Thursday, October 15, 2009

Cooking With My Kids/My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I've said before how much I love cooking with my kids. The first thing you need when cooking with toddlers is the gear. They love an apron and a chef's hat. They gotta look the part! The second thing you need is a "safe cutter knife" (can get cheap from Pampered Chef). Trust me, they can't hurt themselves on this knife! In this picture, Hailey is trying to split a macadamia nut in half. She wasn't successful, but it sure kept her busy.

I'm carefully monitoring Hailey as the butter is melted on very low heat. She enjoys "stirring" it around. We don't have a microwave, so I bought this adorable little cast iron pan that I use just for melting butter or coconut oil. Isn't it cute?

Cooking is such a great homeschooling activity. Josiah is learning his fractions simply by cooking with me. Now that he is actually able to use a small knife, he is getting to be a great help. When I use the food processor or my KitchenAid , the kids fight over who is going to help me. They love it!

Here are the yummy white chocolate macadamia nut cookies the kids helped me make. The thing I absolutely love about this cookie recipe is that it is so versatile. I use this same recipe to make regular chocolate chip cookies and well other types. This recipe makes a lot (48 cookies), so I like to freeze half the dough and only make two sheets of cookies at a time. By the next day, the whole wheat flour tends to make the cookies crumble easily, so you want to eat them fairly quickly. Trust me, this won't be a problem!

Jackie's Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies:
1 cup honey
1 cup sucanat
1 cup butter or coconut oil (softened)
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
4 1/4 whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (use organic if possible - don't want anything hydrogenated and if you can get them made with unrefined sugar, even better!)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together honey, sucanat, butter or coconut oil, eggs and vanilla. If you are using a mixer, add flour, baking soda, salt, chocolate chips and nuts. When well mixed, drop dough onto sheet (I love using stoneware) and cook 10 to 12 minutes. However, I like to bake two stoneware bar pans at a time. If you are going to do this, place both room temperature stoneware on middle rack and only cook for 9 minutes if you like soft cookies. You may need to adjust flour and length of cooking time depending on if you like a soft or crispy cookie. Enjoy!
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10 comments:

christy rose said...

white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are my all time favorite cookie ever!!! Hailey looks absolutely adorable in that chef's hat!! :)

Catherine said...

Great ideas, Jackie! And both your kids look good in the kitchen. There is nothing like teaching them young and early to be comfortable in the kitchen. My granddaughter Isabella and I made biscuits and nutitional yeast gravy last week. It was delicious, and she felt confident in her ability. She loves the compliments on her cooking too!

Jessica said...

Love it! They look like pros, and you can tell they're having fun, too! Those cookies look soooo yummmmy! Mmmmm! I luv that you use different activities to build on counting skills...we do, too, but I'm not sure it's in a way I should be super proud of... See, we drink soda (more than we should for sure!) and so whenever Chris opens a case to put the cans in our fridge, Kyleigh helps pull the cans out of the box and counts them as she lines them up in the fridge; and last night Josiah "helped", too. Maybe that's not the healthiest example to teach them...but at least we're not teaching them to count cigarettes or something! LOL I think your kids are so awesome, hope you all enjoy those cookies!

COUNTRY MOM said...

Love all the pics:) It is so fun to cook with your kids. Mine love helping me cook dinner. The cookies look delicious !!!

OurLilFullFam said...

Hey - how did you know I was craving chocolate chip cookies today? Looks delicious!! Thanks for sharing!

Looks like your children had a lot of fun too. I love pampered chef stuff as well.

Stephanie

alexis said...

Those look yummy! your children are so cute! I like to cook with my oldest boy, too, but he doesn't really have any interest!

Unknown said...

What fun! And the cookies look scrumptious!

His bondservant said...

Jackie,

Your kids look adorable!!! And thanks for posting a healthier chocolate chip recipe. I keep my kids on a strict diet due to health concerns and am always on the lookout for healthy recipes. I am looking forward to giving this one a try!

Blessings,
Jackie

Camille said...

CUTE!! I love the pics of the kids with the "gear" on...so adorable! Well done for getting them involved in the kitchen...that's fabulous! :)

Stacie, A Firefighter's Wife said...

These cookies are wonderful! Can you bring some up for us? I'm sure they are already eaten by now!

The kids look so cute. Hailey in her chef's hat! Too sweet!

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