A fun fall cooking activity for all ages!

Melissa from Sweet Beets Wellness has joined us to share plant-based recipes and inspiration for cooking with kids. She is a vegan wellness coach who also teaches cooking classes for her son's homeschooling cooperative. 
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Watch the video below for inspiration on how to introduce this recipe to kids!

Filling Ingredients

• 15 oz pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup raw cashew pieces
• 1 tbsp arrowroot powder
• 2 tsp + 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1.5 tsp cinnamon + 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg + 1/4 tsp allspice + 1/8 tsp ground cloves)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/3 cup milk or mylk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract​

Combine all ingredients in a high-speed blender and puree until well-combined and very smooth.

Tips for Cooking With Kids! 

• Kids who are too young to measure still enjoy pouring measured ingredients into bowls, food processors and blenders. 
• Let the kids pulse the food processor. Have them count out loud, something like: "Push 1 - 2, Stop 1 -2" or "Down 1 - 2, Up 1 -2"
• This plant-based filling is perfect for taste-testing because it contains no raw eggs! 
• Show the kids how to press their crust around the sides of the tin and spoon in the filling. 

After a few days of hot weather, today's cool rainy weather inspired me to roast veggies. Our Tiny Chef loves roasted cauliflower, but it has to be nicely caramelized and soft.

​Here's what we did:
1. preheat oven to 400f
2. wash & core 2 small heads of cauliflower.

3. set a sheet tray out and ask your child to break the cauliflower into pieces
4. while they are breaking, pick out the big pieces and cut them down (aiming for florets all the same size)
​5. drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil over the cauliflower (I held my 3-year-old's hand on the bottle and we did this together)
6. sprinkle seasonings (give your young kids just the right amount of seasonings - they tend to want to put them ALL on the food) - we used salt, pepper, garlic powder, & smoked paprika 
7. with clean hands, mix the cauliflower, oil and seasonings on the pan and then make sure they're covering the bottom of the pan in a single layer

8. when the oven is preheated, put the cauliflower pan on a middle rack and set a timer for 20 minutes
9. after 20 minutes, use a spatula to flip the cauliflower over & set the timer for another 20 minutes
10. when the timer goes off, flip the cauliflower over one more time (it should be browning now)
11. after a final 10 minutes, take the cauliflower out to cool down (it would be a good idea to test it with a fork to see if it needs to be in any longer to get soft)
12. adjust the seasonings as needed and serve warm (we added a bit more salt to ours)

Happy cooking!