“How are you Peeling?” is a fun and educational book to read during mealtime. The photography is fascinating and the colors are vibrant.    The book focuses on emotions and asks many questions to the reader which helps facilitate conversation.  It discusses many emotions that are not very basic such as “worried”, “wired”, “grumpy”, “shy” and “secure”. This provides an excellent opportunity to explain these emotions and expand both your child’s receptive language  (what they understand) and expressive language (what they can express) . Additional language concepts include colors, describing, shapes, answering “wh” questions, size concepts and specifically commenting (e.g. “Wow, that’s funny!). It also focuses on problem solving to figure out what fruit and vegetable each character is.  My children loved this book and they requested that I read it about five times after that! They loved it when I asked them “How are you feeling?”. They were able to point to the specific  emotion that they were feeling. It also opened a nice extended conversation when the book asked the reader,”Who do you love?” and “How do they know?”. Enjoy and have fun with this beautiful book.

This fake out peanut candy is an excellent sweet treat to make for your little one or guests who have a peanut allergy, a gluten allergy or who happen to love peanut butter. The candy is sweet, has a smooth texture inside and is a real treat. It is versatile because you can dip it in pretty much anything that you would like. For this recipe, I ground up some gluten free cookies and dipped them in that. I also dipped others in cocoa.

I got the original recipe here. I have made many modifications. Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

1 cup of creamy Wowbutter (toasted soy spread that gluten, peanut and dairy free)

1/4 unsalted butter softened

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (gluten free if you need it to be gluten free)

1 individual packet of instant hot chocolate (such as Nestle, make sure its gluten free)

1 cup of powdered sugar (gluten free)

toppings (ground gluten free cookies, cocoa, chocolate, etc)

Directions:

1. Cream together the butter and Wowbutter.

2. Add vanilla.

3. In a separate bowl combine cocoa and sugar. Add to butter mixture.

4. Mix until combined. Shape into small balls and dip in desired topping.

5. Store in air tight container in fridge. When ready to eat, take out of fridge but promptly put back any leftovers. If left out, they soften.

If you want to make these into candy pops, melt 1/2 chocolate chips until just melted. Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to create a smooth consistency. Dip the lollipop stick in chocolate mixture. Stick it into the candy. Return to fridge for 10 minutes. Take out of fridge, dip in chocolate and add some toppings. Return to fridge to set.

I recently began experimenting with gluten free baking.  After one failure, I realized my mistakes and made this brownie that you would never know was gluten free. The brownie is sweet, moist and has a nice consistency. The sprinkles add color and fun to the brownie. My kids and my husband ate these up!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup of unsaltedbutter

1 cup of sweetened cocoa

1.5 cups of sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla (gluten free)

1 cup of King Arthur Gluten Free Flour or comparable brand

4 eggs

1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon salt

sprinkles (optional)

Directions

1. Melt butter. Take off heat and add cocoa and then sugar.

2. In a separate bowl whisk flour, salt and xanthum gum. Add this to butter sugar mixture.

3. Temper the eggs by adding some of the batter to eggs. Add remaining eggs.

4. Pour into 8 x 8 greased square pan and sprinkle with sprinkles.

5. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes until done.

This cookie reminds me of when I was little and my dad would bring me home a sprinkled cookie from the bakery. I always love these cookies because they were so buttery, crunchy and sweet.  I was craving this type cookie this past week so decided to make them one afternoon with my daughter. I think that most of the leftover sprinkles wound up more in her mouth than on the cookie but who can blame her? I had her sprinkle the cookies with the sprinkles and “mush” them gently into the cookie.  I got the original recipe here at allrecipes.com which I pretty much followed with a few modifications. Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

1 cup of unsalted butter (softened)

1 to 1 1/4 cup sugar

3 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar

Directions

I highly recommend this fun and educational app. I found it when searching in the app store for apps that incorporate symbolic play. When you first open “Art Maker” you get to choose a background. The backgrounds wiggle to remind you to choose. The backgrounds vary from an ocean to a farm and even underwater. Once you choose a scene, you get to choose “characters” to go along in your scene. Some of these characters can only be chosen if you complete a puzzle (its a simple puzzle of the character or a object). This provides motive and skill to obtain the character and/or item.  Once you choose all of the characters and props for your scene, you can either take a picture or create a video. I had a great time creating these videos with both my clients and my children. With “Art Maker”, we would play out a scene. For example, I would be the prince and my daughter would be the princess. We created a whole story about a princess needing help and having to be saved by the prince. Once we took the video, we would then play it back and watch it together. This app is fun, entertaining and educational.  It incorporates symbolic and dramatic play, turn taking, staying on topic and many other pragmatic and language functions. You can even try to play out a book that you recently read. The options are endless!

I have been trying to achieve an excellent Madeleine cookie since trying them a couple of years ago in a bakery.  Madeleine cookies are sweet and delicious. They taste a bit like sponge cake. Nothing like butter, sugar, vanilla and flour! What a perfect union. My daughter is in a stage now that she LOVES Madeline books so these cookies were perfect. I have attempted these cookies several times before without success. This time, I decided to really pay attention to following the directions and beating the mixture for the right amount of minutes. I also discovered that using non stick cooking spray was NOT a good idea. It made the top of the cookies look burned and didn’t have that nice shell look on top. When greasing the pan, apply butter, no other substitute. It made such a difference with the cookie. I found the original recipe here. I followed the recipe but did leave out the lemon (I don’t like lemon) and added maple extract.

Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon of maple extract (optional)

1 cup of confectioners sugar

3/4 all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 cup butter melted and cooled

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease the Madeleine pan with butter.

2. Beat eggs and vanilla with an electric mixer for five minutes. Beat in sugar and then beat for about 6-7 minutes.

3. Whisk flour and baking powder. Fold into egg mixture. I would do it in thirds and gently.

4. Fold in cooled butter.

5. Spoon batter in mold about 3/4 full.

6. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the top springs back. This recipe makes about 18 cookies depending on how full you fill the pans.

Enjoy!

This app I highly recommend as both a food and language app. With this app you can set up your own tea party, serve your guests tea and various snacks, eat them and then clean up. In order to set the table, you have to match the shapes and move the dishes, cups and snacks to the correct place on the tablecloth. When all of the food is eaten, the dishes get washed. This really helps children sequence what should occur in a tea party. It also teaches your child how to clean up the mess when a tea spills (with a tissue). This is a great way to practice having a tea party. It would be ideal to have your own tea party to carryover these skills. With this app you can work with your child on pretend play, colors, choice making, shapes, turn taking, naming the various desserts, describing, commenting, turn taking, problem solving and sequencing to name a few! It can also give you great ideas on what to bake for your next tea party with your little one.

There are certain books that are timeless and this is one of them. This book was originally published in 1932. This book is about about a little boy who is seeking a birthday present for his mother. He visits many animals along his way and each animal offers him something but what he winds up giving his mother at the end is a hug for her birthday. What I loved about this book is that material items can always be bought but there are some things you can never buy in a store or online, and that’s a hug from your special little one. Especially in today’s society, I find that there is such an emphasis on “stuff” and “toys” that we sometimes lose sight of what’s really important, having that closeness with your child. One thing is for sure, my children would rather have my time and attention more than any toy.

The language concepts to work on this book are discussing various animals, the function of various animals (e.g. “What do you get from a cow?”), sequencing (“first, then”), feelings (e.g the other animals were scared to visit the bear) and exploring new vocabulary (e.g. secret). Many preschool children may not know what a “secret” is so this would be a great time to talk about it. You can retell the story and even talk about birthdays and what they would get you for your birthday! Definitely talk about how hugs and kisses are priceless, the greatest lesson to learn.

My daughter and I made this bread together one afternoon. I had four very ripe bananas sitting on my table and couldn’t resist. I love banana bread, especially marble banana bread. The bread is moist, sweet and delicious. It’s great by itself or warmed with some peanut butter, almond butter or biscoff spread. I got the original recipe here at Cooking Light. Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of butter softened

4 very ripe bananas mashed

2 eggs

1/3 cup greek flavored banana yogurt (or vanilla yogurt)

1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Cream sugar and butter.

2. Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl.

3. Add dry ingredients to sugar mixture.

4. Add eggs one a time, then the mashed bananas and then the yogurt.

5. Set aside one cup of batter.

6. Melt chips in microwave in 30 second intervals until just melted. Mix chocolate and add to the one cup of batter.

7. Layer vanilla batter and chocolate batter alternately in loaf pan (that is greased). Swirl with knife.

8. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until done.

9. cool and eat! Yum!