Cookin Up Some Fun

One of the "out of the box" things I do as a mom is let my kids go wild in my kitchen by making their "own recipes." Once in awhile, I pull out our expired ingredients of our pantry and frig and let them go a little cooking crazy.

I remember doing this as a kid at a friend's house, and absolutely loving to experiment with combinations of liquids and dry ingredients, mixing them up into my own special cake or something somewhat resembling a cake.

So, when my kids were younger, I allowed them to try this, and we haven't looked back. They haven't quit asking, so I usually(but NOT always) take a big breath and let them do it.

This most recent time, when they each had a friend over, I actually let them try to create something edible, so I allowed them to use an egg, some oil, flour, and sugar and baking powder. Other interesting ingredients in these recipes were dry strawberry jello, peanut butter, cheese crackers, honey, and applesauce.
It's funny how seriously they took their cooking assignment, working for over an hour to get their recipes mixed to perfection. We even baked them, and then took (teeny tiny) bites.

As an aside, one of my WORST memories as a child was BEING MADE or BULLIED into eating one of my creations (it was a green rubbery thing). I threw up for two days.

Sometimes, I ask the little chefs to take note of the exact measurements of their recipes (thus learning tsp, TBSP, cup, etc.) and then we always do a big cleanup - required if you are gonna cook in Mama's kitchen!)

Take a look at cook Kami and Jenna's creation....and here is Ellie and Brooke's!