Family Dinners are becoming little less frequent lately, at least in the traditional sense. Rob is coming home later and later due to work, I head out for a girls night out once in a while and Sabreena tends to work all weekend. I’m using #kidsinthekitchen as an excuse to get the kids to help prepare dinner and make bread sticks.
This week I prepared homemade stuffed shells. That means I boiled the shells and made the filling and stuffed the shells with the filling and baked them. If you’ve ever done this you know it’s a bit tedious. I then also decided to make homemade bread sticks. This were simple. In fact we made these while the stuffed shells were baking.
Ingredients
- 1 tbls active yeast
- 1 tbls sugar
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (100-110°)
- 3-3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 tbls melted butter
- 1 tsp garlic salt, Parmesan cheese or other seasoning of choice
Directions
Preheat oven for 400°
In a large mixing bowl combine yeast, sugar and water, allow to proof for 5-10 minutes. Using your electric mixer’s dough hook mix in flour & salt till a smooth dough forms and pulls away from the bowl, about 4-6 minutes. Adjust your water and flour measurements a tablespoon at a time to get the right consistency. It should be slightly tacky but bounce back when touched.
(If you are doing this by hand start with a fork till mixture comes together and turn out in a floured surface and knead by hand for approx 10 minutes)
Turn your dough onto a floured surface and roll into a smooth ball and divide into 16 (long bread sticks) or 32 (short bread sticks) portions.
Roll each portion between hands into your desired shape and place on lightly oiled baking sheet. Once all of your bread sticks have been rolled set them aside for a few minutes to rest.
Once the bread sticks have grown a bit these are ready to “dress up”. Brush them lightly with your melted butter then add the seasoning of choice. Simple garlic salt is good enough but you can get fancy with rosemary and grated lemon peel or parmesan and oregano. I have this dipping oil mix that gets put on everything.
Bake in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm with extra butter or dipping oil.
The kids are capable of doing just about everything on their own with this recipe. it’s a small enough batch that even the littlest hands can play with it easily. Make it more fun by letting the kids make shapes from the dough. Heart shaped bread sticks make for a much more enjoyable meal.
Did you have fun in the “kitchen” this week? Did you try a new food or a new kid friendly restaurant? Did your littlest ones use their snacks to count to 10? We invite you to share your experiences, photos, stories or recipes that include your #kidsinthekitchen.
Come join me and my co-hosts, Sarah of Play to Learn with Sarah, Paula at Frosted Fingers and Sara at Sensibly Sara, each week linking up a post, new or old, that feature the theme Kids in the Kitchen. It doesn’t matter what you are doing as long as you are doing it together, enjoying it and learning something along the way.
- preparing healthy snacks
- having a tea party
- counting skills with m&ms
- pouring from measuring cups
- discovering a local restaurant that your kids love
- creating new family friendly recipes
Don’t have a blog? Share an instagram photo or Facebook update.
