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Baking with Kids: Chocolate Chip Cookies

6/13/2022

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In my opinion, chocolate cookies are the answer to most of life questions. My oldest, Emily, has decided that this summer she wants to learn to make chocolate chip cookies all by herself. She is four and I love her.
Well, as you may remember from this post, my niece showed you how to make some delicious brookies! When we watched the video Emily told me that she wanted to make a cooking video for grandma's blog too! I asked her if she wanted to make a video of herself making chocolate chip cookies and she was all in. Thus it was that a new series was born, "Baking with kids."

I've been baking with Emily since she was about a year and a half, in fact, here is a collage of photos of some of our previous baking adventures.

Teaching your kids how to cook is just so valuable. It's a great intro into math and science for kids, plus it teaches them practical skills. Someday, Emily will make family dinner once a week. Someday even later she will leave home and I know she'll be able to fend for herself and not starve to death. Plus, once she learns how to make chocolate chip cookies by herself, I know she'll know the solution to life's problems.
So, enjoy my cutie pie teaching you how to bake cookies. I WOULD suggest using the recipe measurements below rather than what she says in the video. She is cute, but she is still learning how to make chocolate chip cookies.

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Making Zucchini Bread With Zucchini Flour

6/8/2022

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You may remember reading about the giant zucchini I had growing in my garden when I came home from my recent trip to California. Here is a reminder:

Generally, zucchini that large aren't as good to eat as their smaller versions are. So, I decided to dehydrate this one and try my hand at making zucchini flour!
My friend Rhonda, who is my go to fountain of knowledge, told me about having read about zucchini flour and when I looked it up, I was intrigued, so I had to give it a try. Then, I found out that Anita, my other go to fountain of knowledge, had been making different types of vegetable flours for quite some time! Have you guys heard of it or tried it? Tell me about your experience in the comments!
It took me two dehydrator loads to get this giant thing totally dehydrated.

Of course, they started out as much bigger slices than this! Shrinkage happens in the dehydrator.

I also included a little yellow squash in my dehydrator loads.
After I had completed 2 loads, I decided to blend the squash into flour using my food processor. The idea of using zucchini squash flour is not to completely eliminate the regular all purpose flour, but to use less of the all purpose flour and add the zucchini flour as a replacement. So, when my blending of the squash yielded 1/2 cup of flour, I decided to go with that for my first try. Click on the pictures below to get more information.

I probably could have put the larger bits into the bread because it should rehydrate in liquid, but for this first time, I wanted the flour to be as fine as possible.

Now that I had this 1/2 cup of zucchini flour, I decided to adapt a zucchini recipe that I have to use the zucchini flour to make zucchini bread! This recipe makes two loaves and I have to say that this is the BEST zucchini bread that I have ever eaten! The texture is perfect, moist but not too moist. The flavor is amazing! I may have eaten half of the first loaf by myself. I don't know if it would have been this fantastic without the zucchini flour added to the recipe, but I'm going to start dehydrating more of my over abundance of zucchini to make it again! I also think that since the zucchini was fresh from my garden, the flavor of it was better to begin with. Finally, I believe the addition of the almond flavoring, though the almond flavor isn't that noticeable, really enhanced the flavor as well. All in all, this bread is terrific!
*Side Note: I made this recipe again, without the zucchini flour because I hadn't gotten any ready yet. The bread is still delicious. So, if you don't have zucchini flour, you can still make it!

Best Ever Zucchini Bread

If you have an over abundance of zucchini in your garden, this is a great way to use it and store it for future use! Just use a vacuum sealer or O2 packets to keep the moisture out. You can also make flour out of other vegetables in the same way. What a great way to sneak in veggies into your family's diet!

Other Zucchini Recipe Posts

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Lemon Garlic Chicken & Shrimp Fettuccine

6/4/2022

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Let me begin by saying, that this recipe was inspired by my friend Rhonda who brought me a jar of preserved lemons. We have a mutual friend with a lemon tree. We were both the lucky recipients of many of those lemons this year. Rhonda decided to try her had at preserving some in salt and lemon juice, a process that I had never heard of and I am fascinated by it! But, now that we have the lemons, we need the recipes to use them in.

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Jayda Bakes Brookies

6/1/2022

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My 10 year old, almost 11, granddaughter asked me one day if she could do something for the blog. I love that she wants to do something on here and that she reads the blog! I have given my grandchildren an opportunity to work on the blog a bit and earn some money, so I am guessing that was part of her motivation. So, I told her to come up with an idea and to let me know what is was. In just a few minutes she called me and said that she could make Brookies! That sounded like a great idea, so I let her run with it.

With help from her 13, almost 14 year old sister, she made a video of the Brookie making process. When you watch the video, you will hear Jayda's big sister helping her along and teasing her as well while she did the filming.

They sent me all of the clips, (tons of them, out of order), and I edited them into a cute baking video. Watch carefully and you will hear some great baking tips from a precocious 10 year old, and see a few cute mix-ups as well. I just adore this girl!

Now that summer is here, cooking with your kids, (or grandkids), is a great activity. It helps them learn a good life skill as well as practice math and reading skills. In the video, you will hear Jayda practicing her fractions, especially! I am so impressed at how skilled she is becoming at baking at such a young age. I am in AZ and she is in WY, so I wasn't there to help her. Her big sister was there to give tips, but mostly Jayda did this all on her own.

By the way, if you don't know what Brookies are, they are a combination of brownies and chocolate chip cookies that are to die for! You can find recipes for them all over the web, or, you can do what I did and use a brownie mix you already love and top it with your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Watch the video, and Jayda will give you the recipe that she used as well as variation ideas.

Please comment below and let the girls know what a good job they did, both with the baking and the filming! Also, let us know if you or your kids try your hand at baking Brookies! These things are so good that I've even found an Ice Cream flavor in the store called Brookie! It is great! Hmmm, a scoop of ice cream on top of your home baked Brookie sounds like a great idea!