junior kitchen

At our house summer is all about the popsicles. These chai tea ones were kitchen daughter’s idea. On our recent summer trip she discovered the food network. Since we have no television at home the kids soak up all they can when we stay in hotel rooms or visit friends and family with cable tv. While her brother watched cartoons in the living room – kitchen daughter wrote down recipes in the bedroom.

The first one she wanted to try and make back home was a chai tea smoothie but we lacked many of the ingredients. We improvised and made a pot of chai tea with this great purchase from etsy. Than we used the blender and added plain yogurt and milk. Kitchen daughter decided to pour the mixture into the popsicle holders and freeze them.

Just perfect for a hot summer afternoon.

Love. Love. Love, this cookbook.  So many recipes in here I want to make.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

5 tablespoons honey

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

4 tablespoons butter melted

2 tablespoons pine nuts

1 tablespoon honey, diluted with 1 teaspoon water

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the honey.
• In a separate bowl, stir the flour and baking soda with a fork to combine. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the sugar and egg mixture, then add the melted butter.
• Pour the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Remove the cake from the oven; let stand for 5 minutes then invert onto a serving plate. In a small sauté pan, dry roast the pine nuts until lightly golden, then add the diluted honey. Spread the mixture evenly over the warm cake. Cool completely before slicing.

The honey came from Etsy and was just as wonderful as the Fireweed one we tried the other day.

We had our first outing to the beach for the season this past weekend.

Best treat for the day was the chocolate zucchini bread. Easy to bring along and slice off a piece when the mood hits you. I have started to experiment with using brown rice syrup in place of sugar. This bread was very moist and chocolaty. Kitchen Dad & the kids spread honey on it to add more sweetness but I liked it just plain.

This recipe made enough for two loaves.
2 1/2 cups shredded raw zucchini
2 cups white wheat flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup canola oil
1 cup brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Combine all the fry ingredients in a bowl. Use your mixer and mix together the oil, rice syrup, eggs vanilla extract until blended. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl of wet ingredients and mix everything together. Pour the batter into 2 loaf pans that have been greased. Bake for about 60 minutes or until toothpick or knife inserted comes out clean. Let the loaves sit on a wire rack until cool. I didn’t wait until they were totally cool before trying to remove them from the pan and one broke in half. the second one I left until it was totally cool and it came out intact.

Dining al fresco is one of our favorite things and it gave us the perfect opportunity to try some new honey I just bought. I’ve thought about keeping bees but have not taken the plunge yet so in the meantime whenever we travel I buy honey made from local beekeepers. Since I don’t think I’ll be able to get to Alaska anytime soon – I was very happy to find this shop on Etsy. We tried the Fireweed one today. The honey was sweet, mild and  absolutely delicious. I still have the Spruce Tip honey to try. I think I may make some biscuits for our next picnic and take it along with us. I can’t wait!

I got this idea from reading DosFamily who  borrowed the post-idea from another one of my favorite blogs, Emma. It seemed like such a great way to decorate for Easter I’m borrowing it too. Happy Easter!

Our first adventure out and about for spring break was to  head down to the Metro Zoo in Miami. The zoo was the perfect place for a day of running and cycling around. We rented a safari cycle for the day and the kids loved it.

The park does not allow food inside but they have a nice picnic area by the entrance. We feasted on all kinds of goodies we brought from home. I had an abundance of bell peppers from the farm so I roasted a bunch of them They are wonderful when added to a sandwich or just served open faced on bread.

Dinosaurs love roasted peppers.

Ingredients:

• 4 red or yellow bell peppers (or both!)
• olive oil
• Italian Seasoning (mixed dried herbs)
• salt & pepper

Set the peppers under a broiler or on top of a gas burner. Turn them from side to side as they blacken.  After they are charred on all sides take them and place them in a bowl with a lid for ten minutes. Next take the peppers out of the bowl and peel off off the skin. The skin should come off pretty easily. Slice the peppers and remove the stem and seeds. Continue to slice the peppers into strips. Place them a jar and add a pinch of the seasonings – you could use your own oregano, basil, dried garlic, thyme and sage, but the pre-mixed stuff is pretty convenient. Cover the peppers with olive oil. The peppers should last about a  week in the refrigerator.