Happy Anniversary Kids Cook Dinner! One year ago this blog was born, on Dinner No.1 (February 22, 2015). Since then we have made 44 diners (sorry–not quite one per week, but we did go to camp for 6 weeks and had a couple vacations in there too).
For this meal mom gave us a mystery box with unknown ingredients, including chicken cutlets, baby broccoli, onions, tomatoes, avocados, basil, strawberries, lemon, garlic, goat cheese and anything else we could find in the kitchen. Alex and I had to collaborate on everything except the chicken cutlets, and we HAD to use chicken, broccoli and…strawberries (HUH, Seriously mom?). Mom also said we had to make at least two vegetable dishes and that we had to make the dinner in less than one hour. So we decided that we would each cook the chicken the way we wanted to, and then we would team up to cook the baby broccoli aand all the other stuff. We also decided to make couscous and a salad and then to use the strawberries both in a drink and in a dessert…READ ON!
Our ingredients! Mom said we had to use the baby broccoli, chicken & strawberries and that we had to have at least 2 vegetable dishes.
Celebrating a year of kids cooking!
For my chicken cutlet I (Max) decided to saute it with minced garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, basil and cherry/grape tomatoes. I let it cook for about 5 minutes per side and added the tomatoes and basil at the end.
Max chopping garlic for chicken
Max cooking chicken
For my chicken cutlet I (Alex) decided to marinate it briefly in olive oil and garlic, and then grill it. I finished it with lemon and fresh basil.
Alex chopping garlic for chicken
Chicken Two Ways: Grilled with lemon, olive oil & garlic (Alex) or sauteed with olive oil, garlic, basil & tomatoes (Max)
We sauteed the baby broccoli with garlic and olive oil and made a very beautiful Arugula-Pear-Goat Cheese- Walnut Salad for our two veggies. The salad was a reflection of our hopefulness for spring and the blossoming of many more flowers.
Sauteing the broccolini
Pear, walnut, goat cheese salad
For the other required ingredient (strawberries), we used them two ways. First we made virgin (no rum) strawberry daiquiris–a skill we have perfected since being in Jamaica. We made simple syrup (one-to-one ration of sugar to water in the afternoon, let it cool, and then combined it with fresh and frozen strawberries….yum!!)
Making strawberry daiquiris with fresh and frozen strawberries.
Strawberry Daiquiris — no rum
We also used the strawberries in our dessert. Because we had made fudge brownies yesterday, we decided to make our version of an ice cream sandwich but using brownies instead of cookies: a brownie-vanilla ice cream sandwich, with sliced strawberries layered on top of the ice cream (between the two brownies) and more strawberries on top. Seriously this is much better than a cookie ice cream sandwich because the brownies are so fudgey!!
Brownie Ice Cream Sandwich
Top View of brownie ice cream sandwich.
