Quick and Easy Recipes to Enjoy with Kids

Posted on Dec 10, 2009

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If you’re a parent who spends very little time with your kids due to the daily hassles in your office and/or in your home, then I say this to you: make time. When you’re old and look back, you’ll regret not doing things with your kids. You might even end up miserable and hating yourself and the real sad part is that you’ll never get that time back. So why be that old man, try doing things with your kids today. One little activity that is very rewarding for you and your kid is inviting your children into your kitchen. There are quick and easy recipes where you and your kids can enjoy.

How many times have you scolded your kid for playing around the kitchen? Well this is understandable given the potential dangers around the kitchen, knives, hot surfaces, boiling water, hot oils, etc. But by involving them in the cooking process you will be able to teach them the proper and safe conducts in and around the kitchen. This beats scolding anytime.

Children love the whole process of cooking. They the way big pieces of ingredients are chopped, sliced, or grated and mixed together to form a terrific dish. Maybe to them it’s a big jigsaw puzzle which when you get it right you will have one whole piece of dish that you can enjoy and eat.

Be patient when you’re working with kids. Expect a big mess of things. Your work table will most likely be overrun by various ingredients, drops of seasonings, scattered utensils, measuring instruments, and other cookware. This is fun to them, and who knows you might enjoy a taste of chaos once in a while. It might actually be liberating. But for the kids, the experience is hilarious and when they made good with their food, the feeling would be fulfilling.

There are several easy recipes that kids can make. Some very easy and simple dishes include omelet recipes and other breakfast dishes. Making French toasts is quite easy as well. Salads and sandwiches are also quite easy to make plus they are very healthy. Your kids can also bring these sandwiches for their lunch breaks.

One simple recipe is making a banana crepe, or make than a chocolate banana crepe. What you will need is some crepe flour, milk, eggs, melted chocolate, butter and of course sliced bananas. Mix together everything in a bowl except for the chocolate, bananas and butter. Let your kid do the mixing process. Use the butter to grease a crepe pan and then pour the crepe mixture on it. Make sure to spread out the mixture over the pan. Remember to flip it to cook the other side. Once cooked, spread the melted chocolate, line up the banana slices, and then fold it. You can add some more chocolate on the outside. Enjoy this with your kid.

Making pancakes is also another easy one. You can either go with the quick cooked pancakes available in the market or make your own from flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Whatever you decide, your kids can handle the mixing of the pancake mix, the greasing of the pan, the flipping of the pancakes and the presentation and additional touches like topping with chocolate or strawberry syrup.

Allow your kids to experiment and be imaginative. You will enjoy quick and easy recipes if you cook them with your kids. Sure expect a dirty kitchen later, but you have so much to gain if you involve your kids with the things you do.

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A Pasta Meal in a Flash, Quick and Easy Recipes

Posted on Dec 06, 2009

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Pasta meals are pretty easy to cook. The pasta itself just needs to be placed in boiling water and can be cooked in 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the type of pasta of course. And while the pasta is boiling you can already prepare your desired sauce, whether it may be tomato based, pesto or cream based, you can be finished in now time. You can have a pasta meal in a flash, provided you know what you’re doing.

To those experienced in the kitchen, this kind of meal is easy to make. But to the novices might still find pasta a little daunting or troublesome. One thing that you should watch out when cooking pasta is the noodles. You need to test every now and then to see if the noodles are done. The pasta cooks pretty quickly and leaving it too long can result to soggy noodles.

Avoid placing the pasta when the water is not yet boiling. This will help prevent the pasta from becoming all mushy, soft and sticky. Also, keep the water at a boil at all times. You can help make the pasta firmer if you add salt into the boiling water. Note that you should not cover the pot when you already placed the pasta. When the pasta is done, take it off the boiling water. The pasta will continue to cook if you leave it there. With that, one half of your pasta meal is done. The other half would be the sauce.

The good thing about pasta is having several choices for sauces. Actually, at some point you will be stomped on what kind of sauce to make due to the varieties. If you’re a pasta person then having a couple of sauces stored in your refrigerator would be the best ways to go. If you have pesto, you can use that to sauce your pasta. Add additional garlic, some mushrooms or even Italian sausages and topped with cheese and you can have a good meal.

Bottled or canned sun-dried tomatoes can go well with pasta. I always try to have some sun-dried tomatoes ready since you can just pour it over your pasta and voila! A tomato based pasta without the traditional tomato sauce and pastes. Top with grated cheese and partnered with bread and you can have a fulfilling meal in no time.

If you want a cream-based sauce, just prepare some sliced olives, cream, oregano and grated cheese. Mix the cream, olives and oregano together with your pasta and finish off with grated cheese on top. A simple cream-based pasta but can be quite joyous to the palette.

Olive oil is also a staple sauce for pasta and can be quite easy to use as well. You can mix olive oil with canned seafood or slices of meat or sausages to create a sauce for your pasta. You can add basil for flavor and don’t forget the grated cheese. If you want to experiment, try adding spicy flavored meat or canned seafood. Spicy pasta may not be for everyone but still a good dish in my account.

A pasta meal in a flash is really just that. In a span of 15 to 20 minutes you would have already prepared a good, hearty meal of pasta in either tomato, cream or olive-based sauce. It is a quick meal that I personally won’t get tire off.

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Eating your Tofu, Quick and Easy Recipes

Posted on Oct 22, 2009

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Tofu is one of the healthier foods that you should incorporate in your diet. It is low in cholesterol and calories yet it is high in protein and vitamins. Also known as bean curd, tofu is often used in soups. It is quite easy to prepare and with some quick and easy recipes you can have a meal with tofu any day in the week.

You can pan fry it, add to it salads, combine it with meat, fish, and even make it info sandwich fillings. There are a lot of things that you can do with your tofu. For one, you can prepare it as a dip for your crackers and chips. All you need is to add sautéed garlic and onion to tofu, blend in a food processor and add some salt and pepper to taste. Make sure that you remove as much water as you can from the tofu, first before you mix them all up. This is a very healthy dip which you can use for snacks and even for parties.

In recent years, more and more people are becoming acquainted with tofu and loving it, if I might add. Tofu sales in the supermarket have been on a steady increase. Tofu is a good substitute for meat protein because compared to meat it contains more protein and less cholesterol. And with a lot of new recipes to cook tofu, you won’t get tired of it.

Tofu dishes are often quite tasty because every seasoning or ingredient will stand out. Tofu in itself is not very tasty. So with even very little seasonings, you can create quite a tasty tofu dish. You just need to know how to prepare them. You can easily put square tofu on top of a dish but its not really the best way to prepare tofu.

One dish that is quite easy to make is combining tofu with mushrooms. You will need large mushrooms for this one since you will be stuffing the hollowed part with tofu. Prepare the tofu stuffing by adding green onions, crushed garlic, a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of oyster sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Once you’re done stuffing the mushroom, you bake the lot not more than 15 minutes. This is quite a treat.

If you want something to spice up your meal, a chili tofu dish might do the trick. What you do is marinate cube tofu in a bowl of chili powder mixed with soy sauce and garlic. After marinating for 15 minutes or so place the tofu along with the marinade in a heated pan with olive oil. Cook the tofu until they are crispy on the sides. To get that excess oil out of the tofu, placing them on a kitchen towel should do the trick.

You can of course combine your tofu dish with other combinations. Lamp, burger, crab meat, potatoes, noodles and even rice would go perfect with your tofu dishes.

You can even make a tofu burger. All you need is to mix tofu with flour to form the patties and fry on a pan or grill. You can add ketchup and mustard afterwards. If you want to be fancy, adding barbecue sauce would be great as well. These are just a few of the quick and easy recipes for your tofu dishes which you can make.

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