WINTER SURPRISES

It is amazing how in the summer we are bombarded with so many different kinds of vegetables. It is impossible to eat everything we harvest therefore we think of many ways to preserve as much as possible so we can enjoy these foods throughout the winter. We pickle cucumbers and beets, freeze green beans, can tomatoes, dry our herbs and tomatoes and place root vegetables in our basement in hopes that they will survive. The other day we were in the basement and noticed that a few of our butternut squash stored well this winter.

So I decided to use them in a recipe that the children like. We are fortunate that our children enjoy eating many different kinds of foods. However, like most we are always trying to find ways to include a few more vegetables daily. Therefore I decided to make these muffins. They are simple, nutritious and the kids love them.

BUTTERNUT ALMOND MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Prepare Butternut Squash
Place the entire squash on a baking sheet. Use a fork to poke holes
throughout the squash so it can release steam. Put the squash in the oven at
350 degrees until you can insert a fork easily through the flesh about
1 1/2 hours. Cool, then cut squash open, remove seeds, using a spoon remove flesh
from squash. Mash squash or put through a food processor until smooth.

Muffin recipe
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups butternut squash
1 1/4 cups oil
4 eggs
3/4 cup sliced almonds

Mix oil and sugars together, add eggs and mix well. Add squash to mixture. Stir, gently, add dry ingredients slowly and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Lastly, add the almonds to the batter. Divide batter into your greased muffin tins and place in a 350 degree oven.
Bake 35-45 minutes -makes 12 large muffins,
Bake 25-35 minutes -makes 2 1/2 dozen medium sized muffins
Bake 20-30 minutes -makes 4-6 dozen small muffins

New Year

The holidays are finished and the New Year has begun. As the new year begins, we have been thinking of ways to improve the work we do at My Kids' Kitchen. We think it is important to set goals like creating new recipes for our customers to enjoy and hopefully add new customers who will enjoy our food. The children sometimes have different ideas such as, how can we improve cookie recipes by adding more chocolate, always having oven baked bread at their fingertips and of course how to have fun in all situations.
We hope in the New Year to bring other wonderful recipes from foods we have in our garden or treats you can make year round to our blog readers. Recipes including english muffins, Valentine Day treats, and sun dried tomato recipes will soon follow.

PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES

With harvesting complete, now is the time to find and review recipes to use all the squash, pumpkins, and other fall vegetables that we have in cold storage. One of our favorite recipes is for pumpkin whoopie pies. These delectable desserts are a great substitute for a larger pie or cheesecake. My kids love them and adults seems to enjoy them also. Use the following recipe for a holiday treat for all your visiting guests.
"Pumpkin Whoopie Pies"

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups solid packed pumpkin puree (either fresh or canned)
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix vegetable oil and brown sugar until combined. Add eggs and mix until well blended. Stir in pumpkin and vanilla. After wet ingredients are mixed well add the remanding dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking power and soda and all the spices)
Drop dough onto greased cookie sheets by spoonfuls. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Once cookies are cool fill with cream cheese filling.
Cream Cheese Filling
2 packages of cream cheese
4 oz (1 stick) of butter
3 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Mix with mixer until smooth. If filling seems a little loose add more powdered sugar. Scoop filling and spread over 1 pumpkin cookie. Add another cookie to complete whoopie pie and repeat until all whoopie pies are complete. Refrigerator for 1 hour before serving.

Autumn

Crisp cool mornings, geese flying south and the beautiful changing landscape of colorful trees reminds us that Autumn has arrived. This time of year can be just as busy as summer. Yes the summer markets are finished but this also means removing the dead plants out of the garden and composting them, picking the last of the vegetables and fruit like pears, apples, tomatoes and of course gathering the pumpkins and gourds.

For us it also means a time to be retrospective about the busy summer. What plants did well, what vegetables do we need to plant more of next year, and preparing for our winter markets and holiday baking.

This year our garden was abundant with tomatoes. Last year we had bad luck and lost all our tomato plants therefore we planted almost twice as many plants in hopes that some would survive. We canned many jars of tomatoes, dried them and made ketchup. Hours of processing tomatoes pay off in the winter when you open up a jar or use the dried tomatoes in special dishes and all the work of summer is worth it.

Harvesting Pears

Labor Day finds us laboring or should I say harvesting many of our vegetables in the garden and from our fruit trees. Today we had an abundance of tomatoes which needed to be picked. We process many of our tomatoes by canning them so we can have them throughout the fall, winter and spring. After we have stored enough, we then use many of the tomatoes to dry in our dehydrator. Our dried tomatoes are such a wonderful treat in the middle of winter added to pasta sauces, pizza, or with mozzarella and olive oil. We will have recipes with dried tomatoes to come later in the fall or winter.

After the tomato picking was completed the children ran to the pear trees. These trees are so abundant with pears that they nearly touch the ground. So up the ladder the children went picking pears until all their containers were full and of course patience at picking had ended. Now we are digging up recipes to use these pears in. A winner is our following recipe for Bruschetta with Pear,Chevre, and Honey. All the ingredients mix so nicely together that I am sure this will be a crowd pleaser in your family too.

Bruschetta with Pear, Chevre, and Honey
1 baguette
2 to 3 pears
chevre cheese or a personal favorite
honey to drizzle

Heat oven on broil. Slice baguette or other crusty bread into rounds. Place on a cookie tray lined with aluminum foil and grease or spray with cooking spray. Place a piece of cheese on each piece of bread, on the cheese place 2 or 3 pieces of sliced and cored pear, then drizzle honey on top. Place tray in oven for 5 to 8 minutes or until golden brown.

Fudgy Zucchini Muffins

When I think of summer, I think of the lake-the sounds of laughter, splashing, motor boats. I think of gardens full of vegetables with different colors, shapes and sizes. I think of county fairs and festivals, ice cream dripping down the hands of little children and the smell of food cooking on grills. The other image that comes to my mind is driving down the road and seeing signs for free zucchini because gardens are bursting with this vegetable. Every year around this time there is an abundance of fresh vegetables you can find at local markets or in your own garden. Our garden like many is now yielding many zucchini. It seems as though we can not get enough of this vegetable. We use it to make a sweet hot dog relish, to roast with other vegetables on the grill, to make ratatouille and of course it is utterly delicious in muffins, brownies, and cakes. One of our family's favorite recipes is for Fudgy Zucchini Muffins. Try our recipe, I don't think you will be disappointed.
Fudgy Zucchini Muffin Recipe
1/3 cups of vegetable oil
2 1/2 ounces of baking chocolate
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 cups shredded raw zucchini
1/3 cup sour cream
chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a microwavable bowl place vegetable oil and baking chocolate and melt in the microwave. After chocolate is melted beat in sugar and eggs. Mix until blended. Add salt, baking soda, zucchini, and sour cream to the chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Slowly add flour into the chocolate mixture and stir until blended. Add chocolate chips and fill greased muffin tins
with muffin mixture. Place in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

Gardening,Green Beans, and Children

In the Lake Champlain region one can tell summer is here. The summer people have returned, the tourist are sampling the Islands, and the beaches are over flowing!! With the heat and humidity gardens are bursting with many vegetables such as zucchini, cucumbers, spinach, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, basil and green beans. With all these vegetables being harvested our refrigerator is full with garden produce. Green beans are overtaking every inch of free space inside our frig.

One of the little jobs the children do while I cook and prepare for the farmers' market is to pick green beans. The inevitable question is then asked, "How many beans do I need to pick?" of course I say, "Only the ones you see!" Well they return with approximately 2 handfuls of green beans. Which means that I need to return to the garden and find 5 - 10 pounds of green beans dangling from the plants.

We need to pick the beans every 2 to 3 days which leaves us with a lot of green beans. Our creativity kicks in and we try many different ways to cook them and make them appetizing to our children. Boiling with a pinch of salt, grilling them with salt, baking them with a can of cream of mushroom soup are all different ways we slip them into our every day diet. However our favorite way to cook them is to saute them in toasted sesame oil until tender with an onion. Once both the onion and green beans are cooked, we add 2 tablespoons of hoisin sauce. Unbelievably, these green beans are simply delicious to everyone around our dinner table and they disappear very quickly.