Using Foods to Spend Quality Time With Your Kids

Food can take on many forms, from breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert. The options of good tasty food are endless. Here are some fun ideas for spending quality time with your kids through the use of food.

Make a Homemade Pizza

Everyone loves pizza, so instead of ordering out for a greasy unhealthy pizza, why not make your own at home? Kids of all ages love to make and shape their own dough, but young kids who have never experienced making homemade dough will especially get a kick out the experience.

There are many recipes for pizza dough. A basic pizza dough recipe usually calls for approximately 3 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/4 cups of water with 1 teaspoon of dissolved salt, 1 1/2 Tablespoons of yeast, and 1 1/2 Tablespoons of olive oil. Once the ingredients are mixed and you have a nice ball of dough, let it rise for about 30 minutes to an hour in a warm location. To save some time, you can preheat your oven to 275 degrees F. and then turn it off. Set the dough in a large oiled bowl and roll the ball so it is coated on all sides. Cover the bowl with a damp hand towel and let it rise for about 30 minutes.

You can mix the dough by hand, or you can use other equipment such as a bread machine, which does all the kneading and rising of the dough in its own compartment. Within an hour your dough is ready to roll out. The other method is to use a food processor for kneading the dough. This leaves you with the kneaded dough, but it is then up to you to form it into a ball and get it ready to rise. The advantage to a food processor is you can use it for other tasks as well such as slicing and dicing your toppings. If you are new to the market for one of these appliances, make sure to read various food processor reviews in order to find out additional information. If you have the time and are looking to create some memorable moments with your child, try creating the dough the old fashioned way, without any electronic appliances and simply using your hands to form the dough. Children love this and will never forget it.

Once the pizza dough has risen, roll it out on a floured surface and top with your toppings. Start with a pizza sauce and whatever other toppings you want. If using meat, make sure the mat is precooked. Heat the oven to 450 degrees F. and place the pizza on a pizza stone, or a metal pan with cornmeal sprinkled on so the pizza will not stick to the pan. You can also rub the pan with olive oil to avoid sticking. There are various ways to do this process, and experimenting to find what works best for you is recommended. Cook the pizza in the oven for approximately 8 to 12 minutes. This is approximate because much depends on the thickness and number of toppings used. Once the pizza begins to bubble, it is most likely time to remove from the oven.

Homemade Ice Cream or Gelato

Another fun experience involving food and kids is to make homemade ice cream. You will need some sort of ice cream maker. These machines allow you to add your ingredients in and the machine will mix the ingredients until the proper consistency is formed. There are a wide variety of ice cream makers, and for those who enjoy Italian ice cream which is creamier and denser, a gelato maker like the Delonghi GM6000, will work the same way.

Some machines require you to "prefreeze" the mixing bowl for a number of hours in order to help the ingredients reach a very low temperature. However, with newer models on the market, there are now machines which have their own refrigerant compressor, which avoids the prefreezing step - as the machine itself is equipped to reduce the temperature internally.

Making homemade ice cream is a fun experience because you and your child have total control over the flavors. Find out what flavors the child likes the best and create your own recipe. Do not forget to give it a fun name. You can add just about anything from various nuts, dried fruits and candies such as chocolate chips.

Using food as a way to spend time together in the kitchen creating your own concoctions stimulates creativity. It also allows both child and adult to have fun while most importantly building a better relationship.

These food for thought tips were brought to you by SimpleItalianCooking.com.