Craft Camps 2015 Week Five: Cooking, Day Three- Desserts and Goodie Boxes!

Uh-huh...that's just what we did at our sugar-fest today!  First up: Rollo Peanut Butter Cups.

The girls pat their peanut butter dough in the mini muffin tins.

 

 They decorate their goodie boxes in between baking and prepping for the next recipe.

 Check out their watermelon lollipops!  You can never have too many no bake cookies in the pantry and it helps to have so many good helpers!

 Jenna goes for an abstract design on her box!

The afternoon girls had planned all week to make hamburger and fries cupcakes and cookies 

and they were perfect!  

You can find the instructions online here but keep in mind that they are so much better when you make the recipes from scratch like we did.  Don't skimp on the real buttercream frosting, either!  They were really good!  We opted not to put real sesame seeds on ours.

The afternoon girls opted to make clear lollies and put sprinkles in them!

And of course, packaging makes perfect gifts!  We wrapped everything up as pretty as can be and I forgot to take proper pictures!

So much fun and such a joy to cook with these girls!  Can't wait to do it all again for Halloween!

Craft Camps 2015 Week Five: Cooking, Day Two- Entrees and Etiquette!

Day two of Cooking and a Craft Week started with a brief lesson on guest manners.  We started off with our craft and painted and decorated chalkboards to take home to use as menu boards, family greeting boards or for whatever the kids wanted to use it for!

Today we made chicken spaghetti to take home for the family to sample. They learned how I was taught my my Italian great aunt how to know when your pasta is ready!

and how to drain pasta...

 and how to chop veggies...

and how to know if your mixing bowl is too small...

 and how to toss all the ingredients!

While the spaghetti was baking, we made our snack...PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps!

Trust me...I heard all the gripes and complaints about how yucky garlic and onions are, how gross Hoisin Sauce smells and how, "I'm not eating that, Miss Eileen."  But we have a rule here...you have to try one bite unless you are allergic because it's rude to the host...and you never know, but you just might like it.  

This one was skeptical...

See this chickie in the purple tank...she would rather die that smell an onion or garlic.  But she had to obey the rule and she tried a bite...then came back for 4 more servings!  It's that good!

The Chicken Spaghetti just came out of the oven and they were crazy for the aroma! 

 The afternoon class was just as eager!

Making chalkboards are fun...have you ever tried it?

She may look like a finicky eater, but trust me, she's a glutton for Chicken Lettuce Wraps!  Her family made them for dinner the next night!

You can, too!  Try out these recipes:

Check out these chalkboards!

Great times with gregarious girls!  Love them!

Craft Camps 2015 Week Five...Cooking! Day One: Aprons and Breakfast

Cooking Week was amazingly fun and full of all kind of good lessons!  Miss Lucy arrived promptly on time full attired in her chef's cap and apron looking adorable!  She, and all of these great girls were ready to get after it!  So we did!

First was to make our aprons for the week.  I had carved out a few stamps and attached them to wood blocks and the girls stamped on fresh colors onto their aprons.

 

Bam!  Now we can cook!

Not every activity had 12 girls working on each item, but we did display basic techniques before all the girls.  How to crack an egg, how to separate it and most importantly, how to remove shells was first on the list (after learning to wash our hands first and often!)

We made Dutch Babies for our snack, so measuring correctly was very important.

Learning how to turn on an oven, adjust the racks and heat safety were discussed...then we did a little tidying up of the kitchen and started the next project while the Dutch Baby rose in the oven to perfection!

 Look at those proud faces!  We made a lemon syrup to drizzle on top with powdered sugar and gobbled it up with happy bellies! Yum!

Next we made delicious fritattas!

The girls followed the recipe and decided what fillings they wanted in their own.  They were taking these home to let their family sample.

Pouring in the egg mixture...

and ready to take them home!  We made personalized recipe cards while the fritattas were baking.

 Here are the recipes...

and we repeated the process with the afternoon class!

If you've never tried a Dutch Baby, do yourself and your family a big treat for breakfast or dinner!  

It's delicious!

Time for fritattas!

 While the fritattas were baking, I brought out what was left of our boys "Bean Boozled" and the girls had fun with that!  One of them even baked a skunk spray bean into a special fritatta just for her grandfather!  We could even smell it stinking up the kitchen when we pulled the pan out of the oven.  Her grandfather said it tasted like opposum!  Yikes!  This group also made blueberry muffins.

After this group finished cleaning the kitchen and made their recipe cards, they begged to play "Chubby Bunnies," so here you go...

What a funny group of girls...we have so much fun together!