Pee-zah Pie-ah

We brought home dough

Pat it, roll, it, smack it

Get some professional assistance

Paint on some olive oil

Scoop on some crushed tomatoes

Test the ingredients, yes- they'll do

Sprinkle on the cheese

Bake 'her till she bubbles!

Too soon? I think no!

If I want Rosanna to be a famous pastry chef, win "Top Chef: Just Desserts" and buy us (her parents, who she owes everything) a house with the prize money, well then I think 19 months is not too young to start teaching her the art of baking.

This week I found a cookie recipe that had few ingredients (just four!) so it comes together quickly and with only 2 dirty dishes to show for it (winner!).  This led to my toddler sitting on the kitchen counter, modeling ingredients and confused about why my promise of cookies wasn't panning out.

The recipe actually calls for a spice cake mix, but I stood in the cake mix aisle for 5 minutes scanning and searching to find zero cake mixes labeled "Spice".  So I went with butter pecan instead.  I think in the future I will seek out the spice mix, our cookies didn't get that extra fall boost.

So the first thing to do is combine the mix and the pumpkin.  I let my toddler do this.

Sometimes (as in: for the most part) toddler coordination for keeping batter contained to the bowl is a silly expectation.  Shocking, I know.  I just learned about this today.  The result is battered hands, fingers, knee. 

  

Next up?  The egg.  We (I) stirred that puppy in there good.  Lastly are the chocolate chips.  How exciting!  How distracting!  

Hey, kid!  Try and focus, would ya?

Now the boring part, according to Rosie.  So boring, in fact that her mind wandered to other possibilities for our cookies.  I vetoed that one:

Before offering to do the dishes, yes that really happened, she had a minor melt down over the location of the cookies.  Where were they?  Why weren't we eating them?  Why was I playing this cruel trick?

Then we actually did dishes.  What a gal!

To kill some time and distract her from waiting the tragic 15 minutes, I harassed her a bit.  It's kind of my specialty.  She was insistent with her "No thank you!"s, but I am not so easily put off.

And as a reward for her politeness, cookies!!

These cookies turned out cakey (shocking!) and were pretty good.  I had one and decided that a whole bag of chocolate chips is a bit too much.  Moments later my thoughts manifested before my eyes:

Believe it or not, she didn't touch anything before I got her beautified again.  

Her skills need a bit of honing, but I'm up for the challenge!  Next time, maybe a pie......

Ice "Cream"

Tonight I found myself SERIOUSLY craving sweets after dinner.   I looked high and low, tore up cupboards and dug to the back of the freezer, but alas- there is nothing sweet in my house.  This, by the way, is along time goal of mine: have no readily available crap to mindlessly gorge myself on.

I was so desperate I thought, "I need to go out and get something sweet, chocolaty, creamy...".  I, however, have a sleeping child who I am not willing to wake up just to entertain my sweet tooth.  So it was time to get creative.  I had frozen bananas (I make smoothies regularly, plus they are great for teething cuties), I had a can of coconut milk and some cocoa power.  I think I have told you about this dairy-free ice cream recipe in the past, and it's a keeper.  You get all the satisfaction of ice cream with out the heaviness and unhealthiness of dairy.  With my long term goal to eventually be diary-free, this is a good thing!

So: I put a few cups of frozen banana pieces in the blender and added about a half cup of coconut milk.  Then I blended it, adding more coconut milk slowly until the blender could move the banana around and do it's job.  You don't wanna get antsy and add too much, otherwise you'll loose the thickness that make this "ice  creamy".  If you do add too much, it won't be ruined, it'll just be more like a milk shake (or you can add more frozen banana if you have it).  Lastly I added about a tablespoon of cocoa powder and let that get incorporated and swirled in.

Then I ate it.*



*due to the deliciousness of the previous posting, no pictures were captured prior to consuming