This week’s theme for Discover & Explore is Cooking with Kids. When I originally started blogging I planned to share much more often about ideas and recipes for cooking with kids. Lovey and Tinker both enjoy helping in the kitchen, and very few meals in this house are made without their help. Somehow I haven’t shared much this past year, so I’m excited to share one simple recipe we found that works very well for cooking with kids.
Easy Fall Bread
The original inspiration for this recipe are the cheesy crescent roll leaves created by Hungry Happenings. Visit the site for the full recipe tutorial for adults and tips for reheating these rolls for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be focusing on the parts of the recipe we did to make this a super kid-friendly cooking with kids recipe. Lovey was able to do almost everything for this recipe on her own with my supervision.
This post contains affiliate links.
Easy Steps for Making Fall Bread with Kids
Lovey, age 4, wanted to bake bread, so these directions were planned with a preschooler in mind. I decided to use fresh herbs instead of dried ones so that we could discuss the textures and scents of the herbs. I chose leafy parsley and oregano, but you could select any herbs you like or even use dried ones to save time. We kept two separate bowls of each herb.
Lovey did her best to trim the leaves into tiny bits. We probably didn’t follow proper procedures for preparing herbs, but the finished bread tasted great anyway.
After snipping some of the leaves off, Lovey did a little pinching and tearing to break up the herbs even more. The cutting, pinching, and tearing were great for working those fine motor muscles.
We took a moment to explore our sense of smell and see what we thought of the herbs.
Lovey was not too pleased with the smell!
Next I helped her line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly dust our work space with flour. We set the herbs, shredded cheese, melted butter, and cookie cutters out so they were easy to grab.
I rolled out the crescent rolls and Lovey did her best to pinch the seams together. This was another way we incorporated fine motor practice.
Next Lovey used the cookie cutters to cut the dough. We used the Wilton Maple Leaf Cutter and pieces from the Wilton Harvest Cookie Cutter Set.
Once we placed the fall shapes onto the baking sheet Lovey gently covered them with the melted butter.
She sprinkled the cheese.
Then she chose which herbs to put on which pieces of dough. She decided we might want to leave some plain in case the herbs tasted as bad as they smelled. Ha!
After baking at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes, we had this beautiful fall bread to enjoy with dinner.
Less stress, more connecting this holiday season? Yes, PLEASE!
From the arrival of fall to Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the last four months of the year can be a wonderful opportunity for making family memories and spending time together, but they can also be stressful as we try to collect ideas, recipes, and activities to try together.
Stephanie Morgan, founder of Modern Parents Messy Kids, a site that’s been voted Best Craft Blog in Parents Magazine and one of babble.com’s Top 50 Craft Mom Blogs, recently released a new eBook to help us have a little less stress and more time to connect with family this year.
Stephanie’s goal is to make it easier on all of us to enjoy the holidays with our kids. Hands-On Holidays is 100 pages full of her family’s very favorite ways to connect as a family over the holiday season. I love the convenience of having so many ideas in one place, and most of them are simple enough for even my toddler to participate in.
The book includes picture book suggestions, DIY decor, activities, and treats. Bonus sections also offer even more ideas to enjoy. Click here to view more details.
Now it’s your turn. We’d love for you to share how you
Discover & Explore: Cooking with Kids
Please read the following guidelines for sharing:
- Share family-friendly posts related to the weekly topic — kids activities, book activities, crafts, recipes, nature outings, free printables–anything that might be helpful to those wanting to put together activities based on this week’s theme
- By linking up, you are giving me permission to share your post including one photo in our weekly feature post and on social media channels.
- Visit 2-3 other posts that have linked up, find some new ideas & meet new friends!
The linky will remain open for one week. On Fridays all co-hosts will feature activities in a separate post and share featured posts on the Discover and Explore Pinterest Board.
Don’t forget to visit the other co-hosts to see what they are sharing for this week’s theme.
KC Edventures ** Buggy and Buddy ** Teach Preschool ** Twodaloo
Upcoming Discover & Explore Themes
- November 20–Life Skills
- November 27–Gifts
- December 4–December Holidays
- December 11–Indoor Games & Play
- December 18–Winter
This post has been shared at some of these fantastic link parties.
kathrein
Wow, great article.Much thanks again. Will read on
Clarissa Hooper
Your daughter’s face is seriously too cute!! This would be a fun activity to do with my son when he’s a bit older, and the bread looks scrumptious!
Shaunna Evans
Thank you so much! She’s has my knack for making faces for sure. The bread did turn out very yummy. I hope you and your son make it together when he’s old enough.
Beth @ Hungry Happenings
Thanks for sharing a link to my Crescent Rolls Leaves. Your batch turned out great, and it was so fun seeing Lovely create these pretty leaves. Her face while smelling the herbs is priceless!
Shaunna Evans
Thank you so much for the inspiration, Beth! I loved the story of your inspiration for the recipe.
Stephanie
This looks yummy- lthough I think my favorite photo is of Lovey’s reaction to the herbs, LOL! And the Hands-On Holiday book looks wonderful!
Shaunna Evans
I love the photo, too! And wouldn’t you know she actually liked the bread with the herbs in the end?
Sarah
We made Cinnamon Tortilla Crisp in the shape of pumpkins. It was very easy and a yummy snack. I found the recipe on East Coat Mommy’s blog.
Shaunna Evans
We love making those! You’re right…such an easy and tasty recipe for cooking with kids.
JDaniel4's Mom
These would make a yummy snack!
Shaunna Evans
Very true!