Cockeyed Cake

This is the easiest cake in the world. Really. And it's vegan, should you care about that. And a responsible child can do the whole thing on her own (or his, whatever), so long as you handle the oven bits. It's also tasty. You CAN frost it - it's certainly nice frosted - although I'm prone to just devouring the whole thing hot straight from the oven.

Get out your square 9" cake pan. Don't grease it.
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cooking oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cold water (or cold coffee, if you want a mocha cake)
Mix your flour, soda, sugar, cocoa and salt right in the pan. Make three little wells in the mixture. Into one, pour the oil; into the next, the vinegar; into the next, the vanilla. Now pour the cold water over it all and stir it together - you'll see greyish swoops as the soda and vinegar react! Bake it at 350 for half an hour.

Little Kid Fruit Salad

Set out:
- a bowl of canned pineapple chunks with the juice (and/or canned peaches or pears)
- a banana (peeled, unless your little kid can do that)
- a butter knife and a cutting board
- a small bowl of mini marshmallows

Your little kid carefully slices the banana, and dumps that and the pineapple and juice into a plastic bowl and then adds the marshmallows. This is best served immidiately, and I'm not actually claiming that it's something that adults want to eat but your kid will be SO proud.