Tips and Tricks - Chapter 3

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.

 

I’m planning to take pictures or body parts, but there are some supplies I’ll need to get.  That means that this Chapter is to be continued…..

Supplies:

Carrots                      Olives                             Elbow Noodles
Celery                        Blueberries                   Lasagna Noodles
Potato                       Radish                            Block of cheese
Apple                        Hazelnuts                       Sliced Almonds (skin on if possible)
Cucumber                Cauliflower                    Mushrooms
Kiwi                           Rice                                 Ricotta or cream cheese
Cold Cuts

Until next time ...

 

Just a Sneak Preview (because I'm pretty proud of this idea!)

Cooking Skill Level: Not Really Sure Yet

Ok, so I thought I'd have all the plans for the next book and dinner ready.  I've decided to go with On My Way to the Bath by Sarah Maizes, but I couldn't think about how to tie the menu to the book.  Then it hit me.  I'm so darn impressed with my creativity that I just had to post this.  I'll write up the whole blog post about the meal and the book on Tuesday after I've met with the boys, but I just need to brag a bit ...

I kept thinking of things I could do to portray the adventures on the way to the bath, but then I realized that I could make the bath itself the whole story.  We'll use small bowls of broth as the bath, and the boys can pick and choose from a smorgasbord of things to put into the bath/soup.  I'll make some green linguini (a Tbs of pesto instead of one of the eggs), the tiniest of baby spinach leaves for jungle, moustaches cut out of cooked potato slices, sunglasses (thank you, King Arthur Flour for the sunglasses cookie cutter), various animal cracker shapes that I'll make (or Goldfish if I get lazy)... oh it's going to be great fun.  Once they add everything to the bath tub soup, it'll be a fun slurp or two!

Look for the pictures and actual menu items on Tuesday.

Tips and Tricks - Chapter 1

Cooking Skill Level: You Decide

I just want to remind you that pasta and pie crust will take you far in cooking books. There are many readymade pasta shapes that can be used for scenery, bodies, animals, and clothing. You can also use cooked lasagna noodles and cookie cutters/knives to create just the shape you need. For example, if you need a sweater, you can make one by cutting a sweater shape out of a cooked noodle. If you need Rapunzel’s hair, you could use cooked and braided angel hair pasta (or spaghetti squash!).

If you find yourself using the cooked lasagna noodle method a lot, do yourself a favor and try the pasta recipe I’ve recommended. It’s so easy and so good that you won’t mind making a meal for yourself out of the odd shapes that are left after you cut out the shapes you need. Just cook those pieces and toss them in butter and you’ll be happy.

Pasta:

2 to 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour or Italian Style (00) 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 countertop for about ½ hour. Dust your countertop 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.

Just as you can use cooked lasagna noodles or homemade pasta to cut shapes, you can use a prepared pie crust or your own homemade ones. These make great cookies and are perfect with some fresh fruit to make a story-based dessert. Sometimes, just before the meal, but after the story, I’ll give each of the kids a cookie cutter and let them cut out dessert. I’ll then bake them while the boys eat, and they just love having a dessert they made. If I use a prepared crust, I’ll sprinkle it with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, colored decorating sugar, or brush it with some liquid flavoring (vanilla, orange, etc.). If I make my own, I might add some flavorings to the liquid I use, or powdered spices to the flour. Even plain, they make great tasting “cookies”.

The best part of all of this is that you can always just tell the kids that’s what it’s supposed to look like, or you can only find this kind of [insert noun here] on windless days in Peru while riding on the back of a large fish and wearing red and blue striped rubber boots on the wrong foot.

I’ll be doing more of these sorts of hints to fill in the weeks without a book, so look for the next one which will be all about body parts (complete with pictures).