Kids Cooking and Cookbook Blog

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I want to share with you my absolute favorite strawberry shortcake recipe. This is not one of those individually wrapped bland cakes always found in the strawberry aisle of your grocery store. No, yours will be a piping hot, melt in your mouth treat, heaped with juicy, luscious strawberries.

Your Dad will want you to make this dessert again and again – until the strawberries run out…

Strawberry Shortcake

2 pints fresh strawberries

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
1 cup milk

Before you go grocery shopping, think of foods your family would like for quick “pick-me-up” snacks. This could be your family’s “fast food”.

Raw fruits and vegetables are great to include. You might consider fruit such as grapes, apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries or other berries. Add some veggies like carrots, cut up cauliflower, celery stick and others. And you might want to have on hand non-sweetened cereals, granola bars, yogurt, dried fruits, cheese, whole grain crackers, and nuts.

Especially now when children are home from school for the summer, it’s good to have nutritious grab-and-go foods available.

Children are influenced in their food choices by their friends, family, the media, and other outside factors. The commercials on TV make a huge impact on what children want to eat. This often influences what they want their parents to buy.

What is a parent to do?

• You can explain to the child that the commercials on TV are one way companies use to let the public know about their product. They make products look very special because they want you to buy their product. Sometimes they may not tell you the whole story about whatever they are trying to sell. It may not always be a wise buying choice if it is not nutritious, costs more than its worth, or other reasons.

I have just come back from Kansas City where I attended my grandson’s confirmation at Our Lady of Presentation Church. It was a very beautiful and inspiring ceremony with Bishop Finn presiding. Over 80 young people were confirmed in the Catholic faith.

Alongwith ceremonies, there are usually guests. And the guests came bearing food on Sunday. You may know that Kansas City is known for its barbeque beef. We did not have barbeque beef from a restaurant, though. A relative brought his own secret recipe barbeque with its special sauce and it was wonderful. This was probably the most flavorful, mouth-watering barbeque I had ever tasted. It was the epic barbeque experience.