I spent Sunday brunch time at allrecipes gorgeous kitchen in downtown Seattle for a Back to School Tweetup event. Since I don’t have an iPhone (or other means for tweeting live) and did not want to schlep my laptop for tweets’ sake, I’ve decided to share this experience with you in a post.

I admit it, I’ve never used allrecipes web site to search for recipes before—have you? It’s one of the biggest recipes web sites with recipes that are generated by users, simple people like you and me (unlike the celebrity chef driven sites). So, anyway, I was a bit surprised to be invited to this event. Nevertheless, you will find useful information here today.

All the participants were mommy bloggers. We met and chat over Proseco mimosas (Interesting, all the women chose a mimosa over coffee. I wonder why…) It was nice to see some fresh faces, like Kristin from Kristin pot pie and Jenny from Jenny on the spot.

But the focus of the day was not how to get drunk before lunch time, but a cooking demonstration and recipe ideas derived from allrecipes.com site. Chef Joy who teaches cooking classes at Whole Foods was the star of the “show”.

First, she talked about the importance of including fresh fruit in your kid’s lunch box—I couldn’t agree more. However, she said, ”a whole fruit is not as appealing as a cut fruit so sometimes it ends up uneaten, or worse, in the trash!” What you have to do is make it look appealing an fun. You need to peel it and/or slice it. It makes a big difference.

I know from my own experience as the mother in this house, that to be able to shove some fresh fruits down my peoples’ throats, I have to peel it, slice/dice it, even take the seeds out. And, yes, sometimes I have to bring it as close to their mouths as possible, like a mommy bird brings a worm to her baby birdies beaks. Ah, they are so spoiled. Spoiled, I tell ya…

When I send fruit in a lunchbox, if it’s a fruit that browns, like apples, I put the cut pieces in a bowl with some lemon juice diluted with water. Now that lemons seem to be so expensive, I’m going to use oranges instead. It actually tastes better with orange juice.

When it’s fruit like a banana… Well, I send it as is, unpeeled, wrapped in a paper towel because I know the poor banana is going to get kicked and pushed around and will end up smooshed and bruised from my kid’s playing with the lunchbox. But Joy… Joy draws a face of hers

 Now, do your kids like food that looks cute? Then try Apple Ladybug snacks. (As for me, I don’t think my kids will fall for this trick. Plus, I’m not the type who makes cute food, or decorated food. Yeah, I know, I’m so Bo-ring.)

Joy demonstrated about 10 different recipes she found on the allrecipes.com web site. One of them was chicken soup (She used store-bought brands. To get the best flavor, she uses 2 different brands) with pasta, tortellini in this case, and frozen peas, with a sprinkle of parmesan before serving.

My take on this? I make an easy homemade chicken stock (it is so much better then *any* store bought stock/broth you’ll ever find so you should make a teeny tiny effort to make your own. Please!) My kids love when I add Matzo balls, yes, store-bought. But I use whole wheat—does it give me extra points? And, I usually add the peas in their frozen state to the soup—this is a quick way to cool a steaming hot soup for little kiddies. 

Next, we put our hands on some Vietnamese salad rolls. I particularly liked this recipe because, really, this is one of the easiest things to make, and it’s so fresh, and crunchy, and even sophisticated! I have seen spring rolls being made numerous times before but never came to a point of actually making them at home. Shame on me. The best part about rolls? I love recipes with many different ingredients where anyone can make their own and put inside only what they like. This is why we eat wraps and tacos often in this household.

We drank a lot.

And ate a lot. (We tasted about 10 recipe…)

And finished with dessert, a combination of S’mores and Rocky Roads. A-ha.

Sweet.

And that was so much fun.

Just look at this place!

Wouldn’t you want to work and cook in such a kitchen?

I knew you would.

I would too.

Categories : Food events