Yesterday was sort of a gloomy day and I was sort of in a gloomy mood so I thought I’d cheer things up with some baking action in the kitchen. I like Baby Bug to learn how to play by herself during the day but I also think it’s important for us to do at least one fun thing together too. Sometimes that one fun thing is me haphhazardly drawing on a piece of paper with her while my mind is a million miles away. But other times our one fun thing is a super duper mess in the kitchen!

Waaaah-Hooo!

First, I pulled out this little cookbook that I mailed away for years ago when I was the super duper babysitter. This book is the best. The kids I baby-sat still ask for it when I come to visit. It was a buck or two back then but you can order one here for $3.99. Still worth it, I think, for the illustrations alone.

The kids love looking at the pictures. Baby Bug and I sat down with it and talked about monkeys and splashing and blueberry banana bread for a good ten minutes. It was great. We were all set to make blueberry banana bread (which I was heavily influencing since I have some very overripe bananas) until I realized I only had two bananas and you need three or four. Bah humbug.

So I let her pick another recipe. Watermelon splashers it was. I think she might have picked it because of the green frog, knowing her. I thought it would be difficult but it was rather easy. Duh, it’s a kids’ cookbook, Brenda. Well, I guess I’m a little less confident in the kitchen than some people.

The best part for Baby Bug was making the green sugar that coats the outside. She LOVED that. All we did was put a half cup of sugar in a sealable bag and then added eight drops of green food coloring. Then Baby Bug got to squish the sugar around with the coloring until it was all green. Good times, I tell you. We could have made colored sugar all day. They had another recipe for making a jar full of rainbow-colored sugar. We might have to do that some other rainy day.

I wish I had some sugar-making photos but I was being anal about the dishes I had not done yet and didn’t pull out the camera. I’m lame, I know.

Then we made the red dough, formed it into a long “red snake” (according to Baby Bug) and rolled it in the green sugar. Baby Bug loved rolling the snake. Real dough is SO much more fun than play dough. Then we stuck it in the fridge for an hour to chill. After it was cool, we cut the poor snake into slices and stuck mini-chocolate chips into the slices for seeds. They turned out sooooo cute!

Don’t they look like little mini watermelons? I have such a weakness for mini things. They got me so in the mood for miniature food, I made Baby Bug a mini cheeseburger for dinner… but that’s another subject. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m thinking these would be great for a picnic-themed party. How cool would it be to serve these with some ants on a log? Or what if instead of watermelon slices we made little ladybug cookies?!! I could go on and on. And I will when I get my party site up, which is in the works by the way.

The only thing that bothered me about these adorable little cookies is that they didn’t taste like much. They are yummy and I catch myself wanting to eat nine or ten of them but they don’t have that much taste.

It could be because I was out of shortening and I had to use all butter (while taking out the appropriate amount of salt). I don’t even know what shortening is really. Is that LARD? Ew! Oh well, I’ll trust you bakers on what should have been used. It also could have been because the dough might have been a little over-worked. We might have had just a little too much fun playing with it. Or maybe it’s just a kids’ recipe and not meant to be enjoyed by adults.

But even Baby Bug didn’t really like them. She liked eating the dough and she made this swell face but she only ate the chocolate chips out of them and left the rest behind. Go figure.

So I challenge all you bakers out there to make these cookies and make them taste good. Maybe they could even taste like watermelon. Now that’s a stretch. I double dog dare you.

Recipe after the jump.
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Here is my Grandma’s curry recipe you asked for!

Ingredients:

      MEAT
6 Chicken Thighs*
Water to cover
1/2 teaspoon salt

      SAUCE
2 Granny Smith Apples (peeled and sliced crescent style)
1 Yellow Onion (sliced crescent style)
vegetable oil OR butter (enough to coat bottom of pan +)
Handful of Raisins
1 Tablespoon Curry Powder (or more if you like it hot)
1 can coconut milk
 
       SLURRY
2 Tablespoons corn starch
2 Tablespoons water
 
      CONDIMENTS
1/2 pound bacon fried crispy in small pieces
1 can Spanish peanuts
1 can pineapple tidbits drained (reserve juice)
2 tomatoes chopped
shredded or flaked coconut
more raisins
4 green onions, chopped
 
1.  Put chicken, water and salt in crockpot.  Set on high and cook until tender.  (usually about 2 to 4 hours depending on your pot).
 
2.  In a large frying pan, saute onions, apples until translucent. While cooking, sprinkle a handful of raisins and curry powder.
 
3.  Remove chicken from crockpot and cool enough to handle.  Take skin off and remove bone.  Chop into bite sized pieces.
 
4.  Pour reserved pineapple juice into broth.
 
5.  Pour coconut milk into broth.
 
6.  Thicken broth mixture with slurry while cooking.
 
7.  Return chicken to the broth.
 
8.  Add the cooked onion, apple and raisins.
 
Serve over sticky rice and top with your choice of the condiments.
 
ENJOY!
 
*  You can use boneless, skinless chicken pieces.  I like the broth, but you can substitute 1 boullion cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water.
                                   OR
                          2 Lamb shanks
 
*  If you do not have coconut milk, pour 1 cup of boiling water through 1 cup of coconut in a seive, three times.  Use the wet coconut later for cookies or muffins.
 
If you make this, let us know how you liked it!
 

Did you know you can make muffins on the floor? Me neither. It never even crossed my mind before until we had a play date at my good friend Jbomb’s yesterday. She let’s her kid cook on the floor all the time! How does she do it? She mops every single day. Her floor is spotless! Her whole house is spotless for that matter.

She was shaking her head in wonder of all the things that I get done in a day. "I don't know how you do it," she says. "You do freelance work, you have this website that you update nearly every day, you do crafts... How do you do it?"

A lot of you commented that you’d love to do crafts or make cookies with your toddlers but you just couldn’t handle the mess. I totally understand. I think it all comes down to what your comfort level with dirt/clutter/chaos is.

It may be a blessing in disguise that I grew up in a pretty messy household. (think: Clean House) I don’t love dirt and grime and shooing the cat off the table right before dinner but it doesn’t make me wither and lose my appetite either. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who washed their hands a thousand times a day. I’d probably get sick less often. But then again I don’t think I’d like having to put stinky lotion on my dry chapped hands because I washed every last molecule of natural moisture off my skin either.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is a happy medium somewhere and my happy medium might be way over yonder from where your happy medium is. Different strokes for different folks and all that… It won’t hurt my feelings if you toss the plate of cookies I brought over into the trash five minutes after I leave your house because you spied a cat hair on them. I understand.

Sigh.

However! I didn’t mean to take up this whole post getting on my soap box about dirt. It’s really about having a fun time with my friend Jbomb and her little boy Max. Where there is a will, there is a way! And making muffins on the floor is pretty fun if you’re two and handle a mixing spoon like Mix-master Max!

I thought my friend’s way of handling toddler messiness was pretty creative. The kids loved it and mixed to their hearts content. Baby Bug even did rather well spooning the batter into the little paper cups. There was actually very little mess to clean up and it kept them occupied long enough for Jbomb and I to get into several deep discussions about mopping. She still hasn’t won me over though.

I’d much rather blog than mop the floors.