Food and Cooking

Looking for a unique hands-on birthday party for kids ages 9–15? Celebrate your child's birthday with a fun and delicious cooking party at Sausalito's Pine Point Cooking School! The guests and birthday girl/boy will learn to prepare a tasty Mediterranean-inspired lunch or dinner, and of course eat it, too.

Partygoers will cook appetizers, marin courses, side dishes, and dessert. Possible dishes include Greek cheese triangles, roast polenta, chicken saltimbocca, and pizza. The menu is planned with the birthday honoree's tastes in mind. The lesson turns into a party as everyone eats what they've cooked around the dining table (parents are invited, too). The celebration wraps up with party favors and a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" over dessert!

read more »

Get the kids into the kitchen and create these tasty heart-shaped pizzas for Valentine's Day! They're easy to make, reasonably healthy, and children can have fun customizing them to their taste. We made these in our kitchen and had a lot of fun. And we got to eat them for lunch, too. This recipe was inspired by the great ready-to-use pizza carried by Trader Joe's—you can get all the other ingredients there, too. You can of course make these any time (heart-shaped or just plain round).

Almost every kid—and every grownup, for that matter—loves chicken noodle soup. Nothing's better when you're feeling under the weather, and it's always welcome when you're feeling fine, too. With the recent damp and gloomy weather we've been making a lot of homemade soups, since they're warming and comforting on a cold and stormy winter night. There are usually plenty of leftovers, too, so it also means you don't have to cook lunch or dinner the next day.

Making homemade chicken noodle soup can be a pretty time consuming task, but we've developed a really easy, healthy, and tasty version here in our kitchen. You can make it entirely with ingredients you can get at Trader Joes, which is good since we tend to shop there most of the time. Chances are, you have most of these things in your refrigerator and cupboard already. The whole process takes about a half hour to put together, so you'll be your family a hot bowl of soup in no time.

This is one of those recipes that my kids are guaranteed to eat. They usually ask for more, too.

I think most parents of young children will agree with me when I say that sleep is a precious commodity. In fact, I think much of the sleep that I think I've had in the past few years was in fact not sleep at all, but "liquid naps" in the guise of coffee and other caffeinated drinks. Yes, coffee and tea in all their forms keep many of us moving through the day.

Often, it's impractical to drag the kids into a coffee place, or perhaps you want to pick up a latté when they're asleep in their car seats. This is where the amazing phenomenon that is drive-through coffee comes into place. There really aren't many drive-through coffee joints in Marin, perhaps because we're less into the whole suburban drive-to-Walmart culture, but they can be found at convenient locations throughout the county. Of course you can always get your caffeine fix via the McDonald's drive through—after all, they make espresso drinks now—but chances are you'd rather get your coffee from someplace dedicated to the craft of making it.

When it's rainy and you're stuck indoors, it can be fun to get the children involved in the kitchen with an easy, kid-friendly recipe. My kids love to help make these easy applesauce muffins almost as much as they enjoy eating them. With a crunchy brown-sugar topping and a hint of spice, they're perfect with breakfast or an anytime treat.

Kids can help to stir and mix the ingredients together, spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, and test the muffins to see if they're done. (Keep little hands away from hot ovens and pans, though—safety first!) One thing I often do to make the whole process go more smoothly is to measure out all the ingredients first and array them on the counter. That way they're waiting for the kids when they come into the kitchen to help.

Since this has been a pretty popular post, we thought we'd update it for the New Year. Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to our ever-growing list!

Like many families these days, we find ourselves grabbing lunch or dinner on the go probably more than we should. Of course all this dining out adds up after a while and has the potential to be a major drain on the wallet. Fortunately, there are plenty of family-friendly restaurants in Marin that offer free dining for kids—usually with the purchase of an adult entree—one or more days during the week. Here's our list, broken down by location.

All information presented here is, to our knowledge, correct at the time of publishing, but you should confirm with the restaurant just in case. We've included links to the restaurants' websites when possible.

For many of us, the holidays mean it's time to bake cookies and other seasonal treats. It's always fun to get the kids involved, and this gingerbread cookie recipe via What's Cooking's Michelle Stern is a perfect one to use. It doesn't take a long time to make (no rest time in the refrigerator), and it can be worked and shaped like play-dough. Unlike a lot of cookie doughs it holds its form and doesn't melt into a shapeless blob in the oven.

Gingerbread Cookie Play-Dough

5 ½ c. flour
3 t. baking soda
1 ¾ c. dark brown sugar
¼ c. dark molasses
4 ½ t. ground cinnamon
3 t. ground ginger
½ t. cloves
¼ t. salt
1 c. melted butter
½ c. boiling water
1 egg, beaten

Two Marin-based and mom-run businesses—Studio 4 Art and What's Cooking—have teamed together to present Soup—The Bowl that Keeps Feeding, a benefit to help fight childhood hunger in our community. The event takes place Sunday, November 15, 2009, from 11 am to 2 pm, at Fresh Starts Cooking School, located at 1385 N. Hamilton Parkway in Novato.

Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and include a meal of soup and bread as well as the bowl of your choice. All proceeds from Soup—The Bowl that Keeps Feeding will be donated to Homeward Bound of Marin's Emergency Family Shelter.

One of the unique features of this event has been the way it's gotten children involved in their community. The soup will be prepared by children from local schools under the guidance of What's Cooking, and the hand-thrown bowls have also been created by kids at Studio 4 Art.