling disappointed. The food was either too simple or not delicious enough, or it took too much effort for too little result. Who has time to waste on failed recipes like that? Surely not me, and definitely not you.Your lives are busy, and your schedule is packed. The kids would love to help cook, but you worry you don’t have the time. It feels so much easier to just do it yourself and get it done.Forcing yourself to do the cooking on your own doesn’t sound like a lot of fun though, does it? What if making dinner together looked completely different? What if you got to end your day laughing and enjoying time with your family while the dinner gets made? Life is demanding, and we have to grab our opportunities to be together when we can and make our own joy.The recipes you’ll find here are simplified versions of classic recipes that I have streamlined for busy families. You’ll discover many recipes that are a perfect fit for a hectic weeknight. And when life gets even too busy for that? I’ve got your weekends covered with a fabulous selection of relaxed slower dishes. Because sometimes life calls for an awesomely delicious slow-cooked roast.I promise that every recipe will fit these requirements:1. Regular ingredients: They involve simple ingredients that can be found at your regular grocery store. You shouldn’t need a trip to a specialty store for anything unless you’d like to take one.2. One pot: Everything here can be cooked in just one pot, or on one griddle, or in one baking dish, or one slow cooker, etc. I tried to keep the mess to a minimum wherever possible. 3. Kid-friendly: All of the recipes have been kid-tested and approved. Everyone has a different preference for flavors, but in this book you’ll find a distinct absence of some of the most commonly offensive ingredients, such as Brussels sprouts and mushrooms. 4. Easy swapping: I want you to make each recipe your own by adding things you love and swapping things for those you don’t. The Play With It! notes will get your creative juices flowing.Our mission is to get families together in the kitchen making food they love. This is your food, take control of it and make it your own.12 The Ultimate Kids’ CookbookA Note for Grown-Ups“She won’t eat anything but Goldfish crackers!” I remember tearfully wailing to my pediatrician when my daughter was just two years old.My first baby, my first round at this rodeo of parenting. He chuckled, patted my arm and told me not to lose heart.“Offer options,” he said. “Be patient. This will pass.”No way did I believe him. This doctor surely did not understand that my precious little one was sure to be the first stubborn kid who managed to thrive only on crackers. I thought about my own picky eating history, about my husband’s complete aversion to vegetables.“She’s doomed,” I moaned.Our family knows picky eating. We’ve stared it in the face, and we’ve eventually learned to call its bluff. But this isn’t a before-and-after story. It’s an ongoing struggle. We all come into this world with strong preferences. Learning to work with—and around—those preferences is a process that has no endpoint.Taste buds change, even for adults. I’ve watched as my own mom has become suddenly averse to certain flavors as she ages. When you learn to have empathy for your children’s picky palates, you can put yourself on their team and then cooking your nightly dinner can change from a dreary chore into an exciting challenge. It’s a subtle shift that can have an amazing effect on your kids’ attitudes toward food.Remove your children’s fears by encouraging adventure and placing control over the recipe in their hands. Let them dictate what goes into the dish as it gets prepared. Have a conversation about what YOU like and don’t like. Let them see your own picky preferences. Talk about how you overcame an aversion. What was it that made you eventually come to like that food? When your children can recognize that even Mom and Dad went through taste changes, they become more open-minded that it could happen to them, too.“I don’t like this . . . YET,” might just be the most powerful phrase you can encourage in your kitchen.But what about the TIME?I know you’re groaning, “I don’t have time to teach the kids to cook dinner.”Introduction 13Your week is packed. You rush in the door at the end of the long day. Everyone is starving and tired. The last thing you want to do is struggle to make a meal your kids aren’t even going to enjoy. The duty of feeding your family feels thankless, and it is just so much easier to grab that frozen entrée or hit the drive-thru.I’ve been there. I understand. I have the drive-thru receipts to prove it. I’m not suggesting you get the kids in the kitchen every night. Start small and easy—maybe try a weekend afternoon. Slow things down just a little. Make the experience more about spending the time with your children while you just also happen to be doing something productive that needs to be done.We only have so many hours in a day. I can’t give you an extra hour to add to yours. What I can do is help you to use that one hour to do three amazing things all at one time:1. Feed your family a meal that will make you feel like you’ve earned your gold star sticker for the day.2. Spend quality time learning more about the amazing people your kids are turning into.3. Encourage solid, lifelong skills that will have an amazing impact on the overall health of your children.As your children’s confidence in the kitchen grows over time, cooking together will become more and more relaxing for all of you.Imagine the day when you can sit at your kitchen counter and unwind by chatting with your teens as they prepare a meal for you. Maybe you help prep a veggie for them, or maybe you just sit and listen to what’s on their mind. They’re focusing so much on the routine tasks of dinner that they feel less pressure about opening up because they don’t have to look you in the eye while they talk. They’re too busy doing something they love and the words just flow.Invest this effort in your young children now, and make the kitchen a safe place for them to talk to you about whatever is in their heart. Teach them to trust you with the small challenges now so they can come to you with the bigger ones later. Give them the gift of comfort over a shared meal and they’ll relive those memories as they prepare this food well into adulthood. These recipes are food for life.14 The Ultimate Kids’ CookbookHey, Kids! This Note’s for You.You are awesome. I am so excited that you want to get in the kitchen and learn how to make a meal or two. Wait until you see just how fun it will be!There are just a few things I want you to know before you get started.You Are in Charge and Your Adult Helper Is Second in Command!Did you know that in fancy restaurants there’s an executive chef who makes the decisions and a sous chef who helps make it all happen? Even in restaurants, it takes two or more chefs to make a meal. It is the job of the leader to make sure their assistant knows what needs to be done. Be kind, and ask for help when you need it. Your adult will be happy to support you as you make your creations.This Is Not a Rule Book. It Is a Play Book.A recipe is just a basic set of instructions that will help you cook the food properly. The ingredients are listed to help you know where to start. But the rules here are made to be bent.Notice a food that you don’t like listed in the ingredients? You can swap it out!See a pan listed that you don’t have? Work with a different one.Wish it was a little more or less spicy? Adjust the flavor as you like.This book will give you some creative ideas for changes you can make to the recipes to make them your own, but even those are not the only options. Experiment and play with adding and subtracting whatever you like to a recipe. It’s your food, and only you and your family have to enjoy it! That’s all that matters.Make a Note for Next Time.Did you change something about the recipe and discover that it’s your new favorite? Or maybe you tasted it and you wish you had done something differently? Write it down right on that page of the book so you remember next time! This is your book, and you can write on the pages to help you remember anything you need. Maybe even put a star on the recipes that you love the most.Introduction 15Remember to Keep an Open Mind.Approach your recipes like a taste test challenge. If you don’t like it, you can try something different next time. The best way to learn what you do like is to try new things and discover new favorites. My kids were downright shocked to discover they actually do love shrimp and broccoli, but we’re still working on liking mashed potatoes and cherry tomatoes. Be sure to read the notes on each recipe. They are written with you in mind to help you find foods that you are most likely to love.Most importantly, have fun! Play some music while you work. Chat with your parents. Be proud of what you are creating. I wish I could come over and taste it—I know you’re going to make great things!How to Use This Book:When I cook recipes from a cookbook, I like to jump around and make what looks tasty to me at that moment. I assume that you will enjoy doing the same. You should know before you begin that the recipes at the beginning of the book are a little easier than the ones toward the end.To help you get comfortable in the kitchen and make sure you learn all the skills you need to be an excellent home chef, I wrote several skill pages, called “You’ve Got Skills,” that will help highlight things you should know to make each task easier. You will find these pages scattered throughout the book where they are most helpful for the recipes in the chapter.When you want to cook a recipe, be sure to read it all the way through before you begin. That way, if you see a skill that makes you a little nervous, you can find the detailed information you need on the skill page that matches.The skills you will learn include:1. Measuring Dry vs. Wet Ingredients (page 25)2. Whisking Eggs and Milk (page 31)3. Playing with Flavor Combinations (page 37)4. How to Make Scrambled Eggs (page 44)5. Cutting Food Without a Knife and Beginner Knife-Safety Skills (page 55)6. Flipping Foods with a Spatula (page 66)7. How to Broil Chicken Tenderloins (page 81)8. How to Brown Ground Beef (page 87)9. Cooking a Large Cut of Meat (page 93)10. Introduction to Seafood (page 101)11. How to Sauté Veggies (page 111)12. Choosing and Cooking Noodles (page 129)13. How to Make Pizza Dough from Scratch and Roll It Out (page 142)14. Making the Perfect Pot of Rice (page 159)15. How to Use an Oven (page 173)16. Identifying Herbs and Spices (page 191)38 The Ultimate Kids’ CookbookPumpkin Patch WafflesWe used to buy frozen waffles until we tried this delicious homemade version. They are so much better than anything you’ll find at the grocery store! It makes a large batch of 20 to 22 waffles so that you’ll have plenty of leftovers to get you through a busy school week.PLAY WITH IT! This recipe is really easy to play with! Start with the plain pumpkin recipe and imagine what you could mix in to go with it: butterscotch chips, chopped pecans, diced apples, dried cranberries. Just mix in ½ to 1 cup (60 to 120 g) of any combination you like after the batter has been mixed together.Yield: 20 to 22 waffles4 tbsp (57 g) butter2½ cups (248 g) all-purpose flour¼ cup (55 g) packed brown sugar2 tsp (8 g) baking powder4 tsp (16 g) pumpkin pie spice½ tsp baking soda½ tsp salt2½ cups (592 ml) buttermilk4 large eggs1 cup (180 g) canned pumpkinGood Morning, Sunshine! 39,1. Hey kids, please get us started!2.3.,,,Put the butter in a microwave-safe container and heat for 10 to 20 seconds, until melted. Set aside to cool while you prepare the batter.Measure the flour and add it to a large mixing bowl. Measure out the brown sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. Add them to the mixing bowl. Whisk all the dry ingredients together so they are evenly combined.Measure the buttermilk and add it to the mixing bowl. Carefully crack the eggs into the same measuring cup you used for the buttermilk. Watch for any bits of shell you might miss. Use a fork to break the yolks, and whisk together the eggs until smooth and yellow. Add the eggs to the mixing bowl.Measure the pumpkin and add it to the mixing bowl. Stir together the batter until it is evenly combined and smooth. While stirring the batter with a spoon in one hand, slowly pour the melted butter into the batter.Parents, it’s your turn!Preheat a waffle iron, and spray it with cooking spray. Pour the servings of batter into the waffle iron and cook according to the directions on your machine.OPTIONAL: Preheat the oven to 225°F (110°C, or gas mark ¼) and place a cookie sheet inside. You can store the finished waffles in here to keep warm while you finish the rest of the batch, so you can serve them family-style.Teamwork gets it done!Remove the waffles from the waffle iron with long-handled tongs to keep your hands safe. Keep the waffles warm in the oven to eat family-style, or serve them immediately.To freeze them, allow the waffles to cool to room temperature. Store them in an airtight baggie with pieces of waxed paper in between to keep them from sticking.Next >