Kids Cooking and Cookbook Blog

I call this recipe an Apple Betty. But the earlier versions use browned bread cubes and brown sugar layered with apples. I’m guessing someone named Betty had some leftover bread and combined it with apples. Voila, Apple Betty!

I love this recipe for two reasons:
1) it tastes absolutely delicious and
2) you don’t have to grease the pan! I don’t know why, but that is a real plus for me.

Favorite Apple Betty

4 cups cooking apples, peeled and sliced
1/4  cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4  cup water

Kids love fruit roll-ups from the store, but you can make them easily at home. What better time to make apple roll-ups than when this fruit is at its peak?

Apple Roll-Ups

6-8  apples
1/4 – 1/2  cup water
about 2 tablespoons honey

Wash, peel, core and cut-up apples.  Add water to apples in saucepan.

Cook over low heat just as you would for applesauce. Cook until apples are soft and break-up easily. Stir occasionally. Do not let apples scorch!

What an enjoyable day we had at the Louisburg Cider Mill Cider Fest on Saturday! The Cider Mill is located in Louisburg, Kansas, 20 minutes south of Kansas City.

Amy Houts, author of Cooking Around the Country with Kids, and I were invited to sign books at their Cider Fest. We brought my two apple cookbooks, other related apple books, and Amy’s books for kids.  We also had coloring pages for the kids, as well as an “apple” stamp for their hands. It was fun interacting with the crowd, telling parents about our books, and just enjoying the beautiful day.

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Soup is a good hearty meal, or part of a meal, in most any season. However, when the wind is blowing and the snow is falling, as it is today, I like to make soup and enjoy its comfort and warmth.

Here is a soup from Amy Houts’ new cookbook for children, Cooking Around the Country With Kids: USA Regional Recipes and Fun Activities. In her book, Amy concentrates on food from each region of the US. It is a cookbook that lets children really engage in the history of the United States through the food of a particular region.

We in the Midwest have had a lot of snow days recently. This is the time you want to huddle up by the fireplace with a cup of hot cider and a cookie. I know it’s the New Years and we want to cut down on sugar intake and think very seriously about healthy living. However, done in moderation, most foods are good for us. Moderation and portion size are the key words.

I promised you I would post my favorite Peach Cobbler. There is nothing like this classic blending of cobbler topping and sweet, fresh peaches for a superbly simple late summer dessert.

You will want to choose ripe yet firm peaches. These hold their shape better while baking. Like most fruit, peaches vary in their juiciness. Sometimes you almost have to stand over the sink to eat them because they are so juicy and the juice runs down your arm, and other times, their rather dry, leathery interior will cry for more juiciness.

When you take a look at our website  you should be able to turn the pages on our new cookbook by Amy Houts, Cooking Around the Country with Kids: USA Regional Recipes and Fun Activities. It’s fun to see it coming together and looking very good – we’re excited!  Go ahead and see what you think:  see NEW COOKBOOK.

On the page it says the author has not put in the ordering information yet – but on the website order page, you can order the book and it will be shipped as soon as it gets published.  This way you can receive one of the first signed and numbered copies.  Would love to hear from you.

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Going to the local farmers’ market with your child helps him or her learn where their food comes from. Here your child will see the many varieties of fruits and vegetables that are grown right in your own region.

Understanding that the corn in the can or frozen package really started as corn in the husks on the cob is sometimes hard for children to comprehend. Seeing carrots with bushy tops and not perfectly scrubbed clean in plastic bags can be eye-opening for them as well. Even seeing the quantities of melons in the back of pickups and truck beds piled high with corn is really quite a sight.

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I just ran across an article in a college magazine about changes college kids are enjoying in their cafeterias. One food service offers “the real thing” in flavored filtered water.

Individual dispensers are filled with layers of ice with cut up fruits and vegetables. Foods such as oranges, lemons, limes, apples, strawberries, cucumbers and other seasonal foods and vegetables are added to the ice to create water that has the flavor of the food. I would never have guessed their favorite flavor is cucumber! The report stated the students are drinking their way through about 150 gallons of filtered, flavored water per day and cutting down on soda drinking.

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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