Simple Kool-aid Play dough recipe

There's a commercial on TV from Kinder, where it says "Did you play today?". It's such an obvious thing yet how many of us can answer positively? Honestly can you remember the last time you played with your family or children? I do pass a lot of time with my daughter but it's more like doing day to day activity with her and watching her play but did I actually play with her? I started wondering the other day and found that I didn't play for a long time not even with my daughter. So I decided to take quick action and made some play dough and played to my heart's content by molding it at different shapes and having fun with my daughter. It felt good. My advice: No matter how busy you are, see if you can find few minutes of your time everyday to play with your children, I strongly believe that it will make you fresh and recharge your battery!

So here goes the recipe of making play dough. I used Kool-aid in the recipe, I got the recipe from someone the other day and really liked it because for using Kool-aid I didn't have to worry about getting stains from food color and the play dough also smelled good and fruity :). To give a twist in my play dough I also used a little bit of whole wheat flour (approx. 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour and 2 cups of all purpose flour) which gave a sparkling effect. Again, some recipes of play dough use tarter, in this one you don't need to. You will find all the ingredients in your kitchen and after you make the play dough you are only limited by your imagination to mold it to any shape and size. So have fun and play for a while. I will go and play too with my daughter :) Don't forget to share your creative ideas and suggestions with us as well.

Kool-Aid Play dough recipe

Ingredients:

1. 2 ¾ cups of flour
2. ½ cup of salt
3. 2 pkg of Kool-Aid
4. 4 tbs oil
5. 2 cups of boiling water

Direction:

1. Mix dry ingredients together and add oil on top.
2. Add the boiling water, mix with a spoon until too thick to stir.
3. Continue to mix by hand until all the ingredients are combined.The dough will be hot, so be careful in handling. You may prefer to wear hand gloves when mixing the dough by your hand. When  you start to mix by hand, the dough may stick to your hands but as you continue, the oil will mix through and it will not stick.
4. Put into an air tight container to store.

Carrot Cookie(Soft) Recipe

I love this recipe. It's just so simple and easy to make and on top of that its soft and delicious. At my house whenever I  bake this cookie all of them disappears within hours. Not only is it delicious; this cookie is healthy too. I used carrots here but you can use almost any vegetable you want with this recipe. The reason I choose carrot is because of it's nutritional value, natural sweetness and bright color. I gave the recipe using 1/2 cup of shredded carrots but there's no reason that you can not put more, the only difference it will have is that it will be more colorful, have more nutritional value and will be a little more soft. Also in the given recipe I used 1/2 cup of sugar, if you like you can try the recipe with 1 cup of sugar also. Try it out and let me know how it goes. Feel free to share your tips and recipes...

Carrot Cookie Recipe

Ingredients :
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1.1/4 cup of butter(at room temperature)
2.1/2 cup of thinly shredded carrots (you can even increase the amount to 1 cup)
3.1/2 cup of sugar
4.1 large egg
5.1 tea spoon of baking powder
6.1 cup of all purpose flour

Makes around 14 - 15 cookies

Notes:
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1. Make sure that the butter is brought to room temperature and thus softened. Just take out the butter from refrigerator and put it outside for about 1-2 hours before working on the recipe, this will soften the butter.

2.  Make sure that the egg is also at room temperature before using on the recipe .

Step by Step Direction:

----------------------------

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
2.Take the sugar and put it in the blender until it becomes powdery.
3.Add the softened butter in the blender with the sugar and blend for 1 minute - just until both the butter and the sugar is mixed well.
4.Add egg to that mixture and again blend for about 1 minute. Now keep this mixture aside.
5.In a bowl sift 1 cup of flour and 1 tea spoon of baking powder
6.Now add the butter-sugar-egg mixture in the bowl slowly and mix with a spatula
7.Add the shredded carrots in the mixture and gently mix using spatula
8.Mix until everything is mixed together nicely - the mixture will make a soft dough, something in between a cake batter and regular cookie dough
9.Shape dough into small ball sizes (it's not necessary to make perfect balls as they will get round shaped when baked in the oven) and put them on a cookie sheet. It will make around 14 - 15 balls. Keep about 2 inch of space in between the cookie balls
10.Bake the cookies in preheated oven on the top rack for approx. 20 min
11.Take the cookie sheet out of the oven and allow cookies to cool for few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to cool on a wire rack
12. Enjoy...

Love for Music and Rhymes

Rhymes and songs are a great way to connect with children. It entertains them and parents love it too. Experts even go on saying that it helps in brain development.Well I am not sure about that but what I know is that my daughter has an avid love for music. We started singing to her at a very early age – when she was only weeks old - my mom started signing lullabys at the very first week, I started singing rhymes to her when she was around two/three weeks and my husband started playing classical music to her when she was two months old.  It didn't go unnoticed to us that she used to listen to the songs very quitely even at such an early age. At many occassions she would even stop crying when she heard music. Even now when she hears music she will either start to dance if it's a rhythmic song or sit down quitely to listen to it if it's a slow paced one. She also loves to do hand and body movements as she hears her favorite rhymes. Today I will share the lyrics of some of her favorite rhymes.

What is your child's favorite rhyme? Please share.

Itsy Bitsy Spider
Itsy Bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the Itsy Bitsy spider climed up the spout again!

If you are happy
If you're happy and you know it
Clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it
Clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it
and you really want to show it
If you're happy and you know it
Clap your hands.

Johny Johny
Johny Johny
Yes Papa
Eating Sugar
No Papa
Telling lie
No papa
Open your mouth
Ha ha ha.

Roly Poly

Roly poly

Roly poly

Up up up
Up up up
Roly roly poly
Roly roly poly
Down down down
Down down down

Roly poly

Roly poly

Out out out
Out out out
Roly roly poly
Roly roly poly
In in in
In in in

Roly poly
Roly poly
Slow slow slow
Slow slow slow
Roly roly poly
Roly roly poly
Fast fast fast
Fast fast fast

Outsmarting a Pickyeater :)

Here I am, cooking chicken for dinner wondering how much it would end up in my toddler's mouth. My daughter is 16 months old and she is the worst picky eater I have ever come across (not that I have other kids but I have been around a lot of children in the family). Anyway... hope she would be interested to have a bite or two from this chicken.

My attempt always is to feed her a balanced diet but it becomes really difficult as she is a very very picky. At the very beginning I had trouble getting any solid foods into her tummy as she was resisting too much. But now things have changed a bit for better. Few months ago she started eating macaroni. So I also started thinking how I can make this more healthier for her. What I came up with was if I boiled the macaroni in milk instead of water she didn't notice the change or even if she had she didn't dislike the taste. Which was a BIG success for me. Then I started adding flax meal to it a bit by bit and now she seemed to be fine with this. Then after few weeks of observation I noticed that she likes chicken nuggets a little bit. So I came up with a chicken nugget recipe – which I assume is much more healthier for her than the store bought ones and I know exactly what's going in my daughter's stomach. I will post the recipe some time soon. Oh! And there's another recipe I came up with after finding out her love for cookies...a vegetable cookie made with carrots...I guess I will post that too.

Until then good bye from my side and before saying good bye I guess I should say welcome to my blog once again, hope you will enjoy reading the journey of my life...Good bye till next time...

Welcome...

Hello, welcome to my blog...Hope you will enjoy reading the blog posts.