The kids made this a couple dinners ago but since they are at sleep-away camp (and, alas, not cooking for the family for a while), they asked me to post the recipe. We use a Cusinart ice cream maker, and this recipe is based on a Cuisinart recipe, but any ice cream maker should work.
Ingredients: 2 Cups Water, 1 and 1/2 Cups Sugar, Pinch of table salt (NOT SEA SALT), 4 and 1/2 Cups frozen raspberries, thawed.
Make a simple syrup by heating the water and sugar together over medium low heat. Stir once in a while and remove from heat when sugar is completely dissolved. Add pinch of salt and let cool. When cool, add thawed raspberries and blend (we have used both a regular blender and an immersion blender: either one is fine). After mixture is blended smooth. Remove 1/3 of the mix and strain through a fine strainer (using a wooden spoon or spatula to get rid of the seeds). THIS REALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE–the first time I made it I didn’t strain it; when the kids made it, they followed the recipe and strained it, and it was much better. Remove seeds from strainer and continue straining the remaining raspberry mix. Refrigerate the mix at least 2 hours. Turn on your ice cream maker! Pour the mix into the frozen mixing bowl and voila, in 15-20 minutes you will have a soft, creamy rasberry sorbet.
You can do this with strawberries as well but reduce the sugar in the simple syrup by 1/2 cup. Taste the mix before you put it in ice cream maker and if still too sweet, add fresh squeezed lemon juice (but no more than 1 tablespoon).
Raspberry Sorbet
Tonight was the kids’ last dinner at home before they left for 6 weeks of sleep away camp so they wanted to cook one more time for the family. Everyone got to choose one or two of their favorite foods: Max chose filet mignon and Yorkshire pudding, Alex chose filet mignon and buttered noodles, and Harry and I chose grilled fish and grilled vegetables. We also made corn-on-the cob because everyone loves it. The kids marinated the cod filet and vegetables (peppers, zuccini, onions) in a soy-garlic-ginger-olive oil marinade for about 1/2 hour before they grilled them. They also decided to make mini Yorkshire puddings (aka popovers), since we had made a large Yorkshire pudding once before and we wanted to figure out which type we liked better. Special thanks to Dad for helping with the grilling: with the meat, all the veggies and the fish, there was a lot going on and a lot of flipping. Both Max and Alex agree that one of the hardest things about cooking is flipping hot stuff so it was nice to have an extra set of hands. We didn’t make desert because we still had packing to do but we enjoyed some delicious chocolate truffles from a neighborhood chocolate cafe called FIKA that a friend had given us. Harry and I are really going to miss both the kids and these dinners!
Yorkshire Pudding batter
Yorkshire Pudding Popovers (just out the oven)
Chopping Vegetables
Max & Dad grilling
Max couldn’t wait for photo before he started…
Today,for father’s Day, we decided to make baby back ribs. We decided to boil them before we barbecued the ribs and it turned out amazing (they were delicious even before we grilled them). We also made corn on the cob to symbolize the first barbecue of the summer, and for our vegetables, we made vegetable shish kabobs. For desert we made one of dad’s favorites: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Happy Father’s Day!!
Mom recommends that if your kids are baking, or if you don’t bake too often: measure your dry ingredients over a plate (NOT the main mixing bowl where all ingredients end up, and not over the counter or floor): That way if you (or your kids) spill 1/4 cup of flour you can reuse it and it doesn’t 1) make a big mess or 2) mess up the recipe. It’s really important to measure salt, baking powder, baking soda… over a separate bowl (not your main mixing bowl). Nobody wants cookies with a lot of extra salt in them! Similarly, don’t break your eggs over the main mixing bowl. Break them in a separate bowl (and spoon out any extra egg shell) and then add them to your main mixing bowl. Nobody wants cookies with egg shell in them either!
Chopping Vegetalbes
Making kabobs
Today we went strawberry picking so strawberries had to be part of the dinner menu, and ended up as strawberry shortcake. Max decided he wanted a healthy version of fish and chips, along with a salad with goat cheese in it so they made oven-roasted potato wedges with breaded cod filets (baked, not deep fried). Along side that was an arugula, goat cheese and cranberry salad, and of course, the strawberry shortcake. It was delicious and nice to see the kids eating fish!! The kids did the classic flour/egg/bread crumb coating for the fish with two important highlights: the bread crumbs were home made (we try to freeze/toast/and then turn into bread crumbs any of those ends of loaves that otherwise no one eats) AND, after they flour/egg/bread crumb-coated the fish, they put it in the fridge for 15 minutes. For some reason, chilling it seems to help the bread crumbs stick to the fish (or chicken or whatever).
Taco Sunday! Kids made a taco buffet for us: we got to choose what to put in our soft tacos: spicy ground turkey (or less spicy ground turkey), shrimp with ancho chile powder, cheese (cheddar or jarlsberg), lettuce, tomato, salsa (Dad’s version, i.e. extra spicy, or everyone else’s version, i.e. mild), guacamole, sour cream, and rice. The shrimp were really good and a last minute inspiration–we had left over shrimp that didn’t get cooked yesterday as planned so Max and Al decided to chop them up a bit and saute with olive oil and ancho chile powder. I showed them how to use the rice cooker to make rice, and taught them the trick of rinsing the rice in water beforehand (to get off the rice powder or “bran”) until the water ran clear. (Thanks to Mike Holdeman for first sharing this trick…rice is always much fluffier.)
The whole spread..
First rinse of the rice
Last rinse of the rice
Chopping Serrano peppers for salsa (WASH HANDS AFTERWARDS!!)
Cooking Turkey Two ways
The spreads (for both tacos and chips)
Max and Alex made Saturday night dinner this weekend: grilled pork chops, sliced and sauteed apples with cinnamon, baked potatoes, “guac” greens (which is their interpretation of my favorite salad at Sweet Greens restaurant: their version is spinach, sliced avocado, tomato, red onion, crushed tortilla chips and pesto viniagrette), and raspberry sorbet. They have made some of these dishes before and it was interesting to see how much more comfortable they were making them again. They are also much more attentive to detail than I am. For example, when they were making the raspberry sorbet, the recipe recommended straining the raspberry puree to remove the raspberry seeds. I said “oh don’t bother, a few seeds won’t matter,” but they insisted and they were right! The sorbet was amazingly smooth — and much better than if I had made it.
Straining raspberry puree to get out the seeds
Blending raspberries with simple syrup
Final Product: Raspberry Sorbet
Max cooking apples in butter, sugar and cinnamon
The kids made dinner on Saturday night, not Sunday, this week because we weren’t sure where we would be on Sunday night or if we were going to have lots of guests. Regardless it was great: grilled pizza two ways (white and white with arugula and tomato), corn on the cob, baked raspberry custard, and green salad with home made creamy balsamic vinaigrette. Max and Alex made everything–including the pizza dough. The most interesting thing was watching them try to get the vinaigrette right…like chemists.
Tonight, because my birthday is in two days, the kids made one of my favorite meals: kale/brussel sprout/almond salad. They also added in steak-vegetable stir fry; orso; bread and cheese, fresh squeezed lemonade and home made vanilla ice cream (we had some left over vegetables — which made for good stir fry — and, amazingly some left over chocolate covered strawberries (which went well with the vanilla ice cream). Actually, all in all it was an inspired “left overs dinner” because we had a cocktail party last night and had some random left overs: lots of lemons, lots of crudite vegetables, lots of manchego cheese, lots of roasted almonds, and lots of chocolate-covered strawberries. So the kids used the lemons for lemonade, the vegetables for stir fry (we bought skirt steak to round it out) and the almonds, manchego cheese and lemons for the kale salad (we bought kale and brussel sprouts). Of course, since it was my birthday, they had to make ice cream to go with the chocolate covered strawberries. Best left-over dinner I’ve ever had!! And, special thanks to Laura B. for the kale salad recipe. We of course changed some of the ingredients but we couldn’t have done it without you!
KidsCookDinner.com is honored to be Verisign, Inc’s grand prize winner in Verisign’s domain name contest (for a total prize of $35,000)! Thank you to everyone who voted for us and thanks to Verisign, Inc. for sponsoring the contest. Click HERE to hear the story of the domain name.
We have donated 1/3 of our prize (or $11,666) to Action Against Hunger, ACF International. This international organization is dedicated to saving the lives of malnourished children, while helping vulnerable communities become self sufficient. Our family is lucky enough to have plenty of food, but millions of people worldwide do not have enough food. Worldwide, 1.2 billion people have less than $1.50 a day to spend on food! Can you imagine that?? Max & Alex calculated that the cost of their typical breakfasts (bowl of cereal with milk, juice and a piece of fruit) cost about $1.50! And they could not imagine that being the only food they got all day. We even tried to survive on only $1.50 of food for a day (see below) and we were so hungry.
Special thanks to Asif, Alex, Andrea and the whole team at Action Against Hunger in New York for meeting with us on August 19, giving us a tour and explaining some of the amazing work you do when we dropped off the check. Wow! You are all truly inspiring!
Max and Alex delivering their $11,666 check to AAH in New York
Max and Alex with Alex Cottin, Director of External Affairs and Andrea Tamburini, CEO, of AAH-USA
Here’s Max and Alex’s recipe for tomato/basil bruschetta
Ingredients Needed: 3 of the ripest reddest tomatoes you can find (medium to large size…not grape or plum tomatoes) 1 tablespoon of olive oil 8 slices of french bread (or other crusty bread) 8 leaves of basil: 1 clove of garlic: peeled and cut in half Salt and pepper to taste
Directions Wash hands 🙂 Wash tomatoes and basil Cut tomatoes into quarters Grate pulp off of tomatoes into a bowl (discard skins) Use a box grater*: Add 1 tablespoon olive oil Add salt and pepper to taste Toast slices of bread in toaster You can also grill the bread on a grill pan or on a real grill, but we usually burn it. Toaster = safer. Rub cut garlic on bread as soon as it comes out of toaster Tear basil leaves into 2 or 3 pieces Spoon tomato mix on top of bread, top with basil leaves. ENJOY!!!
*You can also grate tomatoes if you are making tomato sauce: much faster than cutting them up.
