let’s talk about kids cooking with princesses

I mentioned last week, or maybe it was the week before, that we were going to be doing a fair amount of cooking out of The Disney Princess Cookbook in the near future. Cue the falling on the floor laughter.

Are you still here? It’s ok if you are. I won’t call the hipster police. I know what we are about to talk about is completely ridiculous. And I’m sure there are better options for kids’ cookbooks. In fact, I have a few kids’ cookbooks in my arsenal already that are probably better for a lot of reasons. But sometimes it is all about the packaging. Let me tell you something. This book has got my youngest kids excited about eating and cooking.

I know, I know. My kids like to cook anyway. I’m pretty lucky. But last week, we made three meals from The Disney Princess Cookbook and all three were a success from the standpoint of kids wanting to eat. Let me point out before we start discussing each recipe that I let the kids pick two of the three. You’ll be able to tell which one I picked. Hint: it contains vegetables.

First up, Gus’s Macaroni and Cheeseburger. This was an obvious choice since one of the children in question is named Gus. There’s also that pesky fact that this recipe is for macaroni and cheese. Do you know a kid who doesn’t like mac & cheese? Me either. Typically, though, the kid’s choice is of the blue box variety. This mac & cheese involves an actual (modified) béchamel. It also involves meat.

I cheated a bit and used pre-grated cheese because my husband had purchased it for something else in which I refused to use it. The pre-grated cheese was easy for the kids to measure. They measured everything else in the recipe. Even the mustard. They hate mustard. Then Gus helped make the béchamel.

The verdict? They each ate two servings at dinner, then had this twice during the week for lunch. I should point out that my little kids are typically not interested in leftovers. One of my teenagers ate the rest of the mac & cheese for snack after school. He missed the original serving night but complimented the chefs on their cooking. I didn’t mention that he was eating a dish from a princess cookbook but I'm pretty sure he's man enough to take it. 

The next night, we had Mushu’s Moo Shu. This was so simple I don’t even know how it can be called a recipe. Broccoli slaw, cooked pork loin, hoisin, ginger, and tortillas. While the kids ate breakfast, I seasoned a one pound pork loin with olive oil, salt, and pepper, baked it at 425° for about 25 minutes, then set it aside for later. To the purchased bag of broccoli slaw we added shredded carrots and julienned red bell pepper. I used a little bit of sesame oil mixed with olive oil to cook the veggies and switched out the powdered ginger for fresh plus a clove of minced garlic. The result was crunchy and sweet and worked just fine in a tortilla (even though I really wanted a traditional pancake and plum sauce). The kids gave this dish a raised eyebrow at first. It’s cool though. They cleaned their plates.

Finally, we made Merida’s Bulls-eye Pizza. I cheated on the crust here, and would have used my own homemade crust if I hadn’t had a pre-made crust taking up space in my freezer. We used Pomi strained tomatoes, turkey peperoni, and fresh mozzarella.

Please ignore the insane piles everywhere in my house behind my ham-children. That's just real life making a guest appearance on a blog. 

So proud of their masterpiece. These two ate the whole pizza. I had a salad. It was a win-win dinner.