Do you HAVE to eat the creations your kids come up with in the kitchen? My 9 yo refuses to follow a recipe to save her life and we're left with soggy, too sweet, underbaked, lumpy baked goods. She does this to "surprise" me to make me "feel better" when I'm having a rough day. I know I should just gulp it down and say thank you, which I usually do, but somehow i just can't stand the thought of that in my stomach. (part of the reason why I'm feeling "bad") Any thoughts from the sensitive and creative mommies out there?

You better hope someone else answers this thread. Cause I am soooooo not sensitive or creative. Send her to a kids cooking class? Or just spit it out in a napkin when she's not looking.

UPDATE- I froze the thing. After looking at it there was really nothing else that could be done. So I suggested it looked like it needed time in the freezer. After a few days, I'll probably chuck it but not after taking a few spoonfuls out for the garbage disposal to snack on.

maybe get her a cookbook of her own? I had a jello "cookbook" as a kid & I LOVED making stuff out of that thing. Maybe she just needs something more oriented toward her? I dunno, but I can't see myself eating some weird thing my kid made. I can't even eat the weird stuff my husband makes (or even some of the odd stuff I manage to make). I can be weird about food sometimes. Freezer solution sounds good - if she remembers, tell her you ate it maybe? Just remember, you'll be laughing about this together in about 10 years!
good luck!

Here's a recipe that's sooo easy, my four year old son pretty much prepared the whole thing himself. I got it from Nick Jr. magazine:

Mini Apple Pies

1 apple (sweet, like fuji) peeled and thinly sliced.
1 roll refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 cup applesauce
1 T sugar
1 T ground cinnamon
Oven preheated to 400.

1.Take refrigerated dough and lay out flat on a board. Roll out with a rolling pin and make sure to press seams together. Cut out 1 1/2 inch circles out of dough (I just used a drinking glass). Press dough circles into each well of a 6 or 12 cup* muffin pan.

2.Fill each dough lined cup with apple slices.

3.Drop a spoonful of applesauce on each of the apple filled cups. Combine the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle each pie with about a teaspoon.

4.Bake in oven for 15 minutes. Cool before serving.

With this recipe, your daughter can roll out the dough,cut out the circles, press the dough into the cups, add the apples, applesauce and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar. All she may need help with is peeling and cutting the apple and setting up the oven.
I hope you try this because the mini pies taste really good!

*The recipe called for a 6 cup pan, but me being greedy for apple pies, made the dough fit in a 12 cup pan. Just reroll the scraps and you can get 12 circles out of it.

Another thought....when I was a kid I looooooved my sleazy bake oven....maybe get her one of those things....there are lots of recipes on the net geared towards baking in them, so you wouldn't need to keep buying the $$ little packets. If you don't want to get her the pink one, you could buy the boys "queasy Bake Oven" (or whatever its called), but I think its 10 bucks more for the same thing.