Clorox® Clean-Up® #RecipesForFun

Clorox® Clean-Up® Cleaner has launched an exciting Web site where you can find and share recipes for fun activities to do with your kids. At cloroxrecipesforfun.com, you and your kids can get ideas for science experiments, cooking recipes and arts and crafts projects. Have a ball making a mess while you teach your children cooking and science lessons along the way. No worries though, because the clean-up is a snap with Clorox® Clean Up®! You’ll be able to find the perfect activity for you and your kids to live it up, mess it up, then clean it up.

In honor of the new Clorox® Clean-Up® Recipes for Fun site and the Ultimate Mess Party sweepstakes, SocialMoms recently teamed up with Clorox to have some of us mom bloggers share with you recipes that are fun for kids!   I bet you didn’t realize that there is tons of Wacky Science, Arts and Crafts, Kiddie Cooking or Creative Cooking projects you can do with your children.  Not only do they get the child excited, but it is hands on educational fun!

If you make cooking and new foods fun, it may just help inspire your child to try new things.   My kids love to help in the kitchen, so they put on their aprons, pull over stools and we get to work.  A recipe that my daughter loves to help with is banana bread!  My children are also learning how to use their little hands as measuring cups.  My 4 year old will wash his hands and then state, mom my cups are ready to bake!  So here is my recipe on how to make banana bread fun for the kids:

Banana Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. Have your little helper first crack the eggs in a small bowl.  You can easily mark the eggs with an “x” or draw a dotted line around the egg.  Your kids will have a blast trying to crack it on “x” marks the spot or close to the line as possible.  Don’t worry if they get a few shells in the bowl.  Teach them how to fish out the small shell pieces with the bigger egg shell.  Then give them a fork and let them go to town swirling the egg around to get it whisked/beaten
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.  This is perfect time to teach your children how to measure and what the different measurements are on the cups.   Be warned if you let them pour, rather than scoop out of a container, you may have more of a mess!
4. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.   This may be a little hard of small hands, so if you have a potato masher, let them try it! 
5. Next have little hands peel the bananas and squish them into the bowl of butter and brown sugar. My kids will normally first peel and then squeeze and squish.  Next stir in eggs until well blended (we just let the Kitchen Aide do all the work). Slowly pour the banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan (I hold the bowl and let little hands use a spatula and help scoop it out of bowl into pan).  You can always sprinkle on nuts, cinnamon, etc. to add a little extra!
6. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack. 

I do not let my kids mess with the stove/oven as they are still young, so when it is time to add the goodies to the oven, they move away.  A day of helping in the kitchen is not complete without filling the sink with sudsy bubbly water and letting them play in the sink and help do dishes!

Important thing is to remember when you are cooking with kids you need to be patient and understand there will be a mess! I started small at first in the kitchen with the kids, teaching them first with a boxed mix, then to baking from scratch.  Now my 6 year old is always in the kitchen helping make dinner and clean-up. Sometimes it is just to mooch food too!

Do your children like to cook pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse? Have you helped your kids create a volcano for a science project? What is the most creative arts and crafts project your kids have tried out? Do you collect leaves and plants to use as art supplies?  Get inspired at http://cloroxrecipesforfun.com! 

To celebrate the new Recipes for Fun site, Clorox has launched the Ultimate Mess Party Sweepstakes and they want you to clean up with prizes! Sign up for a chance to win $10,000 toward an Ultimate Mess Party, plus chances to win instantly every day. Just by registering or sharing a recipe you could win. And just for sharing your recipes for fun, you’ll get a coupon for $1.00 off Clorox® Clean-Up® instantly. You’ll also receive 10 extra grand prize entries for sharing a recipe! There’s more! Each day, Clorox Clean-Up is instantly awarding FREE Clorox® Clean-Up® coupons and $100 gift cards from a variety of favorite retailers to lucky users for just viewing recipes. Prizes are awarded randomly so good luck!

For more information visit: cloroxrecipesforfun.com

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Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun blogging program, for 8,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on this program, click here and see the Terms link.”