Playdough muffins...

Ok, technically this isn't a food recipe - but play dough is really easy to make. I'm not going to say that it's cheaper to make it than buy it at the store, because play dough is really cheap, and I still buy it sometimes to get the vibrant colors that you can't get with homemade (the muffins pictured here are a mixture of homemade and store-bought - the blue and pink are homemade and the other brighter colors are store-bought.) - but honestly, preschool age children (and younger) are perfectly happy with homemade, and you can make much larger amounts that aren't packaged in little disposable plastic cups. Plus, it's fun to make, and fun to play with the still warm dough after you make it. And, as long as you keep it in a sealed container (I use old yogurt containers, but you could just as easily use a ziploc bag or something), it keeps for a long time (well, until your child makes muffins with it that she refuses to take apart or put away, then they dry out - but even if they look a little faded and cracked, they make perfectly good pretend muffins when they are dry...). Be sure to use the cream of tartar in the recipe - that's what keeps it from getting moldy or something. You don't need to refrigerate this or anything.

Colored Playdough:
1 cup water
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
food coloring
1 cup flour

Combine water, oil, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a saucepan and heat until warm. Remove from heat and add flour. Stir, then knead until smooth. Store in an airtight container.

Tip: I always find that this needs more flour than it calls for - I add 1 cup at first, and then add flour a little at a time until it's the consistency that I like. I've also found that you can skip putting it in a saucepan if you want - you can throw everything (but the water) into a large pyrex measuring container, and add boiling water. Also - if you want red - forget it. Adding red food coloring to white flour makes pink. And if you use whole wheat flour (I've done this...), it completely throws the color off. Of course, you would probably figure that one out before you tried it. Also also, if you use organic flour (ahem...I've done this as well), the resulting play dough will be really expensive. But organic.