Make Your Own Fall Colored and Scented Play Dough

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 2 cups of water
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (or 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar)
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice
• food coloring (or any homemade vegetable/fruit juice)

Recipe:

• Whisk together all the ingredients in a pan
• Cook over stove on medium heat
• Remove when the mix starts to harden
• Stir until ball starts to form
• Knead dough
• Separate into different bowls and add food coloring
• And voila!
• Ziplock bags will keep them nice and fresh
• You can also freeze them

I am very happy with the final result! I suggest using more spices than I did for greater smell but I only had cinnamon and it wasn’t very strong. Sixtine couldn’t care less but I would love to see how yours turned out! Oh, and one last tip, to prevent food coloring from staining your hands, I suggest oiling them a little bit.

Recipe adapted from pinterest !

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Toddler Practical Life: Food Preparation

I want to give Sixtine as much independence as possible. At almost two, doing things for herself is something she craves for. She absolutely loves to watch me cook, and help whenever possible. And so today, I decided to let her use her child-sized knife to make her own snack. She was very excited to spread cream cheese on a piece of bread, and pour water in her glass. She hasn’t mastered spreading in one session but it will come! She has been a wonderful help in the kitchen, making cakes, muffins, and breads, husking corn, and brushing potatoes and carrots! I hope that these will be memories that will last! How proud she was to serve me a snack that she had made herself!

Launching of My New Online Boutique: Sixtine et Victoire

I am happy to announce that I have finally decided to take the big plunge and open my own online boutique. It is called sixtine et victoire, after my two inspiring daughters and although I feel slightly nervous, I am mostly very excited about it all.

Simply beautiful products for little and not-so-little naturalists including wooden toys, gifts, stationery and wall art.

I have only listed a couple items – parenting two girls under two doesn’t give me much alone time – but I will be adding more in the next few weeks. If you care to take a look and tell me what you think, I would really appreciate it. Follow me, pin it, share it, like it, treasury-list it, and tweet if you like it! Thank you. I should be able to post more once I have a good stock of items and they are listed. There is just so little time in a day!

Sixtine et Victoire Etsy shop

Facebook Page

Toddler Cooking: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This is by far one of the best breads I have ever had. Sixtine and I had fun making it – fewer pictures this time as it was a lot messier and I feared my camera would get damaged in the process! We made it for Daddy who was coming home that night. There was a lot of cute moments: Sixtine pouring one large egg in the bowl and the other egg on her apron. “Oh, oh” she said, or when she thought the chocolate chips shouldn’t go in with the other dry ingredients and decided to keep them for eating. She had never had them so I am not sure how she knew they’d be yummy but she had (quite) a few until I was able to explain they were going IN the bowl not in her tummy. I also love the fact that this recipe includes 1 1/2 cup of zucchini, a vegetable that Sixtine wouldn’t eat on a regular basis.

Ingredients + recipe:

1 1/2 cups (360 ml/225 grams) shredded raw zucchini (courgette)

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (45 grams) unsweetened natural cocoa powder, sifted

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

3/4 cup (180 ml) semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (we used bittersweet)

2 large eggs (half of it ended up on Sixtine’s apron and it still tasted yummy!)

1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable, safflower, corn, or canola oil (we used melted butter)

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar 

1/2 cup (105 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and grease your loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients and add chocolate chips.
• In another large bowl, whisk eggs, add oil, sugars, vanila and whisk again.
• Fold in the zucchini, and fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
• Bake for about 55 to 65 minutes.
• Makes one loaf and can be frozen.

Recipe adapted from Joy of baking, our go-to baking website!

Toddler Cooking: Healthy Strawberry Popsicle Recipe

Ingredients + Recipe: 2 cups fresh strawberries.

1/4 white grape juice concentrate (recipe calls for thawed frozen juice but mine wasn’t) + 2 tablespoon of sugar + 1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice + 3 tablespoon of water (not shown on picture).

Combine, process in a blender until smooth.

Pour into individual popsicle molds (recipe makes 8 – I had some leftover).

Looks promising, eh? Freeze until firm.

Savor.

This would be a very easy recipe to make with young children. Just get the ingredients ready as shown on picture and let them pour into the blender. If they feel adventurous you could even let them press the button! This is just what we needed on a very hot summer day (36 degrees).

Toddler Cooking: Mixed Berries And Banana Smoothie

Ingredients + Recipe for Mixed Berries and Banana Smoothie:

• 1 cup frozen mixed berries
• 1 frozen ripe banana
• 1/2 cup of quick rolled oats
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (we used organic)
• 1 teaspoon honey
• Shake it up
• Enjoy!

Peanut Butter and Banana Oatmeal Smoothie Recipe

Ingredients + recipe:

• 1 banana (we used fresh but you could use a frozen one)
• 1/4 cup of peanut butter
• 1/3 cup of quick rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of milk (we used almond milk – I am lactose intolerant and I am nursing Victoire who isn’t doing well on milk products)
• 1/2 cup of plain yoghurt (we used organic vanilla yoghurt but you could probably go without)
• 1/2 tbsp of cinnamon
• 2 tbsp of honey
• optional: 1/4 cup of chocolate chips (we used unsweetened/pure chocolate ones)
• Blend all ingredients in your mixer and ta da!

Makes two servings. My family enjoyed this smoothie a lot: Sixtine actually licked her spoon dry! I suggest not making it close to meal times as it is quite heavy! I couldn’t finish mine (might try it again without yoghurt, a bit more almond milk and minus chocolate chips haha).

What is your favorite smoothie recipe?

Toddler Cooking: Easy Apple Crumble Recipe

Easy messy apple crisp recipe ingredients for 4-6 servings:

• Topping: Half a cup of all purpose flour + 1/4 of granulated sugar + 1/4 cup of brown sugar + 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon + 1/8 tsp of salt + 6 tbsp of cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• Filling: 3-4 apples peeled, cored and cut into chunks + 3tbsp of granulated sugar
• Preheat oven to 375 F or 190 C. Butter baking dish.
• Mix topping with fingertips (Sixtine’s favorite!) until crumbly.
• Lick + eat  + spill + drop + laugh + enjoy each other.
• Toss apple chunks and sugar (you can add some lemon as well but we didn’t) in a bowl and transfer to baking dish.
• Spread topping evenly over the apples.
• Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.
• Let it cool for about half hour. Chase after toddler.
• Enjoy.

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking.

It was our first (real) time cooking together and Sixtine and I both enjoyed it a lot. I loved observing her as she was pouring and mixing ingredients. She was very studious and seemed so happy with herself.  De beaux souvenirs…(*beautiful memories) Oh and she is quite the cook too. It was delicious!

*make sure to enter this week’s giveaway!