Adventures in Cooking
Saturday, March 29, 2008
I've been productive the last week, despite getting into reading Mansfield Park, so I need to share.
First, I finally had a batch of pasta come out to my liking! YEAH! Clark loves the homemade stuff too. Ok, so he loves all pasta, but he always downs this stuff and I feel better since it has whole wheat and some spinach in it. Masaki gives a big thumbs up for this stuff every time too.
Other cool tricks I've discovered.
-Clark can run the Cuisinart. He's pretty good at chopping stuff up that way and is surprisingly helpful. It is locked before he can start it so he can't open it without me, and can't run it without it being closed.
-Pureed spinach/carrots/tofu go really well with homemade mac and cheese, thanks for the great idea Pam!!
-You can make corn dogs super easy. Get some pancake mix and add some milk(and some corn meal), stick a toothpick in half a little wiener and dip in the mix, then fry that bad boy up. Another variation, slice up the wiener and add to the mix and make it into a pancake. I want to try it again, but add spinach puree to the whole thing, you know, get those veggies in. This is especially helpful to me, since I have a hard time finding meat that my child will eat. He LOVES it.
-Veggies taste better frozen or mixed with cream cheese. Clark likes his mixed veggies, but he wolfs them down when we mix them with cream cheese.
-If it is frozen, he thinks it is ice cream. I give him home made ice cream with less sugar in it and then water it down with yogurt. My husband would start a riot if I gave the same stuff to him. Ahh youth!
-Let the child pour! Oy, Clark wants to pour everything, which is scary, he's actually pretty good at it, and if I measure it, it works great. Stirring on the other hand...not a good idea.
Ok, all done! Must sleep now!
posted by soybeanlover @ 10:28 PM
4 Comments:
Have you made green popsicles/smoothies? My girls love them. When we have a lot of kale I use that, but lately they have been with spinach. I fill the blender FULL with the greens & add a bit of water to blend it all up. Then I usually add a bit of homemade plain yogurt and a spoonful fruit juice concentrate to sweeten it up. I'm not a huge fan of the juice, but it gets them eaten and begged for. I often add other fruits as well. For kids adverse to greens, adding strawberries turns it brown (though I like the green look better). Oh, and the first time I made them I had a bunch of grated carrots to use up and I added them. I forgot about that! I loved that batch too. :)
I'm actually not really a fan of the hiding veggies technique (though I do use it some--I just don't really usually HIDE the veggies; just add them). The amount of veggies it adds per serving is usually negligible and I'm against the fact that it give kids a false impression of nutrition. Time should be spend introducing and introducing veggies over and over so that kids learn to appreciate them and enjoy them. As they get older they will continue eating their veggies this way, while the other way is a sneak attack and they will stop getting veggies as soon as they aren't slipped in anymore. Hmm, I just read a great article that summed up my thoughts way better than I could here, but it's not online. curses! I don't want to sound negative about the practice in general...since I know you and Pam would be just doing it to add EXTRA nutrition (which is how I try and use it). I think often it keeps parents from feeling like they need to keep trying to get their kids to like and enjoy their veggies/make them more laid back about the other foods they eat.
Oh bother, this isn't coming out right at all. I think the article was along the lines of this one.
I think I get what you are trying to say, and I agree with you whole heartedly. Clark in general likes his veggies, truthfully I hide veggies more for Masaki than anyone else..and because I want to use veggies in everything I possibly can. I like them, I like the way they make me feel, so I want to eat lots of them. Teaching good eating habits is more important than just getting the right nutrition.
I will try the green pop recipe once it warms up enough, I still can't even make my own yogurt yet...bah, I hate rainy days in spring, can't do laundry either.
Makes sense. I put extra veggies in a lot of things, I just don't go to the extra effort of really hiding them. I don't always point out that they're there though. ;p
Oh, and for yogurt I found that the warm setting on my rice cooker keeps it at the perfect temp! The laundry thing? Well that's just annoying. It was finally nice enough to hang out some pants this week...and then it SNOWED ON THEM.
So yeah, the weather here isn't cooperating, but the girls still ate popsicles as a snack today (ummm, me too). It works great as a smoothie too, but this is easier to store.
Well I use the term hiding very loosely, considering that Clark helped me puree the spinach, carrots and tofu, helped me put it in, and the veggies flecks were quite obvious, but it was hiding in that they weren't in big chunks, and Masaki didn't complain about the taste.
Hmm I'll have to try the warm setting on the rice cooker...that is a great idea! And here here for the popsicle thing...we usually make stuff into 'ice cream' of some sort.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home