Rice Crispie Treats

Spring break is over, kids are back at school and moms everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief at finally having their homes back to themselves!! Now, if only the weather Gods show some mercy – looks like they did not get the memo that officially, it is spring!! April showers bring May flowers they say – but what does snow in April bring??

In the meantime, life in routine goes on… 

My son is a part of his school’s newspaper club and today was a publishing party, to celebrate the end of the newspaper club for the current school year, and parents were invited. I went of course – but the word “publishing” brought a thought to my mind – oh yes – I used to write a blog that has been sitting waiting too long. Once the thought came, I just had to act on it, so here I am putting up a post after a really loooooooooooong time!

Well this one here is a recipe for rice crispie treats – nothing too fancy, a recipe right off the back of the cereal box!

You could ask me why? Why bother making these treats when you could just as easily pick it off the shelf of your grocery store? And I could say, I am a big fan of DIYs, no really, I am! But the reason for my preferring to make these is because, the store bought ones have regular marshmallows in them, which contains gelatin. We are vegetarians. So, no gelatin for us.

Kiddo loves rice crispie treats and marshmallows, and I have used store bought one’s in a pinch, how fussy can one be! But I do avoid it if possible. So, I buy multiple packs of vegan marshmallows wherever I find them - was difficult once, just one organic store in Hoboken carries them to my knowledge, but now we have Amazon Prime! Yay!! Don’t you just love the ease of online ordering??

Once you have vegan marshmallows, making these treats is a quick fun project for the little ones :)

BTW, these can be made in the microwave but we used the stove top and by “we” I mean me and the junior – yep, this was one of the things we did during the spring break.

And for those out there raising your eyebrows over letting my kid cook over a stove top – relax!  I was right next to him the whole time and the flame was at the lowest setting. But if you are frowning over this, use the microwave by all means. It would probably be quicker too, but my microwave is fixed on top of the cooking range and I use a stool to reach it! How on earth is my son supposed to reach it? And if I am the one putting it in and out of the microwave all the time, how is he going to boast about making those yummy rice crispie treats ALL BY HIMSELF? Come on, how could I take that away from him?

Psssst… I did pour the contents of the hot pan into a baking tray before letting him smoothen it all out with a spatula – but that’s just between you and me ;)

Preparation, cooking & cooling time: 20 minutes         Makes: 12-15 pieces        

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter – 3 tablespoons

Vegan mini marshmallows – 4 cups

Rice Crispies Cereal – 6 cups

Method:

1.  Melt the butter in a sauce pan.
2.   Add the marshmallows and keep stirring over a low flame till all the marshmallows melt into the butter.
3. Now add in the rice crispies and give your arms a good workout – go ahead and mix all the ingredients together.
4. Remove the gooey mixture from the stove top and pour into a greased pan. Smoothen with a spatula.
5.  Let it set – takes about 10 minutes or so.
6.  Cut into desired size using a butter knife.
7. Dig right in!!

Veggie Pizza

It all started with an episode of Caillou on the Sprout TV channel. For the uninitiated (read those without toddlers at home) Caillou (pronounced "kai-you") is an animated series about a 4 year old boy. And whatever Caillou does, my until recent 4 year old, would want to do too. BTW, he just turned 5 and keeps asking me when Caillou is going to be 5!

To get back on track, there was this episode on the series where Caillou and his friends make their own pizzas during a play date. Ever since that day I have been cajoled and pestered to do something similar for him. Finally I gave in today. Friday's are pizza days at school, so my little one doesn't carry lunch from home. But today was a half day, and he felt cheated out of his pizza! So we decided to have his friend over for a play date right after school, and the first activity would be - you guessed it right, making their own pizza.

So, what should have been a quick pop in the oven, turned out into an hour long event involving much fun, laughter, cheese grabbing, sulking over who got more toppings and of course the inevitable mess! But it was a good time bonding over cooking and we'll probably be doing more such stuff! And no, no one got burnt, or caused the fire alarm to scream or tripped and fell over anything, which was a small miracle in itself - ask my friend and collaborator, who goes by the name of "Saffron" in my blog world!

If you decide to make pizza with your kids, one piece of advice, please make the crust yourself - or before you know it, they are going to toss the dough in the air, singing "Mambo Italiano"! Oh yes, these budding chefs wanted to make pizza just the way Caillou's dad did! Another thing - spread the sauce yourself too - its easier to clean veggies and cheese crumbs, than to wipe a saucy gooey mess off the floor!

So, all set? Lets get started...

Preparation & Cooking: 1 hour to let the dough rise and another 45 minutes approx.        
Serves: 2 very hungry kids and 2 not so hungry adults :)

Ingredients:

For the crust:

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Yeast - 1 tablespoon

Salt - ½ teaspoon

Sugar - a pinch

Warm water - 2/3 cup

Olive Oil - 2 tablespoons

Mrs.Dash's table blend (unsalted) - 1 teaspoon (or you could use a blend of dry spices like basil, parsley, oregano, garlic powder and pepper)

For the toppings:

Onion - ½ of a small one, sliced

Capsicum (Bell Peppers) - ½, sliced

Tomato - 1 small, sliced

Broccoli - ¼ cup, broken into small florets

Mushrooms - ¼ cup, sliced

Pineapples - ¼ cup, diced

Carrots - ¼ cup, sliced

Pizza/Pasta Sauce - ½ cup

Shredded Cheese - 2 cups (we used the Italian five cheese blend which has mozzarella, smoked provolone, white cheddar, Romano and Asiago cheeses)

Method:

For the crust:

1. Take all the dry ingredients along with olive oil and gradually add water to form a soft dough.
2. Knead it well and coat it with a little bit of olive oil before covering with a cling wrap and leaving it in a warm corner for at least an hour.
3. After about an hour or so, the dough would have risen to double its original size.

How to proceed:

 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or  195 degree Celsius.


2. For making the pizza base, we adopted 2 different methods. First of all we divided the dough into 2 small round pieces and one big one. My friend Saffron decided to use her hands to roll and pat the dough for the base, while I used a rolling pin and a floured rolling board to get the round shape for the crust.






3. Then we each laid out the base on an aluminum foil, placed these on a plate and spread out 3-4 tablespoons of the sauce on each of them.





4. Next, we handed them over to the kids to be topped with whatever they wanted, to their heart's content.





5. After this came the sprinkling of cheese till all the veggies got thoroughly covered with it! Well, I suspect more cheese went directly into their tummies than on the pizza!





6. Finally we popped them in the oven for about 25 minutes. Oven timings may vary, keep checking and switch off the oven once the cheese melts completely and begins to brown.





7. Take them out of the oven carefully, slice them with a pizza cutter, and dig in!

We made our own adult version with the remaining toppings. We went for a thin crust pizza. The crust was nice and crunchy while the top was cheesy & soft. We sprinkled some red chilli flakes over our pizza to spice it up. All that was missing was a bottle of coke! And as my son pointed out - olives. He loves black olives on his pizza and that was the one ingredient missing from my pantry. Oh well, there is always a next time...