LAST
weekend when my husband told our children that we were going to be making pizza, it
sounded something like this, " YESSSS! I
wanna help. Where's my apron? Can I pull up a chair to stand on? Can I snack on
the cheese? I wanna put on the green olives!"
The
house was buzzing with excitement and we had not even begun to prep.
My
husband, Derek, is our pizza maker, we are his sous chefs.
Derek
has adapted a pizza dough recipe from Julia Child after I personally consulted
Bobby Flay. It’s in the water and the cheese. You can read about the pizza
conversation I had with Bobby here.
Cooley Family Pizza Dough
for two 16 inch disks
The yeast mixture:
1 package dry-active
yeast
1 C tepid water
1/8 t sugar
Additions to the yeast mixture
¼ C cold milk
¼ C olive oil
The dry ingredients:
3 C flour
1 ½ t salt
Whisk the yeast
ingredients in a measure and let bubble up five minutes. Measure dry
ingredients into a kitchen aid stand mixer with the dough hook and mix until the
dough forms a ball. Let it rest five minutes and knead by hand. Then let the
dough rise in a covered bowl until doubled in bulk (about 1 ½ hours). If you
are not ready to bake, punch the dough down and set the covered bowl in a cooler
place where it will keep safely for an hour or more.
If you think cooking with two children is fun, imagine one-hundred-twenty
children. I had the pleasure of choreographing a science lab “dance” to go
along with our lesson of how matter changes. We made muffins and created an
irreversible change.
I honestly think my own two children were louder than the one-hundred-twenty second graders because I said, "I'm only picking the most quiet children to help
cook." They all really wanted to crack the eggs! Children love to break,
squeeze and cut things…they’re not afraid to get messy.
I
notice with both my children and all the second graders that when they are
responsible for preparing the meal, there five senses are more aware and they better
appreciate the food because they helped make it. All the more reason children should be involved in the
kitchen.
Mrs. Cooley's Banana Muffins
3 C flour
1 t baking soda (mixed with 4 T sour cream)
1 t salt
½ t baking powder
½ t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
2 C sugar
1C vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 T vanilla
4 ripe bananas, mashed
Line
muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk dry
ingredients: flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl. In a separate
bowl mix wet ingredients: start with sour cream mixed with baking soda, add
three eggs and sugar, oil, and vanilla then fold in mashed bananas. Use an ice
cream scoop to evenly divide batter in muffin cups. Bake on the middle rack
until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick tester comes out clean (about
20 minutes). Transfer to a rack to cool.
Cooking
with children is a lot like choreographing a dance. The choreographer has to be
quick and interesting so they don’t lose a child’s attention.
My
friend Craig Alderson, from Cooking with Class, is a chef and a dad, has the perfect and hilarious example of why
you need to be quick in the kitchen with children.
"There was this one time when I had my daughter Hannah, who was two at the time, on the kitchen counter one morning helping daddy cook. We
were making eggs in the skillet, and we had a can of powdered
carpet cleaner nearby. It was vanilla scented. She picked it up and shook all
over the eggs thinking she was seasoning them! Smelled awful! We joke about
till this day."
Be brave, be patient and have fun cooking with your children.Whether it is a cooking success or mishap, the experience makes for great lessons and the memories are priceless! When you share the kitchen with children, cooking is even more of a pleasure.
