Ann from Mason-Dixon Knitting wrote in to tell us about her family’s theme dinners. After Ann’s son came out with those dreaded words “Mom. I don’t mean to be rude, but I really am not loving dinner these days.” Ann started having weekly dinners based on a fun theme.

“We do it once a week or so: the fellas put themes into a pot, and at the conclusion of a Theme Dinner we pick a new theme. So far: Japanese Night, Astronaut Night (for which I served military MREs which were as close to NASA food as I could get, and about which Hubbo complained like a new recruit at boot camp), Vibrant Colored Food Night, German Night, Stadium Food Night, and All Liquids Night. Beige Night is still lurking in the pot.

I’m no Martha Stewart, people. It was pure, stinkin’ boredom that led us to this. And it is, I have to say, really fun. As long as there’s dessert, you can’t lose.” – Ann

In the Kiddley archives you can find a post on having International Food themes for school lunchboxes. We linked to an index of International recipes on Martha Stewart which might be useful when choosing food to match a theme.

For those of you who live in the United States, the 23rd of January is National Soup Swap day (via Not Martha).

The idea is simple enough; Invite along everyone you know and ask them to invite everyone they know. Supply nibbles and drinks and ask everyone to bring along 6 single serves of frozen homemade soup, all packaged in cartons of the same size (about 1 litre / 1 quart) and swap them so that everyone goes home with a six different soups.

It’s probably a bit late to organise a soup swapping event for today (or even this weekend) if you haven’t already started simmering, so perhaps we could have a virtual swap. If you feel so inclined, write up your family’s favourite soup recipe on your blog and then leave us a link in the Kiddley comments. If you don’t have a blog, please feel free to post your recipes directly in our comments.

Here’s a recipe of our own devising which I posted about on Loobylu a couple of years ago. Kids seem to love it, mostly because of the extra fun of adding in all the garnishing bits at the end.

South of the Border Soup

Ingredients
blob of butter or olive oil for frying
1 onion chopped
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 can of 3 bean mix
1 can of chicken consommé (broth)
1 small can of creamed corn
Pinch of cayenne pepper (more if you like it hot)
Pinch of cumin
Pinch of dried oregano
Pinch of dried basil
Slices of avocado, grated cheese, sour cream, squeeze of lemon and tortilla chips (about one cut up per person) fried in olive oil for garnish

Method
Fry the onion, garlic, celery and spices gently in the oil or butter until onion is soft. Add the tin of tomatoes and cook until bubbling. Add the can of beans and the can of creamed corn. Cook until nice and bubbly and then blend with a hand blender. Add chicken consommé and let it heat through.

While this is warming up fry up your tortilla bits in olive oil until they are brown and puffy. Serve in big bowls with slices of avocado, cheese, cream and tortilla chips floating on top. We added a squeeze of lemon juice at the end, but lime would have been better.

You could add some bite sized bits of chicken for extra deliciousness. Alternatively, I am sure a vegetarian style soup would be just as good if you replaced the chicken stock with vegetable stock. Make plenty of the tortilla chips as they are really good to munch on.

Here’s a fun and quick cooking project that you can make with and the kids and give away as gifts. Multi-tasking can begin early! And you can never be to young to appreciate the tasty combination of chocolate and salt. Yum!

You will need:
Small round or square pretzels
Pecan halves
Rolos, Hershey Kisses, or a similar chocolate candy (something with caramel is extra good)
Plastic bags
Labels and markers

Heat your oven to 400°f (200°c) and have the kids stack the pretzels and then Rolos on a cookie sheet. This may take awhile, let them have fun with it. It’s the easy non-hot part.

Pop them in the hot oven for 3 minutes. Different candies take different times, but you want the candy soft enough to be squishy.

Take them out on the oven and transfer to a plate so the kids don’t burn themselves on the tray and have them push the pecan half on top of the chocolate, squishing it down. The chocolate will be hot, so supervise closely. I have never had any burns, but if one goes in the mouth, that would be a big ouch.

Chill the candies in the fridge and when they are firm put into baggies, making decorative labels if you wish. Now give away as gifts (or keep!).

Feel free to try different candy combinations. I’m still trying to figure out a combo that would work with a gumdrop on top. Happy holidays, have fun and don’t forget to wash your hands first!

Hosting a pizza party is a great way to entertain a group of kids who are coming over for a meal, especially if you get them involved in adding their own toppings or even making their own pizza bases.

Here’s a recipe for basic pizza dough. It’s very easy and takes about 2 hours, most of which is spent waiting for the dough to rise; this recipe will make enough dough for 3 pizza bases.

You will need:
One dessert spoon of dry instant yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
A dash of sugar
Plain flour
A dash of salt

Put the water into a largish bowl; stir in the sugar and then sprinkle the yeast on top. Let this sit for about 5 minutes while the yeast gets frothy. Then add the salt and add portions of flour gradually, stirring in half cups until the mixture is combined enough to turn out onto a flat surface. I like to use a mixture of wholemeal and plain flour to give the bases a nice texture. Once you’ve turned the dough out onto a floured surface, knead it for about 5 minutes, adding extra flour as required when the dough gets sticky. Then you can put the dough into a bowl, drizzling a little bit of olive oil on top, and cover it with a damp cloth. Let it sit for at least 45 minutes.

When the dough has risen, punch it down and then turn it out onto a floured surface again. Divide it up into the number of pizzas you’ll be making and knead each one briefly before rolling it out into a pizza shape. Add sauce and your favorite pizza toppings and cook each pizza in a 220°c oven for 15-20 minutes. They’re done when the cheese is bubbly and the base is starting to firm up.

If the kids are making their own pizza dough, it can be fun for them to make their create interesting shapes. You can see AJ’s “butterfly” above.

You don’t need to make the pizza dough yourself either if you’re short on time. You can buy pizza bases and use them instead, or you can even just put the toppings on pita bread and heat them up under the griller.

Did you know that if you live in the US, October is National Popcorn Poppin’ Month? We don’t have any such month here in Australia but any excuse to make some popcorn is a good excuse.

Last night it occurred to me that I had no idea why popcorn pops. So after a little research I found out; A corn kernel pops because it stores a tiny amount of water in a soft centre of starch inside the hard outside casing. When the kernel is heated (to around 235°c or 450°f) the water turns to steam and creates enough pressure inside to break the outside casing and escape, causing the kernel to turn itself inside out. Huh!

I also had a quick look for some things to do with popcorn:

Here are some instructions on how to make a box of popcorn costume for Halloween.

And here’s a recipe for truly delicious sounding caramel popcorn (above). Some of the reviews suggest cutting the amount of butter used in half – which seems to make very little difference to the taste.

Cupcakes are an obvious addition to the party spread and I have found some great decorating ideas. The ones I am most taken with because they are incredibly cute and look comparatively simple are the ghost cupcakes over at Martha Stewart.

In fact, I love these little ghosties so much I might go the distance and try a ghost birthday cake.

The black cat is also mighty cute.

Other cupcake delights for Halloween are Not Martha’s sugar ghosts and chocolate spiders, Familyfun.com has Vampire Faces which look like something you might do if you have a spare five hours or so and Nick Jnr. has some funny mummy cupcakes which seem far more straight forward but require a steady piping hand. Martha Stewart Kids also has a fun line-up, the big-eyed alien is my favourite.

I recently bought a copy of UK nutritionist Jane Clarke’s new book “Yummy!”. It’s an incredibly useful book, a nutrition bible written with great warmth and insight into the way we live and eat right now and simple ways we can go about improving things for our kids.

Jane is a big fan of using seeds in a child’s diet to supply them with all sorts of goodness, and are especially important in a vegetarian or vegan diet. As some seeds are difficult for little kids to digest (such as linseeds) she suggests that whizzing them up in a grinder is the way to go.

Last week I stocked up on some seeds and followed her fabulous idea for making a ground seed mix which can be added to all sorts of dishes for a nutritional boost – stirred through porridge and smoothies, added to softened butter for toast and sprinkled over steamed veggies. I even made a really delicious (and simple) stir fry with soba noodles that only had a little soy sauce and the seed mix for flavouring and it was gobbled down by one and all.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon of linseeds

Heat seeds in a fry pan until they begin to pop. Allow them to cool and then grind in a pestle and mortar or in a grinder (we used our old coffee bean grinder to great effect). Store the mix in an air tight jar for up to a week.

Jane’s recipe calls for two tablespoons of each which makes quite a large amount – I ended up throwing a lot away at the end of the week so next time I will go with the above proportions.

As I mentioned on Loobylu some months ago, Yoko is an infinitely readable story. Every day, Yoko is lucky enough to take a bamboo cooler full of her favourite sushi for school lunch along with a snack of something as delicious as red bean ice-cream; much to her “squeeze cheese on rye” munching class mate’s horror. Her kind teacher decides to hold an “International Food Day” where each student is required to bring along a dish from a different country, and each child must try a taste of everything. Unfortunately the sushi goes pretty much untouched, but Yoko finally makes a new friend from a hungry little critter whose hunger overcomes his reservations about trying something new.

A fun way to spice up a tired lunchbox routine might be to have your own International food day perhaps once a week or once a month. Choose a different country and explore the cuisine in lunchbox style. Martha Stewart has a bunch of international recipes on her site at the moment – not designed specifically for lunchboxes or kids but if you include an icepack for keeping some food cold or a thermos for keeping other foods warm then with a little imagination they could be easily adapted.

I like the sound of Crisp Spring Rolls from Vietnam, Shrimp Potstickers from China and the Spanish Onion and Potato Torte. Obviously these need to be prepared in advance, maybe for dinner the night before but a Greek Salad or some Guacamole served with toasted pita bread could be a quick solution.

Here in Australia we are heading into our September Holidays – which means I don’t have to run around like crazy packing a balanced school lunch before Kinder for the next few weeks. Hooray! But the first of September saw the launch of the Australian lunchbox website and online store LunchMatters, which has me leaping with excitement. Not only do they provide some wonderful lunchbox menu ideas, but they are selling Laptop Lunchboxes here without the ridiculous shipping costs. We bought a set from overseas a little while ago and are really impressed with it. Even when we are having lunch at home it makes eating fun for a pre-schooler.

So now I am thinking about lunchbox ideas again which is nice and timely for the beginning of the school year in other parts of the world.

For inspiration, you can’t go past the Vegan Lunch Box archives. Jennifer Schmoo is no longer making up daily school lunches but there is still plenty of interesting information on her site especially for vegan readers. Recently she has unearthed Bento TV – a quirky video podcast of daily lunch ideas that we are loving, and Dr Fuhrman’s “Packing A Lunch For School” and vegetarian lunch ideas from VegCooking.

Some flickr groups of interest – Laptop Lunchbox and Bento Boxes will keep your mouth watering.

Choice.com has a great interactive lunchbox. Drag and drop some typical lunchbox snacks and see how much sugar, fat and salt your kids are consuming.

** LunchMatters is kindly offering Kiddley readers from Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region a special treat with every order for the month of September (2006). Just mention “Kiddley” in the message section at the end of the ordering process and you will receive a little gift (such as a cookie cutter, extra containers, forks, spoons and so on) with your parcel. Be sure to mention whether you are shopping for a girl, boy or adult so that you will get an appropriate gift. Thanks LunchMatters! **

Kids in the Kitchen is a brand new title from the test kitchens of the Australian Women’s Weekly – which proudly purports to triple test all its recipes and has a fabulous reputation for producing trustworthy, no-nonsense food for ordinary homes for decades. The book is filled with immediately appealing recipes and tips designed for (older) kids to be able to navigate their way through single handedly.

AJ, who is way too young to read, let alone cook anything single handedly, very eagerly sat down at the kitchen table with this book and flicked through the pages with her handy stack of Post-it bookmarks finding oodles of things that she wanted me to help her create. It’s not surprising really, in a book of 175 pages, the sweet things start at page 96. The “Dessert” chapter is closely followed by the “Baking” chapter, followed by “Sweet Treats” and then lastly “Special Occasions” which includes an amazing looking Chocolate easter cake which AJ has marked with three bookmarks incase I miss it. The mouth watering photo shows a dense chocolate cake covered in thick chocolate icing, decorated generously with little chocolate eggs.

The book has lovely photography, clear, uncomplicated instructions and easy to gather ingredients. I am sure most kids will be able to find something here to entice them into the kitchen. This is not a great book for teaching kids about the joys of healthy eating (even the seemingly nutritious chicken noodle soup requires a sachet of chicken flavour), but one which can perhaps be brought out on one of those desperate rainy afternoons that seem to go on and on forever. While I endeavour to keep our waist-lines and sugar levels in check, I will continue to plot and plan for an occasion which requires white chocolate and honeycomb mousse, coconut truffles or the blackberry souffles.

Kids in the Kitchen is available online (including to international destinations) here, but seems to be available in most bookshops and large newsagents here in Australia.

** As a side note, I had a quick flick through the older AWW book Kids Cooking in the supermarket this morning and found that many of the recipes (and the accompanying photos) found in it have been republished in this newer book so tread carefully if you are thinking about purchasing this new one, and already own the older one.