Bake Chocolate-Chip Cookies =D

Even though our cooking programs are some of our best attended programs, they kinda sorta freak
me out sometimes. I'm always stressing about what things kids will enjoy cooking, what they will be able to cook, and ultimately where I'm going to get the recipes.

But, making chocolate-chip cookies just made sense and the kids had a really good time with it. I used a family recipe for Chocolate-Chip/Butterscotch Cookies (message me if you'd like it), and I'm sure each of you have your favorite chocolate-chip recipe that you could use.

The nice thing about this program is that it gets kids excited about making the goodies, and also gets them excited about the program in general because they get to eat cookies.

Finally, another benefit is if you have any leftovers (you'll probably have to fight the kids off with a stick) you can create some nice thank-yous for other staff members or departments.

If you decide to do this program I have two suggestions: (1) Bring a stand mixer (as the dough might be too thick for the kids to stir) and (2) break up each of the ingredients into smaller increments so all the participants can actually participate.

Have fun!!

Allrecipes: Your Socially Connected Cookbook

As you may have noticed, when one of my programs or events requires a recipe, I typically get it from allrecipes.com. As a result, I figured I'd find out a little more about it.

Allrecipes is the world's largest digital food brand. Their website and apps allow users to search for recipes, add their own recipes, plan menus, and share in an online community of home cooks. Recently, Allrecipes started creating ebooks as well.

While they don't have an About Us page on the main part of their site, I was able to find some info about them on their Advertising page. Turns out that a group of anthropology students got together in 1997 to discover and share cookie recipes with Cookierecipes.com. With the success of that site and others like it, the group decided to combine all of them onto one site that has now become Allrecipes.

Even though I've been searching for recipes and have several friends with the apps on their devices, I had no idea just how big this brand was. In addition to 25 million unique visitors a month, they have the most downloaded recipe apps on the market, and is one of the Top 10 Ranked Social Media sites.

So next time you need a recipe, Allrecipes might be the place to be =D

Make Your Own Pretzels

Does anybody else ever have trouble coming up with program ideas? At the end of the summer, we obviously start planning for our Fall programs, and its always a crazy time trying to figure out what we're going to be doing.

One of the programs I struggle with the most is our Play With Your Food cooking program. While I'm not totally inept in the kitchen, it is still a little intimidating to be in charge of telling kids how to cook something that is going to taste good when you are finished.

But, the programs we've done so far have been successful, fun, and have tasted pretty good, so I guess I'll just try to do what I've been doing =D

All of that to say, the first program we held for 3-5 graders this Fall was Make Your Own Pretzels. I grabbed a recipe from allrecipes.com, and went for it. Turns out that the recipe is quite fabulous, and the kids had a really good time making them.

One thing the recipe didn't mention that we tried was making our own shapes instead of everyone sticking with the traditional pretzel shape. We made chips, hearts, balls, and even a lizard.

While the program worked really well, the one problem we had was with the dough. It tended to be a little dry which made it harder to mold, but adding a little bit of extra oil seemed to help, and they turned out awesome in the end.