Aggression Cookies and Other Kitchen Fun

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I am not very creative in the kitchen. I know that there are many people who just love cooking. I am not one of them. My husband is and I am content to leave it that way.

Well, today was a rainy day and I decided to pull out The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. She has a section titled "Rainy Day Play." I thought I would peruse the section and get some ideas for our rainy day. I never made it to that section. I opened the book to the "Kids in the Kitchen" section. I found a recipe that caught my attention: "Aggression Cookies." No Kidding. That's the name of the recipe! Kuffner boasts on the page, "This is truly one recipe your child can make all by himself." Hmmm, I doubt that, I thought, but we'll give it a try. I had all the ingredients already on hand. The best part of this recipe is that all of the ingredient can be eaten without cooking. There are no eggs and thus, no salmonella fears.

After you measure all the ingredients, the directions say, "Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl and let your child really go at it! Pound, punch, and knead the batter- the longer and harder the dough is mixed, the better the cookies will taste!" Boy, did my daughter have fun! At first she was hesitant, but after some encouraging, she did exactly what the directions said.

After much dough punching, squishing, and eating. We rolled the dough into balls and waited while our cookies baked.

The end result was quite impressive. I had my initial doubts but they are really yummy, oatmeal cookies. My hubby said that he could quite easily eat every last cookie in the cookie jar. They are quite addictive.

Now, generally, I can only manage one recipe a day in the kitchen. However, the success of the cookies gave me confidence. I took the recipe from the other night for Savory Parmesan Bites and modified it a bit. I made half of the batch like the recipe but the kids didn't really like the red peppers and we're on a real Pesto kick around here lately. So, I got creative with the recipe and made my own. We'll call them Savory Cream Cheese Pesto Bites. Both kids loved them and my hubby said he liked the new recipe as much as the original.

I tried one last recipe today. I found this recipe looking for ways to use our crop of Basil. My husband loves summer salads. I don't like vinegar or mayonnaise so I'm not a huge fan since most salads contain one of these two ingredients. I saw this recipe today and knew it would be a hit with my hubby. I omitted the Balsamic Vinegar until the end so that I could take out some for the kids and I to eat plain. My hubby really liked it. My son and I liked it without the vinegar. And, my daughter hated it both ways. She had it in her mind before she even tasted it that it would be yucky. We have a reunion to go to next weekend and I think that this will be the dish that I bring to pass. Easy to make, summery taste, and nothing to spoil during the heat of the picnic.

As we sat down to eat dinner, my husband asked me if I realized that I was serving a completely vegan meal. Believe it or not, I hadn't realized that fact.

After dinner, I asked my meat-loving hubby if he enjoyed his vegan meal. His reply was that his belly was full and that everything was delicious. That, my dear, is the right answer!