Easy Kid Friendly Vegetarian Taco Dinner

This is one of our family's favorite easy dinners. What I love about this meal is that it does not contain meat.  My daughters love the fact that they can "design" their own tacos.  We are not vegetarians in our home but we do try to minimize our meat intake each week and the beans are a great protein substitute.

What you need:

• your favorite taco toppings: lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, tomatoes, salsa etc.
• can of vegetarian fat free refried beans
• bag of frozen corn
• mild taco seasoning
• hard taco shells or soft tortilla shells

What you need to do:

• chop up all of your toppings
• warm up the refried beans and frozen corn in a pan
• add taco seasoning to pan
• fill the shells with the beans/corn mixture
• have your children add whichever toppings they like

Dorinda's shop, Raising Green Kids, offers eco-friendly products for your family such as wool dryer balls, Unpaper towels, and fabric decorations. Follow her on Facebook and twitter and at her blog.

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Sugar Bunny Cookies

Spring is nearly here! And with that comes Easter yay!!
I love Easter! So many happy bright colours, and chocolate and playing outside in the sunshine again! Happy times : )
Getting all excited for Easter I wanted to make some cookies for the weekend, so made bunny cookies!

I used a basic sugar cookie recipe to make them, then added white icing and chocolate sprinkles. So super easy, and if you don't have a rabbit cookie cutter, why not make flowers with coloured sprinkles?

Ingredients:

• 100g Butter
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 1 Egg
• Splash of vanilla essence
• 225g Plain flour

Put the butter into a bowl, (if like me you forgot to take it out of the fridge to soften, zap it on a very low heat in the microwave so its soft but not melting). Add the sugar to the butter and mix together until it is light and fluffy.

Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix it up well again.

Slowly add the flour to the mixture, it works best to mix in with a spoon and not electric mixer I find.

Once the flour is mixed in, knead the mixture into a smooth dough. This bit is important for a nice texture and for rolling!

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 15-30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180*C. While the oven is heating sprinkle a surface with some flour and a rolling pin and roll  out the dough to about 1cm thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out your cookies and place them on a lightly greased baking tin. You can place them close together as the cookies will not grow in the oven.

Bake the cookies for 10 mins in the oven, until the edges are starting to turn golden brown. Leave them to cool on a wire rack before eating/decorating.

For the icing I used Brown Eyed Baker's tutorial, and managed to do it, although I have never been very good at icing!!
And then you add the sprinkles while the icing is still wet. And thats it! Enjoy your spring cookies!

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After School Snack:: Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've had some super hungry kids coming home from school this week.  Super hungry.  It surprises them and me how much they grow over the summer.  What they took in K/3rd/5th/6th grade isn't always enough to carry them through 1st/4th/6th/7th grade.  So we've been adjusting the menu options, boosting the nutritional value of what they take and making sure they are packing enough to sustain them.  But my brood still needs a little something when they come home from school to tide them over through homework and me making dinner.  

This muffin recipe is one I haven't used in years, and my kids are so glad I pulled it out this week and made it.  In the time it took everyone to unload backpacks, lunch boxes and put everything away, I had these mixed up and in the oven.  They are quick, simple and make a small enough batch that you're in and out in 30 minutes.  Perfect for an occasional after school snack.  

Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup whole milk (skim -2% also works)
6 tablespoons butter – melted and cooled (I needed to substitute oil here & it worked!)
2 eggs – beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line muffin pan with papers

Sift flour, sugars, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, stir together milk, eggs, butter and vanilla until blended. Make a well in center of dry ingredients: add milk, mixture and stir just to combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into muffin cups; bake 15-17 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean. Remove muffin tin to wire rack: cool 5 minutes and remove from tins to finish cooling.

Makes a dozen beautifully full muffins.

If a dozen muffins is more than your family needs as an after school snack, consider making half the batch into mini muffins to include in lunches.  Or bag up the left overs to use for breakfast.  They also freeze well so you can freeze extras to use later in the month.   

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Olympic Breakfast

If your house is like mine, the Olympics have been the only thing on our television for the last 10 days. We’re enjoying watching the athletes compete, learning about new sports, and celebrating the victories. Today, my son told me water polo is his favorite Olympic sport. Random, but he does love to swim and play in the pool.

These scones are super easy and a fun breakfast or snack while you watch the games. Scones are served with afternoon tea in Britain, with clotted cream and jam. Cheers!

Scones and Nearly Clotted Cream

Scones

Mix together

2c flour
3t baking powder
1/2t salt
2T sugar

Cut in

1/4c softened butter

Mix in

3/4c milk
1 beaten egg

Roll to a 1-inch thick circle. Transfer to baking sheet and cut into 6-8 wedges but don’t separate. (This time I cut them into 16 because I made them to share.) Bake 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Serve with nearly clotted cream (below) and jam.

 Nearly Clotted Cream

Combine

1c sour cream
1t brown sugar
1t vanilla

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