Cooking with kids! (Calzones, curry and cookies)

I spent Monday cooking and cooking and cooking with my brother Declan and sister Deidre.  It was a ton of fun.  They're awesome chefs; both full of great ideas and in possession of a capacity for food bliss that I very much relate to.

Deidre started it off with mini chocolate-chip cookies which my mother dubbed 'Bellybuttons.'  Deidre had originally wanted to make Hershey kiss cookies, but, since we had none, she downsized and came up with these adorable munchies!

Aren't they the cutest?

Then Declan wanted to make dinner for the family, so we talked it out and he decided on calzones and coconut milk curry.  I ended up making most of the curry, but he did an excellent job chopping the potatoes and carrots.   I made up the recipe, and (foolishly) didn't write it down, but it was a pretty basic creamy curry with coconut milk, carrots, potatoes, eggplant, cilantro, onion, garlic, peas, corn, coriander seeds and a couple different curry powders.  

Now for the calzones.  Declan used a basic pizza dough recipe out of a Moosewood cookbook, and did all the rolling, stuffing, folding and baking himself!  Deidre also made a mini-calzone of her own with a spare bit of dough.

Beautifully rolled.

Diligent grating.

Thumbs way up!

It was a complete success!  I can't wait to do more cooking with both of them.

In love,
Mada