Ham and Broccoli Swirls - Kid Style

I love cooking with the kids when I can find recipes with tasks that are safe and manageable for them. Sometimes recipes call for too much mixing over the stove or lots of chopping with sharp knives. And we all know how that can turn out when youngsters are involved. I prefer to keep all their digits and allow them to remain free of 3rd degree burns so I limit their activity to prep work they can do at the kitchen table.

I found an old cookbook the other day with some fun appetizer recipes that gave the kids the chance to do more than just one step so I let my son choose one to try. He chose the Ham and Broccoli Swirl. You can find the recipe here.

The recipe as-is is do-able, but the slicing step was difficult to accomplish. They had no trouble rolling out the pastry sheet and spreading the cream cheese, and adding the toppings was fun and manageable. And rolling it into the "jelly roll" was only moderately challenging. The hard part was slicing these guys. I'm an average cook and while I am pretty agile with a knife, slicing that bad boy into 32 pieces just wasn't going to happen. When you press down with the knife the whole thing smushes and the contents completely fall out of the swirl. The pictures in the book look nice, but ours just weren't destined to turn out that way. Our second biggest challenge was that little sister wouldn't stop eating the partially frozen broccoli.

Instead, we sliced thicker pieces (we got 9 out of it) and ate it as an accompaniment to baked potato soup in lieu of bread. Dip them in the soup and they are pretty fantastic. Also, my kids didn't like the taste of the cream cheese so much so we've made a few alterations to the recipe:

Roll the pastry sheet as described then sprinkle with shredded cheddar or swiss. Add the broccoli and ham. Roll as directed. Slice into 10 pieces and place evenly spaced on baking sheet, or leave whole and bake until browned and cheese is melted, let cool, then slice into 10 pieces.

Enjoy!