kids cooking

Kids in the Kitchen – Squishing tomatoes

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Here’s an easy and fun idea if you’re looking for tactile activities or sensory table ideas for your kids.  Great for preschoolers and elementary school kids alike, the kids will get a big kick out of squishing tomatoes with their bare hands!

Start with a bowl full of fresh tomatoes.  If you don’t have fresh ones, use canned whole tomatoes and skip straight to the crushing part!

Tactile activity for kids

Remove the skins.  This part should be done by an adult!  To get the skins off, put tomatoes into boiling water for 30 sec – 1 min, and then plunge into cold water.

crushing tomatoes kids in the kitchenOnce the tomatoes are cooled, the kids can remove the skins, which will be cracked open and easily peel away.  Teach a composting lesson by adding the skins to your compost!

Composting with KidsThe skinless tomatoes are ready to be crushed!

crushing tomatoes with kidsMake sure the kids have clean hands (up to their elbows!) and all jewelery is removed.  Get crushing!  To watch how much fun our kids had doing this, check out our tomato crushing video

Kids Sensory Activity - Crushing Tomatoes

Some ways you can integrate this activity into your home, daycare, or preschool activity schedule:

  1. Cooking – use the crushed tomatoes as part of a class cooking project (tomato sauce)
  2. Gardening – visit a farmers market or local garden to learn about tomatoes and then take some home with you.  Teach about composting as well.
  3. Halloween theme – Halloween is fast approaching and we’re sure that the sticky, slimy, soggy-ness of this activity would be lots of fun as part of a halloween party!  You could crush some tomatoes in advance, blindfold the kids, and have them stick their hands into the gooey bowl!

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Kids in the Kitchen – Making Baked Potato Chips

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I’ve never sent potato chips to school with the kids’ lunches before, but now that we’ve discovered this easy, healthier option to bake them ourselves, this might just become the newest lunchtime or after school snack!  My eight year old was the tester for this project – she had fun with it and it was super easy for her.  (I did all the chopping and placement in oven).  Plus, the kids liked the finished product!

To make home made potato chips we used:

3 yukon gold potatoes (these were from our garden – exciting for me b/c I’m new to growing potatoes.  One of ours was giant, so you could use 4 average sized potatoes.  You could also try russet)

Cooking oil (we used canola oil)

Salt (up to 1/2 tsp, but we just used a shake or two)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.

  1. Scrub the potatoes – our crafty kid used a scrubber brush with a handle that was easy for her small hand to hold
  2. Thinly slice potatoes into chips.  We used a sharp knife, but a mandolin or food processor would make quick work of this and would ensure evenly sliced chips
    Slice Potatoes into Chips
  3. Add 1 tbsp oil to bowl, and toss potatoes.  Kids can use their hands to really make sure everything is mixed well
    Kids Making Potato Chip Snack
  4. Sprinkle chips with salt and toss again
    Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids
  5. Spread chips evenly across greased cookie sheets in a single layer.  Avoid overlap so they all crisp up really well!
    Spread potatoes on pan in thin layer
  6. Bake potato chips at 400 for 20 minutes or untll crispy.  You’ll want to check them every couple of minutes to ensure that they don’t overbake
    Baked Potato Chips Easy Snack Idea for Kids
  7. Put them into a bowl and enjoy!
    homemade baked potato chips

Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum!!!  If you try this with your kids, let us know!!

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Kitchen with Kids – Making Pretzels for our Camping Trip

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If you’re looking for some yummy ideas for your next road trip or camping expedition, enlist the kids to do some baking. Before our most recent camping trip, we decided to try making soft pretzels to take with us.  My daughter took the lead on this one – she ended up doing most of the work and her pretzels looked far more ‘pretzel like’ than mine did!  Maybe you need small hands to make a perfect pretzel?

We used this recipe:

2 1/4 tsp dry yeast (1 packet)
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 egg, beaten
coarse salt

  1. Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup warm water and add salt and sugar
  2. Blend in the flour
  3. Knead dough until smooth
  4. Cut dough into small pieces and roll into ropes. Shape into pretzel shapes
  5. Place on lighly greased cookie sheets.  Brush with beaten egg.  Sprinkle with coarse salt
  6. Bake immediately at 425 for 12 to 15 minutes

Here’s our pretzel maker hard at work:

Pretzel maker sitting like a pretzel Rolling the dough for pretzels

Note: you don’t need to sit like a pretzel to make pretzels, but maybe that’s why her pretzels looked so good?!!  You can roll the dough in your hands or on the board, depending on which works better for you.

Kids doing egg wash for baking activity  kids sprinkling salt

Egg wash and salt sprinkling were fun for her and easy for any age!  You might want to dust some of the salt off after the kids sprinkle, so that they’re not over-salted

Finished Pretzels

Our finished product – we needed to test them right out of the oven and they were YUMMY!

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