ChopChop Magazine

ChopChop: The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families is an award-winning quarterly magazine, published in English and Spanish for over 10 years. Each 48-page issue of the magazine contains delicious, nutritious, culturally diverse, affordable, and easy-to-follow recipes, along with essential kitchen skills, STEAM learning, and loads of fun games, and activities.

QUICK BITES

THE LEARNING GUIDE TO THIS ISSUE

How to cook grains

Simple salad • RECIPES JUST RIGHT FOR THE LITTLEST COOKS

Freeze-Ahead Smoothie Packs • Portion out fruit and yogurt ahead of time so you’ll be able to blend your morning smoothie—instantly! Summer’s a great time to freeze fruit, since it’s good and ripe and plentiful. Simply measure it into resealable plastic bags and freeze as many individual packets as you like.

Yogurt

KEEPING IT FRESH • When summer brings on the heat, we crave cool, crunchy salads of all kinds—salads to bring to the beach, pack on a picnic, or eat at the kitchen counter. Enjoy these recipes for making the most of the season.

Grain Salad with Corn and Tomatoes • With its mix of colors, flavors, and textures—chewy grains, crunchy corn, and juicy tomatoes—this salad has it all. It’s also sturdy enough to pack up for an outing. Use 2 tomatoes if tomatoes are your favorite or just 1 if corn is your favorite.

Green Tuna Salad • If you’re used to eating tuna salad that has just a fleck or two of celery in it, this recipe will surprise you! It might even be more salad than tuna, which is how we like it. Making this for later? Skip the avocado—or stir it in right before serving.

Green Salad with Homemade Dressing and Croutons • A green salad goes great with any kind of meal. Or turn it into the main event by topping it with grilled chicken, canned tuna, or, as Kids Advisory Board member Owen Osborne does, marinated tofu. “This was so fun,” he told us. “Salads are an easy way to eat your colors and try multiple vegetables at once.

Do-It-Yourself Croutons • Make the most of what you’ve got by transforming stale bread into everyone’s favorite salad topper.

Homemade Salad Dressing • Making salad dressing from scratch is magical: You put oil, vinegar, and seasonings into a jar, shake it, and pour it on your salad. You’ll never buy bottled again! Kids Advisory Board member Aleeza Riaz added dried oregano, garlic powder, and black pepper to hers and described the recipe as “very quick and delicious.” This recipe makes enough dressing for 5 or 6 large salads. It keeps well in the refrigerator.

What makes vinegar sour?

CARTOON CORNER

Lemony Kale and Chickpea Salad • Have you heard of people “massaging” the kale for their salads? We’re just using a spoon here—or tongs—but the idea is the same: Stir the raw leaves with lemon juice, oil, and salt to make them as tender as possible before adding the chickpeas. Kids Advisory Board member Tate Elliott added avocado to the salad and loved the way it broke down to make the dressing creamy.

YES YOU CAN! • We love fresh, seasonal produce, but canned fruits and vegetables can be just as delicious and just as healthy. We especially love canned beans and chickpeas because they’re quick, easy, and cooked just right.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT?

Creamy Coleslaw • This is a classic summer side dish. We don’t usually call for bags of vegetables that are already cut, but we make an exception for coleslaw because it’s tricky to cut cabbage very thinly. If you want to give it a try, shred ½ head of green or red cabbage and 1 carrot for this recipe.

Sprouting Celery • For a fast, super-easy, green project, try sprouting celery right in your kitchen. Who knew that by sticking the base of your celery—the part that most people throw out!—into a dish of water, you could get greenery growing in just a few...