As promised, Body
Parts.
The top two allies
in edible Body Parts are flour-based.
Pasta and bread dough. They can
be shaped, trimmed, stretched and stacked to take on just about any shape. You can create them from scratch, buy them
semi-prepared or even totally prepared. Even
better, they’re fun to play with. I’ve
had more fun with the boys by giving them their little plastic knives and a
bunch of cookie cutters, rolling out some dough, and telling them to build a
snowman, build a house, build a monster.
I’ve found that if you do this, you’ll get all sorts of stories from
them about how such and such monster has more legs, because he likes sneakers,
or the head on this one is HUMONGOUS because he tried not to sneeze and pinched
his nose … I love these stories. They make
everyone laugh and amazingly, they listen to each other. What a great skill they’re learning.
I’ve already given
my pasta recipe a few times but since I really dislike scrolling and clicking, I’m
going to give it again for your convenience.
Also, here’s a very simple dough recipe for pizza dough which is
probably the easiest “bread” dough to make.
It mixes well and holds up to a lot of molding and shaping.
Remember that this might also be a good opportunity to add value to the dough, check out www.KingArthurFlour.com or www.Allrecipes.com for recipes for whole wheat and grain breads.
Another source for
doughs is the freezer section at your grocery store. Frozen pizza dough, frozen bread dough (whole
wheat or white), frozen rolls. Frozen
rolls have the added bonus of allowing you to thaw and use just a small amount,
but make sure that the dough has not been baked at all prior to freezing. If it already looks like a roll, it's probably been cooked at least a bit.
A final tip about
bread dough creations: Make sure the kids wash their hands before they
start. You really do want the creations
to be edible.
Pasta:
|
2 to 2 ¼ cups all
purpose flour
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
|
Blend all
ingredients and knead until flour is incorporated and dough is elastic. Put in plastic bag and let rest on
counter top for about ½ hour.
Dust your
counter top liberally with flour and using a rolling pin, roll out the
dough. Flip the dough and flour it so
it doesn’t stick, and continue rolling (turning/flipping as needed) until the
dough is as thin as you can get it (it plumps when cooked, so you want it
thin). I try to get it thin enough to
see my hand through it.
Use cookies
cutters, knives, pizza cutter, etc. to achieve desired shapes.
In a large pan,
bring a couple of quarts of water to a boil.
Salt the water. Stir the water and drop in the pasta shapes, continuing
stirring for about a minute so the shapes don’t stick together. Cook for 4-6 minutes, testing for
doneness. Drain and serve.
|
Just a note about this recipe … I use a flour blend,
Italian Blend from King Arthur Flour Company, but All Purpose flour works as
well. I also often add dried herbs to
the flour before mixing and kneading.
I’ve even been known to add spices like nutmeg or cinnamon to the water
when boiling the pasta. It doesn’t add
too much flavor, rather just a hint.
|
Pizza Dough:
|
2 ¼ Tsp (1 envelope) active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups warm
water
Combine in a large
mixing bowl or the bowl of a heavy
duty mixer, and let stand until yeast dissolves (approx 5 min).
Add:
3 ½ to 3 ¾ cups all
purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp salt
|
Mix by hand, or on
low speed for about 1 minute to blend all ingredients. Knead for about 10 minutes (by hand or with
dough hook on mixer). Turn dough out
into a lightly greased bowl and cover.
Let rise about 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Then you can begin
playing with and shaping the dough.
Bake at 425 until
golden brown.
|
TIP: If you have shapes that vary wildly in
sizes, just keep an eye on them in the oven, and maybe even bake at a lower
temperature so that the tiny pieces don’t burn.
|
Supplies:
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