Cooking Lessons

I love to cook. I wish I did more of it all the time to the point that I often think that if I had all the money in the world I would go to cooking school and become a real chef. It's in these big dream rants that Eliot reminds me that real chefs work every weekend and evening always and spend little to no time with their families which at the end of the day is my real love and passion. Not to mention that I really do love teaching and working with youth, so I am not exactly hiding from my calling either. I digress. I like to cook. And when possible I like to encourage Lydia to help me cook. I had been wanting to try a  couple of appetizers for awhile and so I put together an appetizer meal. Admittedly it is one of my favorites types of dinners.

We have a plethora of string cheese. Not kidding. We have so much string cheese I am not sure our family can consume it all before the expiration dates. I wanted to used some up, so I went on the beloved pinterest  and I saw a very easy recipe with pepperonis and string cheese inside of a crescent roll. I have been dieting again this I purchased the reduced fat rolls. Pepperonis are actually not as bad as one may think, a serving size is 16 pieces of pepperonis.

Lydia help me. I pulled on the crescent rolls and we talk about them being triangles. Then she placed the pepperonis, circles, on the triangles and she counted them out. 3 pepperonis for each. Then the string cheese cut in half, and you would roll them up. Lydia did all of it. She is a great roller  too!
Then, we made Buffalo Chicken and Bleu Cheese bites. These were so easy! I had pita chips which we placed on the cookie sheet. Lydia counted them and lined them up. Then I tossed some shredded chicken in buffalo and placed them on each chip. Lydia then topped them with bleu cheese crumbles and onions. Each one got 2 of each. She was very meticulous. This one I think did a lot for her small motor skills for sure.
Last item on the menu for the night was guacamole. I cut the avocado in half, scooped out the insides into a bowl and gave Lydia the masher. She mashed. I added in the Rick Bayless green chile guacamole mix that Eliot and I are in love with and then Lydia mixed it all up.
At the end I warmed up some marinara to dip the pepperoni and cheese rolls in and I dipped the guacamole with Special K crackers because I was attempting to lower calories. The serving size with these crackers is 24 of them. The best bite was definitely the Buffalo Chicken Bleu Cheese on little pita crackers. I think I will make those for our pre-trick or treating block party for sure.

The best part was having Lydia help. She had a ball, she learned things and was a really good cook. There were no major messes. She was very focused and excited to help make dinner. She did a great job. Though it is worth noting that she didn't eat any of things we made because she is super picky but one step at time.