After the holidays, many of us want to take a break from cooking. And as the temperature starts to drop, I always crave warm soups!

Vegetable soups are great because they’re easy to make, they can feed everyone in the family (including young children), and leftovers can be frozen and saved for the next meal.

One of my favorites to make at home is organic butternut squash soup. It’s so much better than buying soup out of a can. This one has no preservatives and you can control the sodium amount. It also takes less time than you think!

Ingredients:

• 2lbs of pre-cut organic butternut squash cubes (many groceries store-sell pre-cut pieces so the hard work is done and saves a ton of time)

• 1 tablespoon of Celtic salt

• 1 tablespoon of fresh ground pepper

• 1 can of unsweetened organic coconut milk (I like the Native Forest brand below), or heavy cream

Native Forest Simple Organic Unsweetened Coconut Milk

Steps:

1. Boil the squash cubes in a large pot for about 10 minutes. Make sure there’s enough water to immerse the pieces.

2. Once the squash is softened, transfer it to a bowl and let it cool for a few minutes.

3. In a blender, put the cooked pieces with 2 cups of its cooking liquid and add the can of coconut milk. Add salt and pepper.

4. Blend away for 2-3 minutes (I love to use my Vitamix blender as it can blend hot liquids – with other blenders, you may have to let the ingredients cool down before blending).

And voila! You will have yummy soup (about 6 cups, or 48 ounces) to last you for several meals. I like to save leftovers in Ziploc bags or containers. I date and freeze them, and when I’m too tired to cook, I just defrost them and dinner is ready once again!

Cheers to joyful cooking,
Clara

Clara Chung

Clara is a fan of Mother Goose Club and a contributing writer for our blog. She is a mother of two daughters and lives in New York City. She is passionate about food and loves to tinker with recipes to make it easy for busy moms. Her daughter, Beatrice, is often her sous-chef in the kitchen on weekends. She believes sharing the love of cooking with children can foster joy, connection, creativity and healthy eating habits.

It’s often challenging to get your kids to eat a variety of foods. One thing that has helped me is a face plate!

Check out the holiday plate I made with my daughter! She couldn’t wait to dig into her afternoon snack and Santa Claus never looked so delicious! I used homemade vanilla maple-cream frosting for Santa’s beard and eyebrows, and organic strawberries for his hat. Vanilla whipped cream is super easy to make with an electric mixer. I use my KitchenAid Mixer, but you can also use any handheld brand.

For some extra fun and creativity, I use Fred & Friends Food Plates, available on Amazon right below. I love using the Mrs. Fred plate to serve a variety of vegetables!

Fred MR. FOOD FACE Kids’ Ceramic Dinner Plate

Fred MRS. FOOD FACE Kids’ Ceramic Dinner Plate

To make your very own face plate with the family, see all of the ingredients and steps below!

Ingredients:

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream (I use Organic Valley)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons organic maple syrup
• Organic strawberries

Steps:

1. Start whipping the cream slowly in the mixer, gradually increasing the speed.

2. Once the cream starts to stiffen, mix in vanilla extract and maple syrup for flavor. If you don’t have time, you can use a store-bought whipped cream – I like the 365 Whole Foods brand. If you’re dairy-free, you can use whipped cream made with almond milk or coconut milk.

3. Cover Mr. or Mrs. Fred’s jawline and eyebrows with whipped cream, and the hairline with strawberries.

That’s it! So simple! Have fun decorating face plates using healthy (or not so healthy) ingredients – it’s a great opportunity to get creative and a little silly with the family!

Cheers to joyful eating,
Clara

One of my secrets in the kitchen is incorporating math while teaching my daughter how to cook. Cooking is a terrific way to introduce simple mathematical concepts, allowing children to begin conceptualizing and understanding addition, multiplication, fractions, number order, ratios and more.

So what is a good recipe that’s doable for kids? Pancakes! Our family eats gluten-free, so we use a pancake mix called Pamela’s Baking & Pancake Mix, found on Amazon at the link below. It tastes so good that even my friends who aren’t gluten-free absolutely LOVE it. It comes with simple, mistake-proof instructions on the back.

Pamela’s Products Baking & Pancake Mix

How do I use pancakes to teach math? First, I ask my daughter to measure how many cups of the mix we need to make for the number of people we plan to serve. If the package says you need 1 cup of the mix for 4 people, how many cups do we need for 8 people? Voila – 2 cups it is!

We love adding bananas into the pancakes – it naturally adds that extra sweetness. I ask my daughter to slice the bananas into equal parts, which teaches basic division and cutting skills. If each pancake needs 5 slices of banana, how many do we need to make 8 pancakes? 40 banana slices!

Next, we add the eggs. Encourage your child read the directions on the package to decipher the amount needed.

Make sure to use another bowl to crack the eggs, since little pieces of shell can fall into the mixing bowl. You can also introduce a concept called mise en place, a French culinary term that means “everything in its place”, so that your family can cook more efficiently and safely.

Time to mix the batter! Kids LOVE this part – one less task for the parent!

Fire up the stove, use a little coconut oil in your pan to give the pancakes a nutty flavor, and scoop your batter into the pan. You should wait until bubbles form at the edge of the pancake as it cooks, and then flip it just once.

An opportunity to instill patience!

Now the best part – pouring maple syrup on top!

Sometimes I ask my daughter to cut the pancakes in halves or quarters as a serving size, which illustrates division in a real-world way.

You can also add blueberries, walnuts and other ingredients of your choosing. Kids love chocolate, of course. I like to use Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips, which can also be found on Amazon below. They’re dairy-free, soy-free and nut-free.

Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Vegan Chocolate Chips

And there you have it! In just 20-30 minutes, thoroughly delicious and healthy pancakes for the family! Plus, we learned some math along the way! It’s become one of my favorite activities to do on a Saturday morning. The most important part is the quality time – be creative and have fun with it together!

Cheers to joyful eating,
Clara