Animal Chips via Family Fun

FIRST: I didn’t look specifically for organic recipes. At this point, I’ll say what you’ve heard me say a million times; almost any recipe can be altered from conventional to organic. When looking for good green recipes to make with kids, look for ones that can be easily altered to make them healthier. Also keep in mind that you don’t have to cook entirely organic, but I suggest making sure you do cook organic when the recipe calls for food items known to be the most toxic.

Fun cooking with kid recipe links:

29 Gross (But Fun!) recipes – really gross, not for the faint of heart. I’m not sure I could make any of them, but then, I’m a food wimp.

Fruit Pizza

Lily Pad Cookies

The Very Tasty Caterpillar

Breakfast Rockets

Spaghetti Bolognaise Face

Zoom has all kinds of fun stuff, such as…

• Alphabet Pretzels
• Fruit Flowers
• Simple Fruit Kabobs
• Granola Bars
• And more.

And just for pure fun - edible birthday cards.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

One of the easiest places to get kids going green is in the kitchen. Kids like most kinds of cooking fun, especially the really fun stuff like baking, blending, and freezing.

If you want to introduce your kids to both green living and cooking skills, here are some easy tips you can follow…

1. Talk about organics: Kids don’t always get organic vs. conventional foods. I’ve been talking about the term organic with my son forever, and I’m pretty sure that now, at age 7, he’s just really getting it. At the store, he’ll ask for organics over non organic now.

To discuss organic choices with a child, my best advice is to keep it simple. Say something like, “Organic means healthier for your body” – “Organic foods don’t have icky chemicals or pesticides in them that can make you sick” – “Organic foods are a smart choice for the planet, like turning off the lights.” These are things that have worked with my son. To explain terms like chemicals and pesticides I’ll say something like, “They’re like really bad germs” which yeah, they’re not, but my son gets germs, so it works. As he’s gotten older, we talk about pesticides and chemicals in a more real manner.

2. Use green cooking tools: Using items like silicone muffin cups, reusable ice pop molds, and food storage containers over plastic wrap provides you with a conversation topic. My son sometimes fights against homemade ice pops, because he wants those shiny boxes of pre-wrapped store treats (badly). We just talk about why homemade is better; less waste, more flavor choices, etc.  Green is sometimes about making hard choices and with my son, homemade ice pops are a hard choice when he wants the store pops so bad, but it’s a good lesson in green.

3. Make it fun and if possible, nature based: Start with the fun green food choices, such as…

• Make some fun candied flowers
• Organic veggie & fruit shapes made with cookie cutters
• Organic smiley bread faces
• Gather non-toxic leaves and make homemade organic chocolate leaves
• Make adorable organic buggy cakes
• 32 Unique Homemade Popsicle Recipes & Ideas

4. Encourage meatless meals: Kids who are given veggies from a young age really do love them and meatless meals are better for the environment. My son was raised vegetarian and he’d rather eat a bowl full of broccoli, a red pepper, or sliced apples than cookies – and I’m seriously not kidding. Tofu is an easy ingredient to work with, and kids like to squish it around. Try some tofu recipes for kids.

5. Grab a good green kid-friendly cookbook

6. Follow basic green cooking practices: Recycle packaging, compost, use the food up, turn the oven off early, and be invested in other basic green kitchen habits. Your child is watching you carefully, make sure he’s seeing you be green.

Have any other great green cooking with kids tips? Tell me in the comments.

[image - Fruitcakes-1 via Flickr]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

In the last post we looked at Ingredients for Organic & Natural Homemade Chocolate Covered Cherries. Now let’s make some!

The night before: Place a cookie cooling rack on top of a regular cookie sheet. Place your cherries single file onto the cooling rack and let them sit in the fridge overnight. This helps to drain excess juice, which helps during the rolling and dipping process.

Rolling your cherries: The following day, grab a large mixing bowl and combine your butter, inverted sugar, condensed milk, extract, and powdered sugar. Mix and then knead this combo. It should be thick, and it may feel a little crumbly. Next grab a cherry, and surround it with the mixture.

The point is to make little cherry balls. Actually, these will be sort of big cherry balls – about walnut size, although, if you use smaller cherries make the balls smaller too. Put all your covered cherries single file onto a baking sheet covered in parchment, and place it in the freezer.

Make your chocolate: While your cherry balls are chilling, make your chocolate. Now, if you’re using chocolate chips, simply melt them with your shortening in a double boiler. If you’re making chocolate with bakers chocolate it’s a lot more work. Frankly, I suggest going with the chocolate chips.

However if you are using baking chocolate, you’ll need to temper and sweeten it. Place 6-8 oz chocolate in a double boiler and add a drop or two of vanilla extract. Add a bit of honey (I never measure, sorry). And then read the following article about tempering chocolate. Melt your chocolate slowly. Then, for dipping, keep it semi warm and mixable on the stove top.

NOTE: Some die-hard cooks I know, flip about me adding honey to the chocolate. It’s always worked for me though, so oh well. But if you like (I’m no candy expert) you can jaunt around the web and find a no-honey way to do this.

Dipping: Grab your chilled cherries, dip them in your chocolate mix and place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. As noted before, I suck at the dipping part. My only tip is to work fast. The faster I went, the better my cherries looked.

Chill them. Munch away or give away to happy friends and family.

Extras:

You can also dip your cherries in nuts or cover them with pretty natural sparkles. Kids like the sparkles. You can add different extracts like mint or orange. If you’re a crafty cook, I bet you could even figure out a chocolate mold situation so that your cherries look lovely. I won’t advise on pretty food though, other than to say, best of luck. You can also pop your cherries on top of cakes, cupcakes, or cookies.

To give as a gift:

I found some cute reusable boxes and tins, lined them with parchment paper, and stuffed them full of cherries. I added another sheet of parchment over the top before securing the lid. You can use little paper cups I suppose (see above image), but why waste paper? Another option is to save the candy containers people give you, the ones that already have compartments, and use them. Most are sturdy enough to wash gently.

For different chocolate covered cherry recipes check out cdkitchens. I looked around, and some of the recipes do not call for corn syrup.

[chocolate covered cherry image via teain.mycup via Flickr]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

One year I got all ambitious and made homemade chocolate covered cherries as gifts for folks for the holidays. It was nuts. Mainly, I was upset because my cherries looked funky. It’s harder than it looks to dip them and have them turn out all pretty. My cherries looked nothing like this image above. Plus, I don’t even like eating them.

Still my family and friends thought they were a huge success. I guess they tasted great, in spite of their bizarre look.

If you need something to do this weekend, you can make your own organic chocolate covered cherries. I’m going to write this up in two parts, because making organic and natural chocolate cherries is way more involved ingredient wise. Since we have a lot to discuss, I’m breaking it up.

You’ll need to gather up:

Around three 10-12 oz jars of decent natural Maraschino Cherries with stems: You don’t want conventional, they’re no good. The FDA notes, “”Maraschino Cherries” is regarded as the common or usual name of an article consisting of cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and packed in a sugar syrup flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor.” Yikes.

Natural maraschino cherries are often dyed with beets, not artificial colors and don’t have preservatives. Many still have corn syrup, which is not cool, but what are you gonna do? Locate natural cherries at:

• Whole Foods Market
• Trader Joe’s
• A local co-op or natural food market
• Princess Maraschino Cherries
• Make your own homemade maraschino cherries – takes over a day
• Check with a local cherry grower; for example, I know of at least one Oregon cherry grower who sells natural cherries.

You’ll also need:

The corn syrup issue:

For the recipe above you need 6 tablespoons of corn syrup. However, corn syrup is not necessarily safe or healthy. You can make your own sugar syrup instead. This is technically called inverted sugar. While pounds of sugar is no picnic for your body, it’s better IMO to use the real thing vs. processed corn syrup.

Take one 1 cup organic sugar and add it to 1 cup water in a small pot. Bring to a boil. Stir frequently as sugar dissolves. Keep stirring until sugar reaches the consistency you want. I’ve heard you can replace the corn syrup with organic honey as well but I myself, haven’t tried this. It seem feasible though.

Your chocolate choices:

You can use 2 cups of natural chocolate chips – white, semisweet, whatever you like, OR you can make a chocolate mix. To make your own chocolate you’ll need some unsweetened chocolate like 100% Dagoba Cacao Organic Unsweetened 6 Oz Baking Bar. There are other kinds or organic baking chocolate available at the same sort of shops you’d find natural cherries at. If you’re making your own chocolate mix, you’ll be adding a little more sweetener (sugar) during the actual recipe process – we’ll talk about that later.

What to do now:

Gather up your supplies, because next up, I’ll post how to make your own organic and natural chocolate covered cherries.

[chocolate cherry image via mourgefile]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Nature based fun:  

• Nature Experiment – Make Your Own Rain Bowl
• Journey North: One of the best earth-based youth activities available
• Make Your Own Solar Light!
• Ditch your watch and use the sun to tell time

Messy & colorful fun:  

• Make Your Own Natural, Colorful Dyes
• Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids
• Fun Beach or Sandbox Craft

Plant based fun:  

• Build A Plant Maze!
• 10 Fun Organic Gardening Projects for Kids
• Just How Strong Are Plants?

Recycled fun:

• Perfect Summer Recycled Dollhouse Project
• How to Make Paper
• Homemade Recycled Stickers
• Make Some Wind Clackers
• Egg Carton Buggy Mobile
• Indoors Recycled Tumbling Fun
• Creative Reuse Art Projects

Yummy fun:

• Candied Flowers
• Build A Solar Cooker
• 32 Unique Homemade Popsicle Recipes & Ideas
• Tofu Recipes for Kids

Now you can’t say the kids are bored – there are enough projects here to get you going on the path to summer fun.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

These snacks have many advantages over boxed fruit snacks.

Healthier – while this is more a fun food, than a “meal” food, they still have less sugar than store bought fruit snacks and have no weird chemicals, colors, or preservatives.

Less packaging – the fruit snacks in stores come in little bags that come in little boxes. It’s a ton of packaging.

Better taste – hands down, these treats are more flavorful than store bought.

You need to gather:

• Dried fruit. Assorted. I get mine from the local co-op. Try to find unsweetened, organic, bulk dried fruit. We’ve used pineapple, cherries, papaya, apricots and more. We don’t use crunchy dried, like bananas though. I’m not sure that would work. Grab a pound or so. If you have a dryer, you can use that to make your own dried fruit instead.

• Organic orange juice. You can use real fresh squeezed which offers great flavor, and you only need a little, so it’s not too much trouble. Kids like to squeeze oranges anyway. Cedar, my son, is allergic to oranges but can have mandarin oranges and lemons so we make ours with those instead of orange juice. It works fine. It’s a tad more tart.

• Orange rind (or lemon, mandarin, etc.). You need a good amount – maybe all of the rind from a medium sized fruit.

• Nuts – optional. If you use them you can use any kind, they just need to be finely chopped or ground up.

To make fruit snacks:

1. Grind up all the fruit – we use a blender on chop, then grind. A food processor might work better if you have one. I just don’t want an extra appliance around.
2. Add the orange rind – grind more.
3. Add enough juice to form a sticky mass – one that’s held together. Don’t add too much or it will be too watery a consistency.
4. Everyone grab a mound of sticky mass and roll some little balls out. Alternatively, we’ve rolled ours out with a slightly juiced rolling pin, then cut into squares. Make them about bite sized.
5. If you’re using nuts, roll the balls/squares in the nuts.
6. Eat!

It’s sticky cooking – but still a good time.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family