How to Make Strawberry Jam: Canning With Your Kids
Do your kids love to eat jam?
Want to show them how their yummy toast topping arrives at the table, step by step?
Discover the traditional process of canning strawberry jam with your kids! It’s easy, fun and very rewarding.
In this article I’ll show you how to make strawberry jam from fresh fruit and then preserve it by canning.
It’s a feel-good, do-it-yourself project that you can do with your whole family, in your own kitchen and enjoy the fruits of your labor for the rest of the year.
Why Preserve Jam?
If you think of canning as an old-fashioned pursuit best enjoyed by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, think again. Canning and preserving fruits and vegetables is no longer considered old-fashioned. Walk into any bookstore or library these days, and you’re sure to find several modern cookbooks on the practice of preserving.
Like many homesteading activities that went out of style for a generation or two, canning is back in full force. It’s a traditional pursuit that is fun for the whole family. Plus, it’s a great lesson for your kids.
When a family cooks together, you form a special kind of bond. And it’s really fun to prepare and preserve something that you would normally buy in the grocery store. Your kids will learn how jam is made. They’ll gain pride and confidence, and you’ll all have yummy jam you can eat year-round!
Snowman Pancakes: A Twist on Winter Breakfast
Want a warm way to celebrate the snow with your kids?
Looking for a tasty treat to welcome winter days?
Start a new breakfast tradition with your family.
Your children will wait with anticipation as the days grow shorter and the weather gets colder to bring one of their favorite outdoor activities to the breakfast table.
In this article I’ll show you how quick and simple it is to create a snowman extravaganza right at your table. Don’t worry, no snow is needed for this fun family treat.
Why Make Snowmen for Breakfast?
Making pancake snowmen is a great way to get your kids’ help in the kitchen and put a twist on traditional breakfast time.
Making pancakes is fun. Most kids love to help out in the kitchen.
When you transform food into something creative and clever, meal-making becomes memorable.
And when you produce a fun food for a special reason or a particular season—like a school snow day, a holiday break or every Saturday in winter—you create a family tradition your kids will never forget.
How to Make Peppermint Taffy With Your Kids for the Holidays
Do your kids love sinking their hands into anything sticky and gooey?
Are you looking for a fun holiday activity to pull the whole family together?
An old-fashioned taffy pull should do the trick. This hands-on candy-making adventure is sure to create memories that’ll really stick around!
In this article, I’ll show you how to make peppermint pull taffy the way my great-grandmother did.
Why Make Taffy With Your kids?
Taffy-making can become a memorable holiday tradition.
My family’s holiday taffy-making tradition started with great-grandma over a hundred years ago. Since then, five generations of my family have cherished the tradition.
Kids enjoy traditions, those special experiences that come only once a year, so start an annual taffy pull with your family. Your kids will remember so much more than just the sweet-tasting candy. They’ll remember the time spent together with family. With you.
A taffy pull is also a fun way to instill in your kids the value of giving handmade gifts. Who doesn’t love taffy? Here’s their chance to make something any family member or friend would love to receive.
How to Create a Cooking Challenge for Kids
Is there a budding chef in your family?
Are you looking for an entertaining way to get kids to try new foods?
If your family enjoys competitive cooking shows on television, they’ll love having their own Black Box cooking challenge.
Who knows what creative dishes they’ll come up with?
In this article, I’ll show you how to set up a fun family cooking competition using items you already have in your kitchen in 5 quick and easy steps.
Why Black Box Cooking?
Black Box cooking competitions are real and can be very challenging, even for the best professional chefs. You may have seen them on television shows such as Iron Chef.
My husband is an executive chef who works long hours and competes all over the world. We started playing Black Box cooking because my daughter was interested in what her daddy did when he was not home.
You may not have a chef in your family, but a Black Box cooking adventure is still a great way to teach kids about the trade, develop their cooking skills and creativity, introduce them to new foods in a fun way and have lots of fun together, just like on TV.
How to Make After-School Snack Adventures With Your Kids
Are your kids excited to see you after a long day of school or has their hunger transformed them into unrecognized creatures?
Why not bring back your happy kids with a fun and flavorful after-school snack activity that will get them talking?
Imagine your kids making petrified pizza, yogurt mosaics and edible wishing wands.
In this article, I’ll show you how to make three easy, fun and tasty after-school snacks with your kids that will satisfy their hunger and your need to connect.
Why Make an After-School Snack With Your Kids?
If your kids are like mine, when they get home from school, they’re STARVING. They’re going to dive into the first food they see, so why not build a little fun, creativity and conversation into their afternoon snack once in a while?
Take a few minutes to prepare something with them that makes them smile—and is reasonably healthy too.
It’s a great way to spend a few minutes of fun together and give your children a much-needed break in between a long school day and an evening full of homework, chores and sports or other activities.
Taste Test Game: How to Get Your Kids Eating New Foods
Tired of hearing “yuck” and “no” to everything but chicken nuggets and mac ‘n cheese?
Looking for a way to get your kids to try new foods without resorting to nagging, bribery or deception?
Let your kids be food critics for a day.
In this article, I’ll show you a creative and fun way to introduce your kids to new flavors, textures and foods that can lead to a lifetime of healthier, more adventurous eating.
Why Encourage Children to Try New Foods?
When you turn food experimentation into a game instead of an obligation, your kids will be more willing to try new things. And they may just discover that there’s a lot more to mealtime than peanut butter and jelly.
Four Fun Food Art Projects That Encourage Kids to Eat Healthy
Having trouble getting your kids to eat healthy foods?
Do they make faces when asked to eat their fruits and vegetables?
Here’s a fun way to encourage your kids to make faces (and other creative things) with healthy foods instead of at them.
And they may be more likely to eat the good stuff.
In this article I’ll show you how to make four fun and easy food art projects your kids will love to create and to gobble up.
Why Food Art?
Food art is a simple way to increase the appeal of healthy food to your kids by making eating fun.
As a pediatric dietitian nutritionist, I have done many food experiments with kids. One fact has stood out loud and clear: Make nutrition into a game and they will play. And they will eat! They’ll eat because it’s part of the game and there’s no pressure to eat for “real.”
Three Food Games to Entertain Your Kids for Hours
Are you looking for fun activities that will occupy your kids for hours?
Have you ever told your kids to stop playing with their food?
In this article I’ll show you how you and your kids can use food for science projects, art and buildings.
Your kids may just learn a few things by playing with their food.
Why Play With Food?
There’s something neat about using food for science experiments, art projects or building blocks. My kids love to take items they usually use in certain ways and repurpose them.
