Pizza making

Tonight we had pizza for dinner. Rather than buy a ready made one, Henry prepared and designed ours for us!

With a little guidance, he added the ingredients one by one, then proceeded to design the toppings into faces.

I expected mushroom eyes, pepper eye brows and mouth and ham nose...

Henry as unpredictable as ever created me an "alien face". Very carefully he arranged the peppers in a circle, ham in the centre and one mushroom for the mouth.

The alien!

For my pizza, he created another face of sorts!

Very excited he waited for the pizza to cook then enjoyed eating it!

So...thanks go out to Henry's Aunty Janet for this activity. Replicated several times on the last few weekends, Henry loves to make this cake for breakfast. This morning was the first time I caught it on camera, as I normally hear the hysterics from the comfort of my bed, as this seems to be a good daddy activity.

This cake is so simple. The utensils you will need are measuring spoons, a large coffee mug and a microwave.

Ingredients

4tbs Self

raising flour

4tbs caster sugar

2tbs cocoa powder

1 egg

3tbs milk

3tbs sunflower oil

3 tbs chocolate chips (optional)

A small dash of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Add dry ingredients to the mug and mix well.

2. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Check out the pictureof Henry breaking the egg! A skill he still needs to perfect! Do it into a separate bowl while learning though and it dosn't hurt to

practice!

3. Add the milk and the oil - mix well.

4. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract and mix again.

5. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes (in a 1000 watt microwave)

6. The cake will rise above the top of the mug...its supposed to!

7. Allow to cool a little, tip on a plate and serve with cream/ice cream etc.

This serves 2, however Henry seems to like this cake and managed the whole thing this morning without any help!

Cooking: Banana,oatmeal,raisin cookies - Yum yum!

Henry loves getting involved in the kitchen. All too often however it ends in me getting cross and it not being fun, because the recipe i've chosen is not really that kid friendly. THIS ONE IS!

Everything is measured in cups or tea spoons.

Henry measured all the dry ingredients in himself with me just showing him where to fill up to in the cup. Then he stirred them all together.

I then added the wet ingredients, let him stir as long as

he wanted then finished the job.

For measuring out the cookies onto the baking tray there is no exact science. Small piles of dough make small cookies, large make large and so on!

We used two teaspoons and i showed Henry how to scrape one spoon off the other to deposit the dough onto the baking sheet. He did about 5 and got bored, but at least he had a go.

One bit of the process that he really got involved in was the tasting! I got a thumbs up for these, from Henry & Kevin and i've managed a few more than i should have too!

Happy cooking.

Recipe provided by a fellow mum Jill - thanks for this! Taken from www.cooks.com

Makes about 25 cookies.

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup mashed bananas

1/2 cup raisins

1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats

Add chocolate or nuts (optional)

Mix everything together in a bowl. Drop dough by teaspoon on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.