1. Wash our hands. Always make a point to teach children the importance of washing our hands when handling food.  
2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. When reading parts of the recipes the children can not do, like turning on the stove, please read the instructions aloud, and tell them what you are doing. For example, I am turning on the oven so that it has time to get to the cooking temperature needed while we mix all the fun stuff.  
3. Pour Apple Cider into a saucepan on medium heat and cover. All this to reduce. It will take some time, depending on the juice you are using. The object of this part is to turn the Apple Cider into a syrup. Explain to your children what reducing means and how you take a liquid and turn it into a syrup by cooking it.  
4. In one bowl, mix your dry ingredients. Have the children help you measure the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and apple pie spice. We have them pour flour in first and then make a hole in the middle where they put the rest of the dry ingredients. They like to “bury” the spices.  
5. Mix the sugars, butter, egg, and milk. It can be done by hand but is best mixed by hand mixer or stand-alone. It is a great way to teach your children about safety regarding these kitchen tools. LET THEM CRACK THE EGG! Have them crack it in another bowl if they get a shell. It is the favorite and most fought to overstep in my home.  
6. Add the cider to the wet ingredients and mix.  
7. Slowly add the dry ingredients. Give your child 1/2 cup measuring cup at a time. Once, I gave them a lot to see what happened and how the mix went everywhere. Though it was fun, they now understand the word slowly.
8. Take the batter and put it into a piping bag. Pipe the donuts into the pan.  
9. Bake for 10 minutes or until you can pull a toothpick out clean from the donut.  
10. Allow cooling for 5 minutes before putting toppings on. At the same time, mix the sugar and spice for the topping in a bowl. 
11. Brush with butter, then dip the buttered side into the pre-mixed topping. The kids loved “painting” the donuts and then dipping them in sugar. 
12. Eat and Enjoy. These are best served hot. If by chance they last long enough to have “leftovers,” keep them in the Refrigerator and heat up in the toaster oven before serving again.  

We like to include our children in most of our cooking. Since our children are small, they could only help in the first few steps of this particular recipe.

1- Trim and slice chicken breasts. To make the slices nice and thin, we like to butterfly our chicken breasts and then cut them.

2- Place the Chicken, garlic, teriyaki sauce, and honey in a gallon zip lock bag. Place in refrigerator for an hour up to overnight. This part was perfect for party planning because we prepped this the night before and let it marinate overnight. (Recipe will still work if not marinated, but flavors pop more than they are allowed to marinate).  Children love to measure and pour. They can do this step since it is not near the stove. Let them measure, pour and seal the bag. Teach them that when you put meat into a marinate, it has time to absorb the spices and become even more flavorful.

3- Wash and slice your veggies.  We purchased child knives for our children so they could learn in a safe way how to cut veggies.  

4- Take Chicken out of the refrigerator. Put stove top on medium heat and begin heating a stock pot.

5- Place marinated Chicken in the stock pot.  Depending on your children’s age and capabilities, they may be able to help with the stovetop. With ATTENTIVE monitoring, my older child has learned how to help with the stovetop and the safety measures needed. 

6- Add Sazon spice. Let this cook for a few minutes, stirring, and place the lid on top. We like to let this cook a little before putting in the red sauces to see that the Chicken is cooking.

6- Add tomato sauce and ketchup into the pot and stir. Let sit for 5 minutes on low heat or until Chicken is thoroughly cooked.

7- Add veggies. Depending on how cooked you like veggies, take them off at that point. 

8- Remove from heat. Now here is the part that I mentioned above. Since adults like a bit of spice, I split the batch. I removed half of the batch into a casserole dish with a cover, then we took the rest of it and added hot sauce to our taste. We used three tsp. and felt that it was perfect.

9- Serve with white rice and Arepas. Click the link to find our recipe!  Children can come back for this part and assist in plating and serving the meal they helped prep. The pride that illuminates them when they are included is priceless.