New Disney Online Web Series: The Muppets Kitchen with Cat Cora

About a month ago I attended a blogger event to celebrate the launch of Disney Online's new web series, The Muppets Kitchen with Cat Cora. It has great recipes and cooking tips brought to you by Iron Chef Cat Cora and The Muppets. Each webisode is just like an episode of the Muppet Show, with hilarious appearances by Gonzo, Fozzie and other Muppets. They've even created a new chef muppet, Angelo, just for the series!

The event was held at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell, and rather than just chatting and sitting down to dinner, all the bloggers gathered in one of the Institute's test kitchens and cooked our own dinners. Bloggers were divided into groups and put in charge of making one item; each item was a recipe that can be found on The Muppets Kitchen website.

Dishes ranged from Greek Burger sliders to Thai Chicken spring rolls to Orzo Pasta to cold Watermelon Soup. We rushed around like we were contestants on the Food Network (fortunately no one dropped anything, and the chefs from the Professional Culinary Institute were extremely helpful, not pompous like Alton Brown or rude like Gordon Ramsey!) and got everything done in about an hour (which says wonders about how easy these recipes are).

My group was in charge of dessert: yummy Lemon Shortbread Cookies, made with lemon juice and lemon rind. We cut the cookies in rounds, but couldn't resist making three Mickey-shaped cookies just for us.

Every dish looked amazing, and tasted as good as it looked. Now that the holiday season is approaching, I'm definitely going to The Muppets Kitchen website to look up those dishes.

While we were pretending to be Food Network Challenge competitors, our kids were having some fun of their own, doing some arts and crafts, watching old Muppet Show reruns and assembling their own pizzas to eat for their dinner. Each of them received a kid-sized Muppets cooking apron (which was great, since they've outgrown the orange Home Depot aprons I got for free about 5 years ago!). They also took home a DVD of The Muppet Show, and they're now big Muppet fans (Alfie and I find it so amusing that our kids are now fans of Kris Kristofferson and Leo Sayer)!

I was so proud of my kids that night, because they didn't stick to their pizzas for dinner; rather, they tried each and every one of the dishes the grownups cooked. They loved the sliders, the watermelon soup and the thai chicken rolls -- which proves that the recipes on The Muppets Kitchen with Cat Cora can be enjoyed by both adults and kids.


Click here to see more photos from the event. Oh, and speaking of the Muppets, I just heard that there's a new Muppet Movie coming out in December 2011. Here's a sneak photo from the upcoming film:

Disclosure: My kids and I were treated to dinner and sent home with an assortment of promotional products. I was not paid to review the product or give my opinions. Product information is provided by the featured company/product and is clearly indicated as such. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.