The winners have been chosen, and the winning video comes from Audrey Whitby and Boo Spence. They make some awesome cookie cupcakes. Check out their video at the Jr. Chefs website.

Not in a cupcake mood? There are several other recipes on that page. Try out Pasta al Pesto, Sesame Seed Beef, Asian Turkey Burger Sliders, or Basil Pesto. You’ll find something for every taste.

If so, KidsCuisine.net needs you! We are looking for a few good writers to contribute weekly or biweekly. You can post about whatever interests you — we have an amazingly diverse group of contributors and cover a wide variety of topics.

Does this sound interesting to you? Leave a comment and we will get right back to you.

Unfortunately, none of these cakes is ready in time for me to share them with you this morning. Instead, I will have to leave you this lovely cake from Flickr’s distopiandreamgirl.

May your Mother’s Day be as sweet and wonderful as this beautiful cake!

Looking for a little cake inspiration of your own? Check out the Cool Mom Cake,  Triangle Cake, Pear Coffee Cake, or Checkerboard Cake.

LoveYourVeggies.com has a small collection of veggie-related games to entertain your kids. Kids can use blasts of water to scare away animals that are trying to eat crops, carefully steer the veggie truck to the market, and serve fresh veggies to hungry children. These games are all easy enough for fairly young kids (some facility with a mouse is needed), and each game only lasts a minute or two, so they don’t have to be extremely time consuming.

There’s some great stuff for grown-ups on the site as well. LoveYourVeggies.com features international recipes, suggestions for activities, and tips for getting kids excited about eating a well balanced diet. Go check it out!

This weekend, though, I decided to try eating the juice box frozen. It was great! Here’s what you do:

Take a frozen juice box out of the freezer and let it sit at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. This will soften it up.

Cut off the top of the juice box and squeeze the frozen juice block into a bowl.

Take a fork and scrape the surface of the block until it breaks up into icy shards. (Kids will enjoy this step, but may sure they’re careful — it’s easy to get too vigorous and spill!)
Grab a spoon and dig in!

Fruit juice can be a healthy option but can also be too calorie dense if your kids drink a lot. Consuming it as an icy treat with a spoon will slow them down, and a juice box is a great 100-calorie portion size. Serve these up as the weather gets hot!

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner. For grown ups, the 17th is often a day of drunken revelry, but kids can celebrate too. Whether or not your family has Irish roots, why not take some time next week to enjoy some Irish (or Irish inspired) recipes?

Welsh Rarebit (pronounce “rabbit” but containing no actual bunnies) is one of my favorites — an interesting twist on a grilled cheese. The bread is served open faced, with a strong cheddar cheese spread broiled until bubbly.

Corned Beef and Cabbage is a traditional food that many like, though you won’t find it in my beef-free house.  As with the rarebit, there is no actual corn involved in the recipe. In this case, the “corn” is large granules of salt used to cure the meat.

If these authentic foods aren’t appealing to you, you could always go the other route. When I was a kid, my mother only served green food on St. Patrick’s Day. She accomplished this mostly with food dye; any white food can easily be greened — think fish, mashed potatoes, milk, pudding, ice cream.

If food dye doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you would enjoy this decidedly non-Irish green food menu. They may not be traditional, but you can’t go wrong with green goddess dressing, spinach artichoke dip, pesto pizza, and creamy broccoli soup.

For dessert, if you still have room, I’d recommend either chocolate stout cake (using Irish Guinness) or mint chocolate chip ice cream, if you prefer the green food theme. Don’t worry, the alcohol will bake off, making the cake kid-friendly, if not particularly healthy. But hey, it’s a celebration, right?

(Photo used under creative commons license, taken by Flickr user Sister72)

Walt Disney World — it’s a veritable mecca for families with small children, and rightly so. Disney goes out of the way to create an environment that is great fun for both kids and adults. Even the most cynical grown ups can’t help but get a little excited when hit with a blast of the Disney magic.

For me, at least, the magic extends to the food. Disney World has one of the highest concentrations of excellent food of a vacation destination. Whether you love California cuisine, Polynesian cuisine, or even Norwegian food, there is an excellent restaurant for you. Granted, the Magic Kingdom is not exactly teaming with good food options, but Epcot’s World Showcase offers eating opportunities from nine different countries, and most are excellent! A trip around the World Showcase is a great opportunity to have your kids try some new ethnic foods they may not have been exposed to before.

Disney’s menus are kid friendly, and almost every restaurant offers some version of one of the universal kid favorites (chicken tenders, mac & cheese, etc.). But they also offer more unique options.

Interested? All Ears offers a comprehensive list of menu options at the many Disney restaurants. Check it out — I think you’ll be impressed, both for the adults and the kids.

(Photo used under Creative Commons license by Flickr user ninjapoodles.)

The website doesn’t say exactly what the prizes are, but they Junior Chefs will post videos they like on their website. There will also be a grand prize winner, a second place winner, and three runners up.

Think your kid has what it takes? Well, then, it’s time to get cracking on a recipe and video. Entries are due by April 17th, and winners will be announced on May 11th.

Last week, I went to a new kind of party for me — a cookie swap! If your family enjoys a lot of variety in goodies, you need to try cookie swapping. Here’s how it works.

• Invite a group of people (parents, kids, or families) to the cookie swap.
• Have each person or group make enough cookies so that there would be 3-12 per attendee (for example, at my cookie swap we had 28 people, so each person made 84 cookies and there were 3 per person). If your group is small, you may want to exchange whole dozens of cookies.
• Collect the recipes for the cookies before the event and gather them into a recipe sheet or book for attendees.
• Party time! When guests arrive, line up their cookies on a table or counter. Provide or ask guests to bring extra containers.
• Start swapping — each person will go through the line and take a predetermined number of cookies from each offering.
• Enjoy your bounty — a great variety of cookies and a festive good time!

(Photo used under Creative Commons license by grand_grrl.

This one little tool will peel, core, and slice your apple in about 10 seconds. After that you have one long ribbon of apple slices, which is a lot more fun to eat than a whole apple or even traditional apple slices. A couple slices into the ribbon and you have finely diced pieces ready for muffins, breads, and cake.

Are you not that into apples? The peeler does a great job on potatoes and pears as well. In fact, it comes with instructions for making potato shreds for easy hash browns.

The best thing about this peeler, though, is the kid appeal. Kids love turning the handle to feed the apples through, and it really does seem like magic when the apple ribbons start popping out. It’s also very safe, a lot less likely to result in cuts than a regular fruit and vegetable peeler.