Tonight we wanted to have pasta but couldn’t decide whether to have spaghetti and meatballs (Alex’s choice) or pasta all’amatriciana (Max’s choice). So we decided to make both. Then, because its apple season and our friends Russ and Erica had given us some excellent apples (that they picked while cycling upstate), we decided to make an apple pie. Mom helped out by making a pear/walnut/cranberry/goat cheese salad. Dad was out of town…he missed a good meal.
Apple Pie
After we made the pastry and put it in the fridge to chill, we peeled and sliced 6 apples. Then we tossed them with cinnamon, a little sugar and flour. If you are using tart apples, you might need more sugar but ours were pretty sweet. Then we put the apples in the pastry shell and rolled out the pasty top. We decided to be fancy and used a star shaped cookie cutter to cut out stars in the pastry top.
Then we draped the star-cut pastry over the apples and brushed it lightly with egg wash (beaten egg with a little water). We also glued a few of the cut out stars to the top with the egg wash to give it a little 3 D effect. Then it was in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. We lowered the temp to 350 degrees and let it cook for another 35 minutes.
Pasta Two Ways
Meatballs Part 1
For the pasta, first we made the meatballs. This was just a quick throw together recipe based on what we had in the fridge, which included a pound of ground meat, 1/3 cup panko bread crumbs, 1/3 cup grated parmesan, 1 egg and salt & pepper. We also make them with ground turkey sometimes. We made little bit size meat balls, and put them in the fridge to chill.
All’Amatriciana Part 1
While the meatballs were chilling, we started on the amatricana. We sauteed chopped pancetta until crispy, removed it from the pan and then sauteed a chopped white onion until it was very translucent. Then we scooped out 1/4 of the onions to use with the meatballs. Then it was back to the Meatballs…
Meatballs Part 2
So for the meatballs, we sauteed them in olive oil till they were brown all over, then we added the 1/4 cup onions we reserved, plus tomato sauce and a little water. We just let them cook for a bit while we finished the other pasta.
All’Amatriciana Part 2
For the All’Amatriciana, had to make the sauce: we added chopped tomatoes to the onions and let simmer and reduce. Then we combined it with the pasta, sprinkled pancetta on top and grated fresh parmesan on top of that.
The weekend of Columbus Day we actually didn’t cook dinner. This was mainly because we had family friends visiting us, and they brought and grilled SO much delicious meat for us that we didn’t need to! We had lamb, short ribs and veal chops…thanks Carlos and Valeska! So instead of cooking dinner, we played soccer (thanks Niki–we misssed you Matias!) and baked some goodies with a helping hand from Alexis (a key part of the family friends!)
For the pumpkin pie, we combined eggs with canned pumpkin, added the dry ingredients (mainly spices and sugar) and then added evaporated milk. Because we always have too much batter for a standard pie shell, we made mini pies and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar for extra spice. They baked for about an hour and then had to set for another hour.
Later we served them with fresh whipped cream. DELICIOUS!
For the chocolate chip banana bread, we mashed 3 overripe bananas together, added an egg, and then combined the wet ingredients with our dry mix (flour, baking powder, salt…). The recipe called for 1/2 cup of chocolate chips but frankly that wasn’t enough and it should have specified mini chocolate chips. The regular size ones were ok, but they sank to the bottom of the banana bread…the minis would have been more evenly disbursed. It still tasted good but it would have been better if EVERY bite had a chocolate chip in it.
Tonight we wanted to try doing something new: a chicken coconut curry, but it was Sunday night and we didn’t have a lot of time to shop or cook. We had chicken, coconut milk, onions, canned tomatoes and a bunch of different spices. (We thought that we had curry powder but we didn’t so we made our own: it was fun and we got to choose how spicy we wanted it.) Some of the recipes we googled called for adding spinach, but we didn’t have that either but we did have kale…so we added that. It was delicious and pretty fast to make. We served it over rice and make cinnamon pastries for dessert.
Chicken Coconut Curry:
First we made our own curry powder. We combined cumin, ginger, coriander, turmeric, and salt and pepper. Some curry powder recipes call for cayenne pepper but we wanted a milder curry. Then we chopped the chicken into bite size pieces and tossed the chicken with the curry mix. We sauteed the chicken in a little olive oil along with one sliced yellow onion until the chicken was mainly cooked through and the onions were translucent. Then we dumped in the tomatoes and the coconut milk. We let that reduce and then added pieces of kale. We served it over rice, and it was so yummy. Pretty healthy too, right, with the kale?
Cinnamon Pastries:
Usually we make these with left-over pie dough from when we make a pie, but we didn’t have time to make a pie, and mom had store-bought pie dough in the freezer so we cheated and used that. The key to using frozen pie dough (according to our mom) is to never tell anyone you are using it. Ha Ha. But seriously it’s important to let it thaw a little but not so much it gets sticky. Anyway,this is a super easy, fast dessert. Once dough is thawed enough to roll out (but not sticky), roll out the dough in an oval. Spread with soft or melted butter. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on, roll up, cut in inch slices, bake for 12-15 minutes and eat! Keep an eye on them at 12 minutes so they don’t burn. (Note if your dough seems too stick, put it in the fridge for 5 minutes or so to harden up a little.)
Welcome to kidscookdinner.com: a website/blog dedicated to kids cooking (usually dinner, but not always) and also to draw attention to the fact that a lot of people don’t have enough to eat. And thanks for all of you who watched us compete on Chopped Junior on Food Network which first aired in 2017, and then still occasionally reruns. We were thrilled to compete to raise awareness (and hopefully money) for Action Against Hunger, an international hunger relief charity that we have supported since we first won a prize for our website domain name: kidscookdinner.com and donated $17,000 to that charity. If you want to find out more about Action Against Hunger or donate to this charity, please click HERE. But if you just want to see what we cooked this week or other weeks, just scroll up or down!
2022 Update: as our city, state, nation, world continue to struggle to deal with COVID-19, hunger is not going away, in fact it’s getting worse. As we see it affect our fellow New Yorkers, we have also been donating to local hunger relief organizations, such as City Harvest. Please consider giving locally if you can (HERE is City Harvest’s link.) Another great charity is Feeding America (link HERE). Stay safe and well!
Dinner in 2015
Dinner in 2020
As you may know, we (Max and Alex…the kids) started cooking dinner for our family once a week back in 2015. We realized how fun it was to cook and we wanted to share our experiences (and encourage kids to cook), so we started this website. We also randomly entered the website in a national domain name contest. Amazingly enough, we won the contest and $35,000! Click HERE for more about the story of our domain name.
But because we have plenty to eat, and millions of people around the world don’t, we donated half of our prize ($17,000) to Action Against Hunger–a charity dedicated to saving the lives of malnourished children and helping vulnerable communities become self-sufficient. We were lucky enough to get to visit the Action Against Hunger office in New York and meet some of their amazing staff. (Below we are sitting with Alex Cottin, Director of External Affairs, and Andrea Tamburini, CEO of AAH-USA, in August 2015)
We hope you enjoyed watching us compete on Chopped Junior and we hope you are inspired to cook more. Let’s all try to take the time to enjoy what we cook together. And, at least for our family, let’s be thankful for what we have and try to help those in need.
Because Monday nights are always super busy, we decided to make barbecue brisket in the slow cooker on Sunday so all we had to do Monday was reheat it and make a salad. But because we like sweet things, and its apple season, we also made apple crepes. For the salad, we were inspired by a salad our mom told us about that she had in a French bistro and loved: a frisee salad with lardons (big bacon bits), croutons and a poached egg. Our take on it uses pancetta lardons, tops the croutons with goat cheese and uses a fried egg instead of a poached egg. And we also made orso as a simple side dish. It was a GREAT Monday night dinner (a little more work than we intended but worth it!)
Barbecue Brisket
For the brisket, first we made a dry rub out of a bunch of secret spices, but which definitely included paprika, salt and pepper. Then we put it in the slow cooker with plenty of barbecue sauce and let it cook over night. We let it cool, skimmed the fat, shredded it and refrigerated it until dinner.
Frisee Salad
For the frisee salad, first we chopped and sauteed the pancetta. Then we made goat cheese croutons and fried an egg in the pancetta oil. Then we put it all together. Mom loved it although we all decided that next time we needed at least two eggs, not just one.
Apple Crepes
For the apple crepes: first we made the crepe batter (it’s really easy: just eggs, milk, flour and salt) but it’s good to let it sit a bit. So while the crepe mix was sitting, we peeled and sliced 4 apples. Then we cooked them with a little butter and cinnamon sugar. Then we made the crepe on our crepe maker, filled it with apples, folded and topped with whipped cream. Delicious!
Tonight we wanted to have something healthy AND something decadent so we decided to make beef and broccoli stir fry with rice (healthy) and chocolate lava cakes (not quite so healthy). Both were delicious and the chocolate lava cakes were much easier than we thought they would be. We served them with vanilla ice cream.
For the stir fry we kept it simple: beef and broccoli, flavored with a little garlic, olive oil and soy sauce. We blanched the broccoli before we put it in the wok so it was a little cooked already and would keep its nice green color (blanching is when you boil vegetables for 30 seconds and then plunge them into ice water. We also tossed the beef in a little rice flour before hand (because the recipe called for it) but we won’t do that again. The flour just got gunky in the wok and wasn’t necessary. The rice was easy: we just used our hand rice cooker.
The chocolate lava cakes (or molten chocolate cakes) were a lot easier than we thought. The ingredients were simple: chocolate (bittersweet and semisweet), butter, eggs, egg yolks, flour, vanilla and powdered sugar. First we melted the chocolate and butter together in the microwave. Then we let it cool a little bit and added the powdered sugar. (The only slightly tricky thing was we didn’t have quite enough powdered sugar so we figured we could make it from regular sugar using the cuisinart. It worked!) Then we whisked in 2 eggs and 3 egg yolks, added the vanilla and finally the flour.
The batter tasted a lot like our fudge brownies, only slightly eggier. We poured it into ramekins and baked for 13 minutes (sides were firm but centers still soft) at 425 degrees. Then we let them sit for 1 minute and inverted them on a plate…Ate with icecream. YUMMMY, especially with vanilla ice cream
Today we wanted to grill something for lunch but we had so much grilled meat already this weekend (steaks, burgers, hot dogs, sausages) that we wanted a change so we decided we would make grilled pizza!
First we made the pizza dough: it’s really like bread dough except you use olive oil as your shortening and it only rises once. The recipe is simple: flour, salt, warm water & yeast, and olive oil. You add the yeast to the warm water until it dissolves, then add to the flour, salt and olive oil. Then you form into a ball and let rise for an hour or so.
Then you turn on the grill and rollout the pizza in a slight oiled rectangular pan. Once it’s rolled out, you brush the top with oil slightly and fold over the pizza (this is so you can unfold the pizza on the grill….it’s too big to lift.)
Make sure your grill is clean because you put the pizza….unfolding in….right on the grill. You let it cook on one side for 3-4 minutes (bubbles form and grill marks appear on cooking side). Then you flip over and lay slices of mozarella on the cooked side. You cook another 4-5 minutes and then remove from the grill. Then you can add whatever you want. Max and I like ours just plain but mom and dad added arugula and tomato.
Enjoy!
Tonight I (Alex) wanted to try make something new so I made cauliflower rice with a shrimp topping, based on a recipe from Cooking Light magazine by Adam Hickman (Thanks Adam). It’s really fun and simple to make: first you clean and chop fresh cauliflower, then you whiz it in the food processor until it’s finely ground. The texture is more like couscous than rice, but everyone calls it rice.
For the shrimp/egg topping: First you saute shrimp in some sesame oil for about 3 minutes and then take the shrimp out of the pan. Second you beat 4 eggs together and cook them in a little more sesame oil for about 2 minutes — letting them set in a thin layer. You remove the egg and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (essentially thin scrambled eggs). Third, you add chopped green onions and the cauliflower rice to the pan with more sesame oil and cook till light brown. Finally you mix the shrimp & eggs back into the onion-cauliflower rice and plate it with a few more chopped green onions (I saved the green tops for the garnish) on top and it is ready!!!!!!! The final dish looked delicious but we all agreed it needed more flavor. Next time we might add actual toasted sesame seeds or some sort of nut? or more salt (maybe because it was from Cooking Light it was healthier than we usually eat:). Mom suggested added bean sprouts but Max and I aren’t convinced about that.
Today for a late celebratory birthday dinner for dad (his birthday was July 27), mom and I made braised lamb shank and I made grasshopper pie for dessert. Right about now you are probably wondering what in the world grasshopper pie is… Well don’t worry we didn’t eat real grasshoppers (although I hear they’re quite delicious). Instead we ate an oreo crusted, marshmellow fluff and whippped cream stuffed pie. It’s called grasshopper pie because it’s green (like a grasshopper). And the green color comes from Creme de Menthe…unless you decide to change the recipe a little in which case the green color comes from food coloring. 🙂
These are all the ingredents thst you need for grasshopper pie
The first step is to grind oreos in a cuisinart mixed with a little melted butter. Then your press the oreo-butter mix into a pie tin.
The next step is to melt the marshmellow fluff in a saucepan with a cup of half &half. You can let it cool on a rack but to speed up the process, it’s best to put it into a ice bath. (See picture)
The third step is to add Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cacao. However, we did not add the Creme de Menthe because it tasted like toothpaste!!! The Creme de Cacao tasted pretty good, however, so we did add that. (If you really love the taste of mint, or the taste of toothpaste, go ahead and add Creme de Menthe, but if you don’t add some green dye for color. The next step is to whip a cup of heavy cream (without adding sugar) and fold it into the green marshmellow fluff mixture. Then you pour it into the oreo-crusted pie pan and sprinkle a few crushed oreos on top. Stick it in the freezer for a few hours and voila! It is good to go (we even stuck a canddle in it for dad’s birthday.)
Hi, we just spent a week in Maine hiking and biking, and enjoyed some delicious food at a bunch of different restaurants. Also, since we stayed in a great hotel with a full kitchen, we had time to cook a little. We are each going to describe our favorite meal out and also what we made to eat ourselves over the week.
Max:
My favorite meal was our first one we had in Bar Harbor, ME at the Side Street Cafe. I had quesadillas, filled with beans, cheese, avocado and chicken with salsa on the side. The dish was amazing. Everything came together to produce wonderful flavors, and Dad and Mom couldn’t stop themselves from having some! Dad had a lobster roll which looked pretty good as well.
My favorite meal that I made in Maine was Mac and Cheese. Missing New York food, I decided to make my own, recreating Max Brenner’s tasty mac and cheese dish.
Here are the directions:
Remove from oven, let cool and enjoy!
Alex:
My favorite two meals (that we ate at restaurants) were the burger that I had at Black Cap Grille in North Conway, New Hampshire, and the popovers that we had at Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park, Maine. What was also nice about both of these restaurants was that we could bring our dog Koko (so we could hike with her and then share a meal with her).
The Burgers at Black Cap Grille:
Not only was the burger perfectly cooked, the fries were as well. I had to fend off Dad and Mom who tried to eat them.
The Popovers at Jordon Pond House:
The Jordan Pond House popovers were huge and delicious. They were crispy on the outside but light and airy on the inside. We ate them with butter and strawberry jam (just watch out for the bees–they like the jam too).
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My favorite meal that I made in Maine was pasta with bolgnese with an arugula salad and brownies (for dessert).
Bolgnese is a pretty simple dish that is supper yummy, all you really need to do is:
For the salad, I made a simple arugula, tomato and parmesan cheese salad but then added some chopped almonds for some texture. Dressing was just olive oil and fresh lemon juice. The brownies are our family recipe that I have already shared so I won’t tell again.
