Coming up with activities that keep little ones engaged can be challenging. Sometimes you just want an activity that someone else has tested and gathered all of the components together for you. If you want a culinary experience that encourages experimentation and applauds fun while developing skills like math, Foodstirs' Baker's Club is an option you'll want to consider.     Do you bake or cook with your little one? Do you subscribe to Foodstirs?    

Gates loves to help in the kitchen. When she was putting everything into her mouth this could be somewhat challenging. Now it's less of a challenge, but with these vegan chocolate chip cookies, you don't have to worry about your little one ingesting raw egg.     Refined-sugar free. Dairy-free. Vegan. Three words that will have a little one turning up their nose before they ever take a taste. But these cookies are sure to be a crowd pleaser. Gates wanted to eat the batter instead of shape and bake a batch of cookies.  

( updated 3/9/2022 ) My favorite treat when I need a pick me up or when I'm celebrating is chocolate, usually paired with one of my favorite red wines: a Pinot Noir or a Zinfandel. So, when I had the opportunity to attend a wine and chocolate tasting a few years ago at the See's Candies at Church and Market Street (this location has since closed) I jumped at the chance.   What would you pair with your chocolate? At the tasting, we sampled See's Candies with Champagne, Merlot, Muscat Canelli, and Stout. For me, the most surprising pairing was a Muscat Canelli with a Key Lime Truffle. But that wasn't my favorite; read on to discover the obvious pairing I couldn't believe I'd never tried.  

As a participant in the Walmart to Go First program, I’ve received a personal invite and payment for my time and efforts in creating this post. Convenience and ice cream don't go together when you're allergic to cow's milk. If you want any flavor other than chocolate or vanilla, you're often left to your own devices to make it. So, you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered Walmart To Go had all of the base ingredients for gluten-free, vegan ice cream, in stock and ready to deliver to my door.     Have you thrown an ice cream social before?   In the past I've made gluten-free, vegan ice cream using my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. Sometimes it would come out rich and creamy, and other times with an odd texture and little flavor. This time I decided to abandon my ice cream maker and freeze my ice cream in a stainless steel bowl and taking it out of the freezer and blending with a hand mixer and refreezing for a few hours. And... it worked like a charm.  ...

Valencia street in San Francisco is quite the destination for foodies. Within a few short blocks, you can find restaurants galore, a bakery, a cheesemonger, and two chocolatiers. The chocolatiers are my favorite spots: Dandelion Chocolate in the winter for a hot cocoa warm up and Chocolatier Blue on a grey day for a color pick-me-up. Which do you love most: sweets or savories?     If donuts, cookies, creme brûlée, or ice cream are more to your liking than chocolate, check out my round up of our favorite sweet spots in The Mission .     Chocolatier Blue The flavors (and colors) you'll find when you step through the door of Chocolatier Blue vary by season. The raspberries, peaches, lemons, and other fruits used in their collections come directly from the local farmer’s markets in Berkeley. On my recent visit they had passion fruit, mango, lemon verbena to name a few. (You can see the full collection of chocolates on their website.)     If you'...

San Franciscans must like sweets--it seems there's a bakery, a donut shoppe, or an ice cream parlor on almost every corner. Maybe I exaggerate just a little. But without really trying, I counted over a dozen in the mile radius around our flat.   Sweets must be important to us as well; Gates' first taste of Bi-rite ice cream was one of our Summer Bucket List items last year. (Visiting Mitchell's Ice Cream in Bernal Heights is on our Summer Bucket List this year.) And when Kait of Yuppie Love visited last summer, I took her two of our favorite haunts: Anthony's Cookies and The Creme Brulee Cart .      Where to Find Ice Cream, Donuts, and Cookies in The Mission Here are our top 5 favorite spots in The Mission where we satisfy our sweet tooth: Anthony's Cookies on Valencia between 25th and 26th Bi-Rite Creamery (if you're not feeling the lines and all you want is a pint, you can totally grab one from the market across the street or if you're the typ...

To kick off the holidays this year, my mom and my sister joined Gates and I in the kitchen to bake some of our childhood favorites. The most toddler friendly recipe we baked was a chopped apple pear cake.     What's your favorite fall fruit recipe?  

Tuesday afternoon I made up a batch of Hamantaschen dough and put it in the fridge to chill over night. Yesterday morning I realized my flour to liquid mixture was off and feared I was on the path to something went horribly wrong (SWHW) rather than to tasty sweet and savory Purim treats. Luckily, all ended well.     So here's my tasty (totally confirmed by cubes without any bias) dairy-free, refined-sugar free Hamantaschen recipe. I started with the Basic Hamantaschen Dough (pareve) recipe from Orthodox Union and went from there.   First, a couple of things about the unmodified recipe I started with. Skip this paragraph if you just want to know what I did. Depending on where you live, sea level or altitude and how moist your flour is or isn't, the ratio of liquids to dry ingredients is off. Based on how dry my flour was I should have stopped adding somewhere between three and a half to four and a quarter cups. Dough when mixed correctly and ready for shaping should wi...

Yesterday, I accidentally discovered the best non-dairy hot chocolate recipe. How you ask? Easy. While I was making chocolate mousse for my last Souvenir Foto School assignment.     Our class started with a chocolate mousse recipe made from cream, bittersweet chocolate chips, and honey. When I saw the recipe, I knew immediately I'd be reinterpreting it. With a baby in the house we don't have any honey in the pantry; swap light Agave. I'm allergic to dairy, so swap coconut milk (not the stuff that comes in boxes, but the thick coconut milk from Thailand that comes in cans) and baker's chocolate with a little maple syrup for the bittersweet chocolate chips.   Vegan Hot Chocolate or Chocolate Mousse 1 1/2 cups, Mae Ploy Coconut Milk 1 Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Dark Chocolate (99% Cacao) Baking Bar, finely grated 3 Tablespoon (Tbsp) Light Agave Nectar 1 Tablespoon (Tbsp) Maple Syrup 1 Tablespoon (Tbsp) Mandarin Orange juice, freshly squeezed Heat coconut milk ove...