#InTheKitchenWithFaye Ep5: Animal Sandwiches for Kids

Posted by May October 25, 2019

#InTheKitchenWithFaye Ep5: Animal Sandwiches for Kids

We are already on Episode Five! Frankly speaking, I don't know how long mama can keep this up for Faye because filming, photographing and being in the kitchen as Chef de Cuisine are all huge roles. It is really nice though to have all these documented for us to look back when she's all grown up. Wondering if Faye will be a budding young cook by the time she's ten!

This year, I decided to help her establish a YouTube cooking channel. SUBSCRIBE!

All these started when she was just three. I was hanging around in the kitchen getting a meal sorted out when she decided she'd like to pitch in to help. I'm never a fan of the kitchen. Cooking isn't something I enjoy and I find every excuse not to cook. But! It seems to be in the DNA of my daughter to love working with food! She especially enjoys the hands-on parts of things eg. using her hands to peel prawns [Watch InTheKitchenWithFaye EP3: Prawn and Pork Rib Noodles], using her hands to marinade raw meats, using her hands to knead flour [Watch InTheKitchenWithFaye EP4: Triple Chocolate Snowskin Mooncake]...

#InTheKitchenWithFaye was easy to come up with. She would jump at any opportunity to cook with me and because of her enthusiasm, I decided to try my best to enjoy the kitchen too. Nobody every taught me how to cook or even tried inspiring me to cook. As a mother, this is the least I can do. To look at it in a different light so that my daughter can share a common interest with her mom.

She asked me once while we were peeling and chopping garlic [she's a pro now by the way! Chopping with a big adult knife], "Do you love cooking mommy?" and before I could answer, she added, "I Loooooooooovvvvveeee Cooking!"

I didn't want to disappoint her or be a wet blanket. I told a white lie, almost whispering, "I love cooking too baby".

After spending almost 10 months in the kitchen now, I think I'm truly beginning to enjoy it. I had better! Because I spent $20k demolishing our kitchen and building up a new one [Read: Kitchen Styling with 3LittlePicks]. Our new kitchen gives us a lot more table space to work together as mother and child. Totally loving it!

We made Animal Sandwiches for dinner on Wednesday night! How did this come about? Absolutely impromptu.

It was a regular day after school. We came home as usual and had our lunch! I didn't intend to do anything special in the kitchen with Little Faye that day but she decided to flip through her recipe book and requested to have these adorable animal-faced sandwiches for dinner!

I didn't have the ingredients for it and sought help from her daddy. He was going to pick Ewan up from school and I thought maybe, just maybe he might be able to hit the supermarket before coming home. But daddy had a better idea! He turned to Amazon to purchase the ingredients we needed and had it delivered to our doorstep within the hour. Perfecto!

Don't even know why I acceded to her request to make these sandwiches for dinner because bread for picnic Yes. Bread for breakfast Yes. But bread for dinner? Oh well... If it makes you both happy. Yes!

Definitely a must to include fruits for them since it isn't exactly a balanced diet with peanut butter, cheese, cream cheese, butter and seaweed!

Mama ended up finishing this recipe on her own because the decoration parts were really too tough for our five year old. I didn't have any cutter templates and had to manually cut out tiny eyes and smiles and whiskers! So please go get yourselves equipped with cute food stampers before you get started! It will save lots of time and of course, the child can also be involved.

With regards to making each animal-faced sandwich, I have some suggestions:

RABBIT - do cover the ears with cream cheese too as you would with its face so that it looks uniformed.

TIGER - use creamy peanut butter without nuts so that its face wouldn't look bumpy from the peanuts!

BEE - The feelers of the bee can put together with raisins and pasta strands! Do not use toothpicks so that every part of the animal can be eaten.

PENGUIN - It's almost similar to making a monkey so go forth and be creative!

We found this Recipe Book from Popular Bookshop and when Faye's bored, she'll pick it up for a flip. And I'll sit by my little corner crossing my fingers she won't choose anything too tedious for me to help her make!

Love my little Sous Chef. More than enough to engage in cook-outs with her. {hugs}

Oh yes! What do you do with all these bread ends? Share with me if you do have some great ideas!