We Like Making Our Own Stuff

Want to get your kids more involved in cooking?  Then make it fun!  Jazz up breakfast a little bit by turning plain pancakes into Teddy Bear pancakes.  Chef in training. You can use any pancake recipe you'd like for the batter, but I'll give you one below.  Basically, all you do is use a spoon to make shapes with the pancake batter in the pan--pretty simple.  After the kids make a few teddy bears, they will likely want to try out other shapes--we ended up making a flower, a guy with a hat, and a "Big Foot." We got the idea for these pancakes from a book called My First Cookbook written by Rena Coyle .  My husband has had this cookbook since he was a kid, and now our kids are discovering its recipes. Teddy Bear (or Big Foot) Pancakes Ingredients: 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 Tablespoons butter, melted 1 egg 1 cup milk Chocolate chips, other sma...

I'm always willing to try new things, so when I ran across a breakfast recipe for Fried Polenta, I knew I had to give it a shot (the picture looked so yummy). Polenta is so simple to make and only requires two ingredients:  masa harina (or cornmeal if you don't have the masa harina) and water.  I like to substitute masa harina in most recipes calling for cornmeal.  I prefer masa harina over cornmeal because masa harina has been soaked in slaked lime.  " And your point is...? " you may be wondering.  Well, I think Sally Fallon can explain better than I.  Here is an excerpt from her book, Nourishing Traditions : Traditional recipes call for soaking corn or corn flour in lime water.  This releases nicotinamide (vitamin B3), which otherwise remains bound up in the grain.  Soaking also improves the amino acid quality of proteins in the germ.  If you use corn products often, the simple precaution of soaking corn flour in lime water will help a...