The past few weeks have been a bit crazier than usual around here. Since Christmas, someone in the house has been sick in one way or another. Caleb had strep throat before Xmas, stomach bug as soon as we arrived at my parents' house for Xmas, and an ear infection the first week back at pre-K. Ellie had snots for most of that time, but it didn't seem serious. After Caleb had recovered from the ear infection, Ellie told me her ear hurt. I was surprised enough to take her to the doctor and discovered she had a double ear infection. The spot where Caleb's amoxicillin had been became the spot for Ellie's amoxicillin. During the kids' various illnesses, Aaron and I also caught the stomach bug 2 days after Caleb had it and contracted some kind of upper respiratory/bronchitis bug after we came home.
Why am I telling you our sick story? Because meal planning has been sketchy at best and quite boring often. We have enjoyed a lot of soup, with Caleb eating vegetable broth for one of his meals when he had the ear infection. I think we are coming into a clearing this week, so I'm going to brainstorm some food ideas and let you know how they go.
The meals from my previous meal planning post were generally well-received. Caleb enjoyed the Turkish Vegetable Stew much more than the first time. I loved my bean soup (tweaked the recipe on the bag to replace ham with chicken sausage, skipped tomatoes) and the turkey chili mac. Both the soups and the chili mac really hit the spot. It's still wicked cold here, so comfort food is in order.
The Plan:
- Chili - Aaron declared that we had too many containers of leftover tomato "product." What this means is that I use canned tomatoes (diced, crushed, etc.) but I don't use the entire can for a given recipe. I save the leftovers and sometimes forget to use the leftovers in the next recipe OR need to use whatever I didn't have leftover (e.g., recipe calls for diced and I have crushed leftover).
- Cheesy lentil rice casserole - This came up at lunch today when I was explaining to Caleb that he did in fact like the cheese we used for his grilled cheese sandwich (shredded cheddar). I told him I use shredded cheddar on the lentil casserole he likes, and Aaron said we should have that this week. I'm kicking myself for not buying more broccoli to add in, but it will be yummy without it.
- Chicken quesadillas - IF I can find already shredded chicken, I want to try the Weight Watchers recipe I found last week. We haven't had pseudo-Mexican food in a while, and we all usually like it a lot.
- Leftovers! We have most of a quart of butternut squash soup, oven chicken fingers, and a hodgepodge I can't remember while away from the kitchen. We might even have a pasta night in which we use up leftover chili as the sauce (nom nom nom - think Skyline Chili for those of you from the midwest).
Lunches for the kids will be leftovers, sandwiches, and tomato soup from Trader Joe's. Tomato soup became a favorite for Ellie this week, so I want to take advantage of the fad. I think we still have some chicken tacos from Trader Joe's too. Although I won't generally eat them (a bit too rich for my preferences), the kids really love them. I also want to have them make their own mini-pizzas in the near future, but that will require a bit of grocery shopping, so I'm pretty sure that project isn't happening this week.
Tonight what I'm really craving (again...*sigh*) is a really good moist brownie. This does not help my weight loss efforts in the least, and I'm so ridiculously close to my goal that I almost want to just fast for a day to be there. Not a healthy choice AT ALL, but I'm less than a pound away!! Anyway, my body is rebelling and begging for baked goods. Damn winter for triggering my desire to carbo-load and hibernate! Still if anyone has a truly magnificent brownie recipe, please let me know. :)
We've eaten this recipe before, but I don't see a recipe on my blog for it. Hmph. Laziness is keeping me from posting the details of the recipe. The gist of it is that you shred equal parts potato and zucchini, add egg, onion/scallion, tarragon, salt and pepper. Lightly fry as pancakes. It's a variation on latkes, and the last time I remember our making this, they were GREAT!
Tonight was a more frustrating experience. Tasted great but more trouble than they were worth. I should have had another meal of the pumpkin soup. :P Since the recipe is a Weight Watchers recipe, it doesn't call for much egg. I ended up adding eggs, which of course means that the ones I made are not 2 points per serving (a serving being 2 pancakes). So much for that controlling my food thing. Even after adding the egg to make the mixture hold together, the pancakes were still pretty flimsy when I would flip them. In other words, what started as a pancake which looked like it would hold its shape ended up being a pile of shredded vegetables. I had a plateful of fallen pancakes before Aaron came home.
Fortunately, I had not exhausted the supply of "batter" by the time he arrived. I handed over my spatula and refused to do any additional work on the dinner. Aaron asked if I wanted a different job, and I angrily refused that too since I had been listening to increasing levels of whine from a certain adorable 2.5 year old for the previous hour. While Aaron saved dinner, I watched the end of Toy Story with Caleb.
All of this frustration does have a happy ending. Caleb ate many of the pancakes, which is not terribly surprising. Ellie ate more than one serving, which is a huge surprise, and had applesauce (another surprise as she has been rejecting applesauce this month). And she looked at me in the middle of dinner, and unprompted said "This is EXCELLENT!" in a perfect imitation of her brother's usual food praise.
Last night I decided to roast a sunshine kabocha squash as part of our dinner. Sunshine squash look a lot like short pumpkins.
Check out the squash in the upper left - those are the sunshine kabocha squash. The others are (from left to right): Sweet Dumpling, Thelma Sanders' Sweet Potato. Bottom row: Muang (a Thai variety), mini pumpkins, and Pink Banana. Thanks to Prospect: A Year in the Park for the picture and labeling!
Anyway, I roasted the squash - cut it in half, scooped out the pulp and seeds, sprayed with olive oil spray and sprinkled some black pepper on it. Yum yum. Aaron and I loved it.
The kids?
Yeah, no go on the squash. Caleb tried a piece. He chewed it so much that he no longer liked it. Ellie wouldn't touch it. *sigh* Caleb asked "How many pieces do I need to have?" I told him he didn't need to eat more of it. In fact, I said:
"You don't need to have more squash. You can eat your kale instead."
His response?
"KALE??? YUM!!!!!!" (munch munch munch)
I am not giving up on the squash, but how delightful that he chose a dark green leafy. :)
Tonight I made fish and chips. It's easy from an ingredient perspective, and it's a bit time consuming to clean and cut potatoes and bread the fish. However, our neighbor brought us haddock he caught, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use something so fresh.
Kid review: 2 thumbs down. Ellie ate ketchup and a few bites of the chips. She told us that they were not chips but in fact potatoes. Caleb complained about not being able to pick up the food with his fork and then tried to convince me that the fish was too spicy. The spiciest spice is black pepper followed by deli mustard, so this is not a spicy dish by most standards.
I suppose I need to remember that my son will eat fruits and vegetables happily so that I don't want to stop cooking for him.
Bath time has arrived and the natives are beyond restless. Would someone please try the recipe (see link at top!) and let me know what you think?
Tonight's dinner was leftovers. It's too blasted hot to cook, and we had some goodies to get through. On the menu:
- Trader Joe's chicken sausages
- Pesto tortellini
- Salad fixin's - lettuce, cukes, tomato (maybe only for Aaron?), red pepper, olives, feta
I skipped the olives since I have yet to meet an olive that I like. Aaron ate a bit of everything. Ellie ate mostly tortellini, played with her red pepper, and chewed some chicken sausage (not sure about actual swallowing). Caleb ate everything except for the feta cheese. Yes, everything! He asked for the salad fixin's!! As he worked his way around the plate, he didn't touch the vegetables he requested. He started with chicken sausage, then we gave him tortellini while he munched a few vegetables. Before giving him more tortellini (he asks for more before swallowing his last bite), we suggested he eat a specific vegetable first (e.g., "have your red pepper, then we'll get you tortellini"). Sure, he complained a bit the first time, declaring that none of us would have tortellini. I responded by stabbing a piece of my tortellini and showing him that I would eat it. Yeah, I know I'm immature.
At the end of dinner, no vegetables remained on his plate. Aaron assessed what Caleb ate.
"Caleb ate peppers, olives, cucumbers, and lettuce."
Last I checked, that is a valid salad!
woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
More garden adventures here, and not happy ones. It started with noticing a half-eaten tomato on the ground of the raised bed. No, I did not and will not take pictures of destruction. A better blogger would give you photographic evidence. I'm too grumpy about it.
After the half-eaten tomato, we found munched and crunched cucumbers and nibbles in our failing broccoli. I don't eat as many tomatoes as my boys, but I was still annoyed. I was especially perturbed about the cucumbers. And then Aaron saw the culprit:
Groundhog. Woodchuck. Marmot. Land beaver. Marmota monax. Rodent of the family sciuridae. And if you think that Latin family sounds like squirrel, you would be right. The groundhog is a large ground squirrel, according to Wikipedia.
On the plus side, it is a cute critter and appears to be much more scared of humans than the smaller tree squirrels.
On the negative side, it has a voracious appetite. While we were enjoying time with our family in Indiana and Chicago, it ate every last leaf of potential broccoli and chomped at several more cucumbers. It started in on the swiss chard, but apparently didn't like it as much as the rest of the garden. Our garden became land-beaver buffet.
I read about ways to encourage the furry critter to leave - pepper spray (not the kind you use for self-defense), moth balls, the urine of predators. I bought 2 of those 3 suggestions (care to guess which?). This morning Caleb woke up half the neighborhood with primal screams of defending our turf. He called it a fat squirrel (pretty accurate) among other choice epithets.
As I sat down to share the joys of Greek yogurt and the frustration of our newest pest, I watched the furry fat squirrel forage in our grass, far from the raised bed. Maybe one of my deterrents turned him off from the bed? I can but only hope.
Had to share this one:
"If I/you eat junk food, 10 minutes later I'll/you'll be hungry again!"
Truth from the mouth of my four year old son. See if it's true for you too. What happens when you eat candy or store-bought cookies or chips/pretzels/crackers? What happens when you eat sugary "yumminess"? Do you find yourself satisfied until the next meal or snack? OR...
Do you find yourself hungry 10 minutes (or some short period of time) later?
At lunch today, Caleb seemed to have a carbohydrate craving. He wanted peanut butter and jelly but not the quesadilla I was making for Ellie. Then he saw the tortillas and wanted those PLUS his PB&J. I denied him the tortilla.
Caleb: WHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY???
His PB&J would be on a cinnamon raisin bagel, so I figured that was more than enough carbohydrate and processed food for one meal. I loaded up his plate with some favorite veggies (or fruit, depending on your definitions) and the argument was dropped.
As he expressed his enjoyment of the lunch, I asked him if he knew why I cared so much about what he ate. No, of course he didn't know, though he suggested that I was keeping him safe. I agreed that I was keeping him safe and reminded him that some foods are "growing foods" while others are not. He gave me examples of growing foods like the vegetables on his plate and the cherries he ate for a snack earlier. He then included his bagel sandwich in his list of growing foods, and I paused in my agreement.
Where is the line between growing food and junk or treat food? I started with the PB&J minus the bagel and decided those were real foods. Caleb remembered my making the strawberry freezer jam, and the PB has one ingredient - dry roasted peanuts. Caleb thought it was hilarious that one could make peanut butter from mashing up dry roasted peanuts. I think we will have to try this sometime. But what about the bagel? His bagel comes from a local bakery, so it is not mass produced. If it were mass produced, then the bagel could have all sorts of not so real stuff in it. For example, Lender's brand plain bagels contain:
Enriched Flour [Unbleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1)Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)Folic Acid (Folate)Ascorbic Acid (Dough Conditioner)Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Yeast, Cornmeal.Just to show that it's not just Lender's bagels, here is the ingredient list for Thomas' plain bagels:
Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour [Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Reduced Iron, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1)Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)Folic Acid]Water, Modified Food Starch, Oat Fiber, Wheat Gluten, Inulin, Polydextrose, Yeast, Cornmeal, Salt, Dextrose, Natural Flavor, Preservatives (Calcium Propionate, Sorbic Acid)Grain Vinegar, Monoglycerides, Guar Gum, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Citric Acid, Sucralose, Soy Flour.BUT Caleb is not eating a mass-produced bagel. He is eating a magnificent Rosenfeld's cinnamon-raisin bagel. I would have preferred giving him a plain or sesame, but we had no such bagel. So is his bagel real food? I decided it was real food, but that it is a more processed food than even the peanut butter and jelly. As we talked through this, I realized I have another thought about how I want my family (all of us) to eat.
I want us to eat more foods which are less processed and to eat fewer foods which are more processed. I don't think it is reasonable for our family at this time to say "no processed foods at all." I do think it is reasonable to eat smaller quantities of processed foods and to eat larger quantities of less processed/whole foods. I think real foods will end up being more satisfying and filling, and that we will be giving our bodies what they actually need rather the junk they claim to crave.
We arrived last night in Indiana after 2 days of driving from Boston. We decided to have dinner before ending our journey, and we had some of the best Middle Eastern food I've had in ages. I didn't know whether the kids would be game for this type of food, but I'm of the mind that kids generally will eat when they are hungry. The service was super fast, and my kids were hungry enough to try all sorts of things besides the tasty pita. Caleb discovered baba ghanouj, and Ellie enjoyed some of my lentil soup. We ordered a falafel plate for them, and they both liked the crunchy flavorful balls of chickpeas. I felt very proud that they tried new things and enjoyed them. They ate really well and behaved well too. By the way, anyone traveling through northwest Indiana should check this place out: Aladdin Pita Fine Middle Eastern Cuisine.
Then came this morning.
Grandpa and Grandma's house is very exciting. There are people who will pay attention to them ALL.THE.TIME. There are new toys (new to them). Who has time for food?
My kids played for at least 1-2 hours before eating anything. Caleb probably played even longer as he woke up at 5:30am (the foul words I think of that hour are not appropriate here). While the grandparents were showering and such, I managed to get both kids to eat some yogurt. Not enough to fill them up, but maybe enough until everyone was ready for a fuller breakfast. The kids ate fruit and picked at cereal during the so-called breakfast.
We eventually head out to a playground. It was hot, humid, and downright icky air quality, but the kids ran themselves out. When I couldn't bear the heat and humidity any longer, we head to the grocery store to pick up a few more things for our week here. I met up with Aaron at the cheese counter and discovered that Caleb was DONE. Done, you ask, what does that mean?
Aaron had acquired samples of cheese for the kids. Caleb was unable to accept the sample from Aaron. Aaron would offer, and Caleb would stomp and sulk. Eventually he took the cheese. Then he said he needed something to put it on, so he sat on the floor of the store and put his cheese down on its tissue paper on the floor. Ew. I instructed him to stand. He whined and again tried to find a place to put the cheese down. I suggested his mouth as a good place for it. He yelled at me. Eventually he ate the cheese. We made it to the checkout. He started picking up junk food in the checkout. I told him we were not buying it. WHY???!?!?!?!? I considered not answering him based on his whiny screaming, but I told him that the junk food wasn't on the list and we would eat lunch at Grandma's house. He sat grumpily on the floor again. Grandma asked if he wanted to walk with her to pick up her prescription. He mumbled incoherently. We think he said yes. As he went to walk with her, the junk food distracted him again. Then he realized he wasn't walking with Grandma and our checkout experience sounded like this:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNDMMAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
I explained that he would see her again soon, that she just went to get her prescription.
"Buh-buh---but I wanted to be WITH HER!!!!!"
I explained he missed that when he picked up the junk food that I said we weren't buying. I mentioned that I knew he was tired and hungry to which he angrily yelled "NO I'M NOT!!"
I told Aaron I was escorting Master Caleb from the store and that we would see them all at the car. I carried 38 pound Caleb to the car in the 90 degree, 99% humidity weather. No, we were not in the first row.
As he screamed in the blessedly air-conditioned car, I considered what caused this meltdown. It's not like he wants to scream and rage at us. Here's what Aaron and I came up with:
- Not enough sleep. Caleb was up until at least 10 and woke around 5-5:30.
- Not enough food/water. We didn't give the kids any food at the playground, and they didn't eat enough breakfast (and probably a bad balance of foods)
- Temperament. Transitions are challenging for Caleb. Caleb is very persistent and fixates quickly/easily on ideas and plans. When the basics of food and rest are covered, we usually navigate transitions and disappointments reasonably well. Thanks to #1 and #2, this disappointment was an epic fail.
So how did we get out of this mess? For starters, we didn't drive until Caleb could get his screaming under control. This took a few minutes in the car (maybe 5-10). Then food became top priority as soon as we walked in the door at the grandparents' house. I made the current favorite sandwiches for both kids (PB&J - my kids are classic, though a bit boring) and added lots of veggies. Caleb got cukes, tomatoes and olives. Ellie got cukes until she promised not to spit out the olives. I was shocked to see her eat the olives. Maybe she prefers black to kalamata olives? Never complain when they eat vegetables. OK, olives technically are a fruit as are the dates I gave them too. :) I never saw Caleb eat, but his plate was empty and he seemed calmer.
A very wise parent once said to me, "There are at least three things you cannot force a child to do: sleep, use the toilet, or eat." We parents often wish we could make our kids do some combination of those three activities. I wish I could have made Caleb eat an adequate breakfast this morning and/or sleep more last night. It was not in his grand plans, and we all paid a price. What I hope he can take from this experience is that sometimes he needs to eat and that not eating can make him really cranky. After all, don't we all need to eat so we feel good?
Something I think has helped our kids to be willing to try vegetables as well as other new foods has been involving them in the process of producing, acquiring, and making food. Today was a good example of involving them. Aaron and I cut a deal that he would buy the fish for tonight's dinner (saving me a trip to the grocery with 2 kids who don't really want to shop) and I would pick green beans from our garden, as well as anything else in need of harvesting. I was certain there would not be enough green beans to share with our friends who would be joining us for dinner, but I agreed to the deal.
Look what we found!
3 cukes,
a tomato, and a little less than a pound of beans. The kids were really excited to show off the produce. I told Caleb about how much he helped by planting, watering, and picking dead leaves from the plants. Ellie enjoyed smelling the tomato (which she does not like eating yet) as well as trying to snag a green bean (they were washed before dinner!).
After harvesting the vegetables, the kids had lunch. I included a peeled and "sticked" cucumber, and they both ate it happily. Caleb also ate some tomato. Ellie has yet to develop a real taste for tomatoes, but I don't like them uncooked either, so I'm not too worried. After the so-called naptime, Caleb and I made squash kugel, which did not involve our harvested produce, but he still saw what went into making one of his favorite dishes. He enjoyed using my immersion blender, and he was surprised (annoyed?) that the mixture didn't look like "squash cake" when he was done mixing.
Involving him in the magic of cooking seems to help him try new things and enjoy the dishes we create together. At dinner, he tried the cucumber tomato salad even though I know he isn't fond of vegetables that have been "dressed up." He told me he liked the cucumber but not the other parts. I'm guessing he didn't like the onions. Anyway, he knew the salad came from our garden, and he was willing to try it because he was curious about what came out of our backyard. I think I even caught Ellie munching on a piece of cucumber or tomato.
Maybe this post isn't surprising, but I wanted to share that involving kids in the process of food does seem to have an effect, at least in our house.
Recipes for salad and kugel forthcoming!
This morning I made fruit filled smoothies for me and the kids. Caleb has been begging that I make him a smoothie for at least a week or 2 since I made myself a few and didn't make enough to share. I always think making smoothies will be easy, but I actually find them to be a bit of a pain to make. It's a good thing I really like them. :)
I don't follow a recipe for smoothies, but I just sort of throw together whatever fruit sounds good with a bit of yogurt and ice cubes. Today's smoothie ingredients were:
- about a handful and a half raspberries (most of a pint)
- about a handful and a half blueberries
- 2 peaches (peeled and pitted)
- 2 bananas
- 2 Wallaby organic vanilla yogurts (they are not thick)
- ice
Caleb informed me as I was making the smoothie that he didn't like bananas. This is a bunch of baloney sausages as I have witnessed his eating said fruit in the recent past. I informed him that he wouldn't be able to taste the bananas once they were mixed in.
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
He took a sip. He put down his cup and ran to the other room, sulked, and told me all he could taste was banana. Ellie devoured hers. I enjoyed mine. I tried to doctor Caleb's by adding more berries to mask the banana. No luck.
As he happily ate his Trader Joe's black cherry yogurt, he said, "The next time you make this, please don't put banana in it."
*SIGH* Hard to say no to that, isn't it?
The weather has been getting rather ridiculously hot, so cooking has become less enjoyable. Well, at least cooking in the kitchen is less enjoyable. This past week gave Aaron the opportunity to prepare various grilled goodies. Here is what our weekend eating looked like.
Friday Dinner
Friday dinner is special to me and Aaron. We hope it will become special to our kids. We celebrate the start of the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat) at this meal. We have a fixed menu which seems to be reasonably successful for all of us.
Fish - this week we had baked rainbow trout with parsley, sage, rosemary, and no it did not have thyme because I was out of thyme. :P I added some black pepper though.
Green vegetable - we had our garden's first pole beans which are not quite green and not quite yellow. Aaron thinks they are yellow, but I know I planted both yellow and green. We also had kale with carmelized onions. It turns out that Caleb likes kale this year. I don't remember whether he likes this preparation of it last year.
Rice and challah - we eat brown rice, and the challah comes from Rosenfeld's Bagels usually. Sometimes we have Cheryl Ann's challah, but we all seem to like Rosenfeld's better.
Saturday
Breakfast - The kids probably had instant oatmeal and/or yogurt. I *think* I made eggs for me and Aaron. Breakfasts in our house are extraordinarily repetitive and usually made to save time.
Lunch - Again struggling with my fuzzy memory, the kids likely had PB&J with some side of cucumbers and a fruit. I think this was the day I made a mighty fine tuna salad - tuna, lots of spicy mustard, some red onion, and frozen peas.
Dinner - Aaron grilled chicken from Chestnut Farms, seasoned with Montreal Chicken Spice. We also had grilled zucchini and summer squash and some fantastic focaccia from Natick's Bakery on the Common. The bread unsurprisingly got rave reviews from the kids. Caleb devoured the chicken and vetoed the summer squash. Ellie picked. After the kids went to bed, we enjoyed some homemade chocolate ice cream.
Sunday
Breakfast - Aaron bought bagels from Bakery on the Common, and we had lox, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes to add to the cream cheese. The kids had mixed reactions to all of the above. Caleb thought he would like the asiago cheese bagel (no), but in fact preferred the multigrain. Ellie thought she wanted cream cheese AND a bagel, but she probably would have preferred just the cream cheese. Both kids have loved lox in the past, but they seemed less in love with it this time.
Lunch - We spent our morning at the pond. The kids and the men ate lunch at the pond. This meant more PB&J. I also packed cucumber and carrot sticks, raspberries and blueberries. No food made it back to the house.
Dinner - Aaron prepared more yummy grillables! Chicken sausages from Trader Joe's and turkey burgers from BJ's. We also had some kale with carmelized onions (Aaron's favorite way of eating kale), and the last of our corn from the freezer. After dinner, we enjoyed making s'mores with some neighbors.
As I look over these meals, I don't think we're making anything terribly fancy or interesting. We probably give our kids entirely too much PB&J. And based on their lack of eating at the Indian restaurant today, I fear their palates may have forgotten how to eat well-spiced/seasoned foods.
Meals to Come
I mentioned in the previous post that we have to cook with beets this week. I'm sure we will have roasted beets since I know Aaron likes them, but I also know the kids are less enamored with that preparation. I'm going to do some more research on beet recipes to see if I can find something more palatable to my kids.
I also mentioned that we have much squash to consume. I fear I may have to bake enchiladas this week just to dispose of the beautiful fruits. Oven + 90 degree weather = yuck. I may do some more recipe reading to see what else the squash can do besides breads.
Surprisingly, the hardest CSA food for me to find a use for are the peas. My kids are hit or miss with them. I forget about them and they lose their yumminess then. Suggestions for snap peas are very welcome!
OK, I have cookies to bake for a class I'm taking, so I must sign off. Good eating to everyone!
This week's box from Stillman's showed signs of summer's progress. We had fewer green leafy vegetables and the start of the squash harvest. Our bounty for this week:
- 2 bunches of different varieties of kale
- 2 heads of lettuce - red leaf and something in the plain green variety
- 2 bunches of beets (the variety name escapes me)
- 2 pounds of snap peas (NOM NOM NOM!!)
- MANY zucchini and summer squash (some were pick your own)
- a few cousa squash (look like smaller lighter green zucchini)
- several cucumbers - slicers and picklers
- 1 pint of blueberries
We happened to buy beets at the farmers' market this weekend with the intention of grilling them that night. We forgot. We now have an oversupply of beets. Aaron enjoys them roasted. I know the kids will eat them in risotto. My neighbor made a very tasty beet salad that I hope to try to make. We will get through the beets. Feel free to share your favorite recipes too!
Speaking of farmers' market, we bought LOTS of fresh fruit this week from Dan the Orchard Man as we like to call him. He is one of the farmers of Keown Orchards. From him, we bought raspberries, apricots, plums, and apples. I can't remember whether we also picked up blueberries there. We have had such great quantity of blueberries coming in that it is hard for me to remember their exact points of origin. Anyway, I am really happy to have local fresh fruit again. Caleb and Ellie have been whining for the fruit I set on the counter, so I don't expect it to last much longer. On the other hand, Ellie only acts like she wants food, so we may end up with masticated but not eaten fruit (blech).
I think my next post will be on meals eaten and those we intend to make.
Thanksgiving is just past us, and I'm going to try this blogging thing again.
Thanksgiving is a great time to talk about food. After all, food is one of the three "F's" of Thanksgiving: food, football, and family. This year, I managed to get 2 of the 3 F's and am still lamenting the lack of football.
We spent Thanksgiving dinner with our cousins. There were many of what I call the traditional fixings as well as some unique ones. Turkey - yum. Cranberry sauce - two kinds and yum. Vegetables galore - mixed veggies, creamed onions, sweet potato yumminess, winter squash casserole. Stuffing - two kinds and more yum. Salad with homemade dressing - yum (and I'm not a salad fan!). For dessert, there were chocolates, cookies, 2 kinds of pumpkin pie, apple pie, cranberry-walnut bread, and pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Lots more yum.
This year's Thanksgiving included a kids' table! Much happiness from this addition. I feared that Caleb would not eat, but he just chose to eat mostly the raw veggies on the kid table instead of the food I brought him from the main spread. And by mostly raw veggies, I mean he chomped happily on bell peppers, carrots, and celery in rather obscenely large quantities. As Aaron tells me, you do not complain when your kid eats vegetables. He did munch a bit on his plate of traditional fixings, and he apparently likes the winter squash casserole I make. Ellie also noshed on a variety of the foods, but her favorite was the cranberry sauce - actually the canned stuff to be more precise. I was delighted to find an organic canned cranberry jelly this year since I refuse to buy the kind with high fructose corn syrup yet I need cranberry jelly for it to feel like Thanksgiving.
I've thought a bit about how my kids ate this weekend because holidays are often times when we all eat less healthfully than we might otherwise choose. My kids had more dessert options available, but I don't feel like they overindulged. Caleb asked for a second cookie at Thanksgiving dessert. When I saw he was talking about a 1-2 inch cookie, I agreed. He didn't ask for any more cookies. He ate a bit of pumpkin bread about an hour later. Besides the Thanksgiving desserts, I also made a sinfully delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate glaze. We all enjoyed it immensely on Saturday, and my kids strangely have not been begging for it since.
I wonder how my kids manage to regulate themselves or not crave the sweet stuff like I do. Certainly they don't eat it as much as I do. I've been thinking that I would be much healthier (and weigh a lot less) if I ate like my kids do.
I'm trying to decide whether making a soup today will work out. Caleb is sick and needing my attention. I didn't get a soup started in the morning as a result. Plus I had a doctor's appointment in the late morning, so the time has gotten away from me. On the bright side, I have finished my teaching prep for tomorrow (am terribly behind on other prep), so perhaps I *can* make soup.
Of course, Ellie is choosing to vocalize instead of sleep. I don't mean talk. I don't mean cry/fuss. I mean vocalize. High pitch swooping down to low pitch. Over and over and over.
And Caleb isn't really sleeping. I can hear him coughing.
So can I whip up a squash soup on a gray cool day? Magic Eight Ball says "Signs point to yes." Hmph. We'll see about this.
Caleb is sick with a cold or something like that. Fever, runny nose, some coughing, a bit irritable (though that may be normal). He also has less appetite and is a bit pickier than usual. Well usually he isn't all that picky. Huh, food. I eat. So what does one feed a sick kid to nurse him back to sleep?
Nurse. Hmm... those were the days with him. Back when he was nursing, I would have offered him more nursing opportunities. I swear nursing is why Ellie isn't sick yet - or at least seems healthier. Caleb weaned a little over a year and a half ago, so that's not an option.
Soup. He ate a bunch of pea soup last night. Today - not so much. :( I suppose I should learn to make a decent chicken noodle soup.
Other fluids. I gave him apple cider this morning. He happily downed it. I'm pushing the water, telling him that he needs to drink so that he can be healthy enough for gymnastics tomorrow. I've tried seltzer which he always asks for and supposedly likes. No dice there either. Applesauce is almost a fluid, but he didn't touch it at lunch. :(
I seem to recall that I'm supposed to starve a fever, and he does have a mild fever. Maybe sleep, water, and cider will be enough.
On Tuesday, one of Caleb's teachers asked me if I would bring to school some of the "gourds" I mentioned on my last visit. She wanted to have the kids check out the seeds and see the variety and so forth. She said they are talking about crops and farming. Basic sensory experience, as far as I could tell. We have a large bowl overflowing with "gourds," so I was happy to oblige.
By gourds, she really meant winter squash. Before I started to cook more from scratch, I didn't understand what people meant by winter squash versus summer squash. I definitely didn't realize I could eat most of what I saw as decorations, let alone know HOW to prepare winter squash. When we started going to the farmers' market, Caleb inevitably would pick up something that neither Aaron nor I recognized and beg to buy it. We would ask sheepishly what the thing was and how to prepare and eat it. The answer was usually to cut it in half, add olive oil or butter, salt and pepper, and roast until done (tender, soft, edible).
The first winter squash Caleb introduced us to was delicata squash. The link takes you to a beautiful food, garden and cooking blog. Delicata squash is the shape of a fat cucumber, light yellow in color with green stripes. The interior is a yellow or light orange usually. It is a sweet and tender squash. It makes a delightful side dish to any number of meals.
This year we received many kinds of winter squash from our CSA: butternut, acorn, sunshine (looks like a smooth slightly darker orange pumpkin), carnival, sweet dumpling (looks like a delicata squash in color but is round), and at least a few that I don't know the names of yet.
The next winter squash Caleb introduced us to was blue hubbard squash. It is NOT a pretty squash, in my opinion. Big, bluish-gray, bumpy. It is delicious, once you crack it open. The microwave is fantastic for softening up winter squash skin.
And so this morning I picked 4 different squash - butternut, delicata, carnival, and sweet dumpling - and gave the teacher instructions for how to prepare them:
"Microwave them for a few minutes to soften the skin. Cut them in half. Add butter or olive oil. Salt and pepper OR brown sugar. Roast until done."
I'll let you know how it goes.
You read it here first. My 3.5 year old son chose a fruit and cheese plate from Starbucks over a blueberry muffin. I would have picked a muffin for myself, and I had offered him a muffin as soon as we walked in. He saw the strategically placed fruit and cheese plate and asked if he could have that instead. It cost twice as much, so I wanted to make sure he really wanted it. I held it up to the muffin, and he still chose the fruit plate. I told him he would need to share with Ellie - surely a dealbreaker - and he still wanted the fruit plate, with apple juice.
Totally fine by me.
The kids ate very happily. Ellie rejected a piece of cheddar cheese, wanted more grapes when there were no more to be had, but happily chomped down on brie. Yes, my nearly 17 month old daughter chose to eat brie. I showed her the remnants of the divided fruit and cheese plate, and she picked the brie over the apple slice. I cannot stand brie unless it is cooked into some fancy appetizer (think puff pastry with fruit and cheese gooey goodness). Yet she took a small first bite and then ate half of the wedge!
Again, totally fine by me.
Last Thursday I volunteered in Caleb's preschool classroom. The teachers asked all families to send in recipes of their kids' favorite snacks and to volunteer for 30 minutes to cook with the kids. Being indecisive, I sent in 2 recipes: applesauce and zucchini bread. My volunteer date eventually arrived, and I packed up all the stuff I thought the school wouldn't have (food processor, zucchini, raisins, loaf pans).
I had SO much fun watching the kids mix and pour. I had SO much fun sharing the zucchini with the kids. I brought an extra one so the kids could pass it around. Zucchini make excellent horns, by the way, and acting like they are horns gets a lot of 3-4 year old giggles. I managed not to scare any of the kiddies with the food processor by giving them warning that it makes a lot of noise. And apparently the kids liked the bread just fine, though Caleb said some of the kids thought it was strange. I guess Caleb and I are going to have to get used to people thinking I'm strange. :)
When I entered Caleb's classroom, one of his teachers helped me find a place for my bag of tricks. She then told me that Caleb has the healthiest lunches she has ever seen in the school and that he eats really well. She told me he doesn't throw food and that he rarely needs reminders to finish eating or to clean up when he is done. I just beamed. I can't take full credit as Caleb is his own individual and makes his own choices, but I'm super glad that he is making choices that we wanted and encouraged him to make. I'm also delighted that the lunches I've been sending have been noticed.
OK, so self-congratulatory comments aside, I also found it interesting to watch how the kids responded to a cooking project. Some of the kids were fascinated and were begging for turns at this or that. Other kids wander to and from the table. I figured this was normal preschool behavior until another teacher said "You can always tell which kids cook at home." I asked her to explain even though I knew what she meant. The kids who cook at home or see cooking at home stayed at the table. The kids who aren't involved in food preparation at home wandered. I thought about that on my way home.
Why do some people cook with their kids while others do not? When do I choose to include Caleb and when do I ask or tell him to find something else to do?
Cooking with kids takes time and patience. Most people are lacking one of those two requirements. I don't have a lot of patience, and sometimes I don't have much time. Yet I like cooking with Caleb. It does take longer. It can be messier. It is rarely peaceful, and I like to cook as almost a spiritual or meditative experience. I like cooking with Caleb because I want him to know how food is made. I want him to know how to provide good real food for himself and others. Yes, I know that cooking can teach lots of other skills - math, science, the value of family traditions. I want Caleb to know that food doesn't always come from a box or the freezer to the microwave.
I'm not sure why I want Caleb to know this. I know I am passing on to him something that Aaron and I enjoy doing. I know I am passing along recipes and "techniques" that work for us. I guess I want Caleb to have a healthy relationship with food. And yes, I do believe we have a relationship to food. I think that we can develop a healthy relationship to food by knowing where it comes from, how it is prepared, and how our bodies and minds use it. Participating in our CSA, going to the farmers' market, and shopping together shows Caleb where our food comes from. Cooking with Caleb and talking about how we made things shows him how raw ingredients become the foods he enjoys. And as we eat the foods we make together, we can talk about what we like doing so that we can focus on how food gives us the energy to enjoy life.
Aaron and I have noticed a trend in Caleb's eating. He likes nearly every food that I don't like. I like most foods, but I strongly dislike the few I don't like. About once a year, I try these disliked foods, hoping my palate has changed. So far no dice. Maybe you're curious about these foods I don't like? Here's the list:- Olives (yet I like capers and cook with olive oil)
- Tomatoes, uncooked (cooked/processed is fine)
- Melons (I actually gag when I try them, and I *want* to like melon)
- Peanuts and cashews (I tolerate cashews a bit more, and I love peanut butter)
Besides those foods, I also generally do not like fruit WITH chocolate. I don't like chocolate-covered fruits (yes, including strawberries and cherries). I don't like chocolate candies that have fruit in them. Oddly I do like raspberry filling with chocolate cake.
We all have some variation of these quirks. Aaron, for example, does not like sweet potatoes ("neither sweet nor potato," he says). My son has few food quirks - doesn't like crust on his sandwiches (normal preschool thing, I think), not a big fan of cooked greens (e.g., kale), hasn't liked ice cream until very recently and I still don't believe him.
But guess what? He does like every single food I don't like. His lunch today was sliced turkey, an entire sliced tomato, and some applesauce. He finished the tomato and didn't have room to finish the applesauce. When we had salad a few weeks ago, he whined for olives the entire meal. He looks at me like I'm nuts when I say no thank you to his offer to share any kind of melon. He also offered me peanuts during a football game and did NOT want to take no for an answer.
Funny kid. I wonder whether his tastes are genuinely his or whether he just wants to push my food buttons. :)
