I believe in letting kids help in the kitchen — most days. I’ve read a lot of posts about how to get your kids involved in the kitchen. They usually offer suggestions for older kids. But I’ve found that when you allow your kids to help when they are young and want to help, you can keep them interested in the kitchen.
Besides having a lot of patience, here’s how my kids measure flour and sugar:
Dip the measuring cup into the container and use the back side of a knife to level it off.
Then dump it in and start mixin’
It’s Strawberry Season!
Really sweet strawberries only last a short amount of time. But I like them year round. To preserve strawberries I flash-freeze and foodsaver them.
1. Line jelly-roll or 9×13 pan with wax paper or Exopat/Silpat non-stick baking mat
2. wash, cut and core strawberries and place on pan in a single layer. You don’t want them on top of each other. I can fit about 2# of cut strawberries on a jelly roll pan.
3. lay flat in freezer for 24 hours. This is flash freezing. You want to completely freeze each individual strawberry piece.
4. After strawberries are completely frozen, remove them and fill a quart size FoodSaver bag.
5. Using FoodSaver, remove air and seal the bag. It’ll look something like this. Notice how there aren’t air pockets?
6. Store in the freezer for a LONG time. This is the beauty of storing in FoodSaver bags. It reduces the amount of air that comes in contact with your food and therefore reduces the likelyhood of freezer burn. And in my book, that’s a good thing.
I store these bags in my deep freeze and pull out when I want to cook with strawberries. Usually they go into smoothies, so frozen is just fine. If you want to thaw them out and eat like a fresh fruit, you’re going to get a different consistency. Not gross, but more watery and not as firm.
I froze a LOT of strawberries last year and have been using them off and on throughout the year. I just opened a package from 12 months ago for smoothies. They taste wonderful. No freezer burn either.
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Linked to Tammy’s Kitchen Tip Tuesday
Bread goes quickly at our house. But it needs to be stored somewhere. We use a tupperware breadbox or just plain old plastic bread bags. These hold a 1.5# loaf of our favorite homemade wheat bread from the breadmaker. I can reuse them several times before throwing them away.
To keep homemade bread soft, remove from bread pan and let cool for about 30 minutes. Then place in breadbag or breadbox. Wait another 30 minutes and then slice. It’s easier to slice when cool. Also, don’t leave the bread out very long. Once the meal is over, or lunches made, put the bread back in it’s bag.
For more Back to School Lunch ideas check out my other posts:
