Tag Archives: My Kids Really Eat This

Homemade Bread- No Knead

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Last week I mentioned my desire to make bread for the kids (and me, love my carbs!) but didn’t have the time to make the no knead recipe I’d seen by Mark Bittman in the NY Times.  It comes from the Sullivan St Bakery and found on their site.  Since I had planned it out this time around I could make it. 

I am not a huge baker and like to cook because I can improvise; in baking it’s very important to follow directions.  I guess I just have a hard time doing that, even here.  So, I decided to use 1/3 Spelt flour  and 2/3 unbleached wheat flour.  I also looked up some yeast starter recipes too becuase I love a good sour dough.  I didn’t have the time to let the yeast ferment but I started it ahead of the rest of the mixing.  I took 1/3 of the flour mixture, the yeast, one cup of water and a teaspoon of organic cane sugar.  I let it sit in a warm place in a glass container for a couple of hours.  Then I mixed the rest of the flour, salt and water in with my starter.  For the first 8 or so hours the day was warm and I let the dough rise in the calphalon dutch as directed, but when I woke up the next day to turn/pull it I noticed how the sudden temperature drop affected the rising, it had sunk a little. 

This is the pre-oven state.  It never regained that really puffy state because it wasn’t as warm, but when I got it out of the oven, saw the golden top, cut it, and smelled the waft of fresh yeasty bread, I was so thrilled.  The taste totally lived up to the sight and smell.  And my kids loved it!  So did everyone lucky enough to have a taste—a friend I brought a taste to, my husband and I.  

If you see from the recipe, it does not take a lot of hands-on time.  Plus you can give your kids the most wholesome hard-crusted, soft-centered bread without the unnecessary vitamins (if they eat well, you don’t need fortified bread, cereal, oj, etc, etc.) and other ingredients.

© 2010 mykidsreallyeatthis.com

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It can happen… in time.

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I just finished a spur-of-the-moment dinner with a friend and her kids. They are my biggest challenge. Not all of them, really just two. But since they aren’t mine I can only suggest, but not as persuasively as I would with my own. With my kids they get what they get and they don’t get upset.  Well, at least I ignore if they whine and try to make sure they get everything I’ve made— with a few modifications— like not giving the child who absolutely won’t eat a certain vegetable that one if there are other veggies to serve him.  But this is different; these two are extremely picky and I feel bad if I can’t get them to at least try some things. I certainly won’t push and just try to find things they will like. This is where the hiding foods inside other things might work. But I think it will happen in time if they’re not made to feel bad about their choices and stress them out.

I had originally planned to make this great pork stir-fry I created from a hodgepodge of several recipes. Since time was not on my side and I knew none of the other kids would eat it I made Mystic & Trader Joe’s Pizzas that I had in the freezer and made a large (what I consider) kid-friendly salad. It was romaine, orange bell pepper, cucumbers, celery, and red cabbage. I used a Paul Newman’s dressing because, again, it was late.  I love these children and their mom and I’d rather them stick around longer with something they would eat than scare them away with my cooking.  One of her kids actually tried something for the first time!

When should you start kids eating healthfully?  From the beginning. Is it ever too late? Probably not; there are plenty of stories of people becoming chefs or food critics because their parents were awful cooks or didn’t feed them well. And as my mother says kids get on “jags” of things and will eat something until you’d want to puke before eating it yet again, yet they’re perfectly healthy. But then there are the other stories, the ones more common these days, of childhood obesity, diabetes and other health issues. I look around and see so many kids and teens who don’t look healthy and I assume (maybe incorrectly) that they don’t eat well.

If your parents didn’t feed you well, how do you change? Is it harder to learn to eat well if you were brought up with bad food choices? I think those who’ve been eating well from day one (or at least from 6 months old) have several advantages- they will have better health benefits from an earlier age and less likely to be obese or ill; they will have a better relationship with food; less likely to have food-related issues or constantly on the latest diet; they will enjoy food for the tastes and pass on the suitable food lessons to their own children. But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed if you got a bad start. I know my friend’s mother was a bad cook and had issues with food, but my friend is trying to give her kids the healthier choices and never once have I felt her decisions were made because she doesn’t care, she just didn’t have the same foundation that I had. But she’s learning really quickly and for that I’m proud of her. She even says I inspire her, which is flattering. Her kids are beautiful, inside and out, and I am so happy they will have a better start than their mom. 

So, my tips on a proper foundation: start them off feeding them those strained beans they might spit out a few times, not just the apple, pears and sweet potatoes. Eat with them. Let them see what you eat, feed them what you eat. Get them interested in foods by planting vegetables, shopping at farmers’ markets or farms and cooking with them. Don’t treat the vegetables like a punishment, they are delicious, but kids need to get accustomed to them.  Don’t quit. Really your kids will eat them.  

Eventually.

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Grilled Pork Chops, Roasted Potatoes, Salad

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My husband marinated 2 pork chops with 1 shallot, 1 garlic clove, bunch of fresh sage, (all chopped) salt and pepper and a half cup of maple syrup (100% not pancake syrup) for at least 24 hours in a plastic bag in the fridge.  They were grilled and served with grilled zucchini and eggplant (just brush with olive oil, salt and pepper), peas (day before CSA pick up we tend to get low on fresh veggies if we haven’t been to another store/farm), mixed green salad and roasted red potatoes.   Pork chops can take some time to cook, so use that time to make the salad and other sides.  We put the potatoes in just after putting the chops on the grill.  Forgot to add earlier- put chops on indirect heat so they don’t burn (sugars in maple syrup will get too black over direct flames).

 

The potatoes are washed and cut then put in a mixing bowl with olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, celery salt and pepper.  Toss and then put on baking sheet and roast for about 25 minutes at 400.  I like the higher temps to get a nice crisp outside.  The kids love the flavors, but be careful as some paprika can be spicy.  Potatoes are another vegetable that I buy organic.

As I’ve mentioned I serve several salads per week.  Often they’re simple: mixed greens with romaine and maybe some chopped fresh herbs.  I find that some kids prefer the less-bitter taste of romaine to some mesclun mixes, so I often blend romaine in to counter arugula, frisse and radicchio. Other times I add fresh bell peppers, carrots, celery, cucumbers, red cabbage, and/or avocados.  I believe we need a good supply of fresh raw vegetables (and different colored ones) in order to get the most nutrients.  They always go to school with carrots, cucumber and/or celery.  I also love a simple vinaigrette.  Just some oil, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper can make a wonderful dressing (and when I’m pressed for time, I use Brianna’s).  You add a nice flavor, the oil helps get the nutrients to the blood and you don’t add many calories. 

You might notice from the photos we serve juice at times for dinner.  I buy only 100% juice (except lemonade) and we serve it if they had milk for lunch.  Otherwise it’s milk or water. 

 

© 2010 mykidsreallyeatthis.com

 

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Grilled Seafood and Baby Bok Choy

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While shopping my sons the other day, my middle one requested some shrimp.  I saw some beautiful diver scallops there as well and decided a few of each would be great for grilling.  When I showed the boys the baby bok choy they actually hoorayed!  My brother joined us for dinner so I included an approximately pound-sized filet of salmon to grill with the shellfish (or else it wouldn’t have been enough for 5, especially with my brother’s appetite).  Salmon and seafood are great to grill for clean up convenience and also so you don’t have the smell lingering around the house the next day! 

After putting the jasmine rice on the stove and starting up the grill I put the baby bok choy on to stea m.  With baby bok choy you can steam the whole thing together, with the larger size you should cut the stems off to steam a minute longer first before adding the leaves.  Once the leaves are wilted, they’re done.  Shock with cold water.  Keep to the side to finish later.  

I then shelled the already cleaned shrimp, put a 2-3 on a soaked bamboo skewer, then  drizzled them with olive oil, sea salt and ground pepper.  I repeated skewering, etc. with the scallops.   I then put some olive oil on a plate and the salmon on top, flipping it over to coat it, then added salt and pepper.

I put the salmon on the grill first since it takes longer.  Once it had cooked a few minutes I added the shrimp and scallops.  I took them off after turning and the shrimp was just pink and scallops had more whitish-solid appearance.  You don’t want to over cook either as they’ll become tough.  It only takes a few minutes. The salmon doesn’t take very long either- it should still be dark in the center to be flavorful and tender. 

After the seafood and fish were done I finished the bok choy.  In a pan I heated 1 tsp sesame oil, a Tbsp canola oil and 1/2 tsp soy sauce.   I added the bok choy (I chopped mine into approximately inch pieces which make the leaves easier for the kids to eat) until warmed and coated.

 

Delicious for all!  My kids love this meal!

We use Tamari (by San-J and others) soy sauce which is richer in flavor and has no wheat, unlike the most popular types of soy sauce.  Perfect for those on gluten-free diets.  It also has no artificial flavors or preservatives and is naturally fermented.  Shoyu soy sauce (think Kikkoman’s) is made with a combination of soy and wheat.  There even are some cheaper soy sauces that use acid hydrolyzed soy protein instead of traditional brewing methods.  They have a longer shelf-life but you sacrifice quality, taste and possible health benefits.

© 2010 mykidsreallyeatthis.com

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Best laid plans… or no plans

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I wanted to go to bed but I also knew my sons want some toast in the morning.  All three love a slice of toast or bagel before they have the rest of their breakfast (eggs, oatmeal, cereal).   We ran out of bagels and toasting bread and I had picked up fresh eggs, rhubarb and milk from one farm and our shared harvest (CSA) from another but forgot about bread.  I just searched online for the bread recipe (wish I’d had more time to do the no-knead one that Mark Bittman featured in the NY Times recently). Since I am not a huge baker, my yeast might be a little old because the dough didn’t rise.  Ugh.  So, I put the dough in a preheated to 100F convection oven for twenty minutes. That didn’t work.  Next I took 2 different yeasts I had and tested them with some water and sugar.  Both bubbled and rose.  So I added more of it with some more flour.  I want it to rise once, punch it then go to bed.  Boy do I want to punch it.  It’s rising now at least.

So not every dinner works out as planned.  Or I mean not every dinner is enjoyed as much as I would wish.  Tonight I made a pasta because with chaperoning a field trip, driving over 2 towns for pick-ups and drop-offs, and making it back after 5 pm I just didn’t have dinner planned.  So I thought I’d use some of the spinach, parsley and garlic scapes in my CSA bin (the center of the young garlic shoot- great grilled).  I sautéed a chopped scape in olive oil, added two chopped plum tomatoes, chopped parsley, sea salt and pepper.  Tossed the pasta with them and added steamed spinach and some Trader Joe’s party meatballs.  I thought it was great.  The kids thought the spinach was too bitter and mostly just ate the pasta and meatballs.  Oh well.  Not every meal can be a success.  At least we ate together, talked about the day and I tried to get them to eat all their veggies.   In the end I warmed up some of last night’s peas just so they got some more greens without me having to spend more time in the kitchen…. before bedtime.

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Picnic and Barbecue Time

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I find it really challenging to get kids to eat the healthier choices when we’re out.  We had several picnics and barbecues over the Memorial Day weekend starting with my kindergartener’s class concert/family picnic.  I made a quick lunch with leftover steak, egg salad, mixed greens salad and strawberries.  The dessert table was full of blue jello cups, blue punch, cupcakes and very shiny marshmallow treats.  I find it so hard to get the kids to eat anything healthy if other children are already on dessert, but they have to have some good things first before they’re allowed.  I also try to get the kids to not pick the artificially colored desserts and choose the more “real” stuff like ice cream and cupcakes.  Not sure that I’m on the right track but the color thing gets to me.  I don’t serve my children dessert at every meal or every dinner for that matter, but I do give them some sometimes.  And again, holidays and birthdays my rules get much more relaxed.  They’re even allowed soda on those days (I try to get the ones without preservatives and artificial ingredients- like Virgil’s- if I buy any, which is next to never) but I serve them real juice or water if it’s available.  

One of the parties we went to I brought my mother’s old standby rice salad with tuna.  It’s such an unusual combination but so many people love it.  Perfect for summer gatherings. My kids love it too!  Maybe it’s the crunchiness and sweetness of the apple together with saltiness of the tuna and pickle.

Julia’s Rice & Tuna Salad

  • One and a half cups of white or brown rice (or 3/4 of each), cooled
  • One or two cans of tuna (depending on your taste preference)
  • 1/2 onion chopped (I prefer red)
  • 2 peeled and cubed tart apples, (Granny Smiths, Braeburns) soaked in a little water and lemon juice so they don’t turn brown
  • 2 pickles cubed
  • 2 chopped plum tomatoes –sans seeds if possible 
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs cut into large pieces (add last so they don’t break apart too much)
  • handful of chopped parsley
  • Tbsp fresh chopped basil or mint (optional)
  • vinaigrette or Italian style dressing
  • sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 Mix together and serve chilled.

 

I also have another great rice and fish salad that I adapted from Chef David Raymer’s chopped rice salad.  You can make it with white fish or salmon or even canned salmon. Fabulous for left-overs!

Make it same way as above but without the apples, eggs, tuna or pickles. 

 Use the rice, red onion, tomatoes, chopped fresh basil, and vinaigrette dressing.

Add veggies-(select your favorite or what ever’s left over) like zucchini, summer squash, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli and green beans (prefer haricot verte)—all chopped. Add handful of nicoise olives, several handfuls of chopped mesclun greens and 2-3 Tbsp capers.  Really delicious!  Not all my children will eat the olives but they love capers …and the salad in general. 

 

 

 

©2010 MyKidsReallyEatThis.com

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Asparagus, Steak, Salad

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We don’t eat much beef (or red meat), but every once in a while we’ll have a steak or beef chili.  I bought a New England farmed top sirloin from Whole Foods and cooked it simply on the grill the other night.  Though my husband would never buy that type of steak (he’s a ribeye fan) he would approve of my cooking method.  I just put some sea salt and pepper on the steak before it went over the hot coals (he prefers charcoal to gas grills).  Just make sure you slice it thinly so it’s not too tough.  It smelled so good our local raccoon came looking for dinner with his nose up in the air.   I served it with asparagus, organic baby spinach and organic red potatoes.  “Conventional” asparagus is considered “clean” in terms of pesticide contamination.  If you’re wondering which vegetables and fruits to buy organic over conventional there are lists of those considered “clean” and those you should always buy organic (like I recently got reminded that strawberries contaminated with pesticides , which we eat almost daily, have been linked to ADHD among other problems).   I had been buying the cheaper conventionally grown strawberries because the price was right, but now I think the price I have to pay is greater in the long run.

Understand, I didn’t grow up with asparagus because my mother said she didn’t have an “asparagus cooker” and it was expensive.  Asparagus is often on sale in spring and you certainly don’t need a specialized cooker.  Just another thing to clutter your cabinets, an asparagus cooker is a tall, narrow pot with a basket where the asparagus rests vertically in the hot water.  Another wonderful trick I learned from my husband… cook in a sauté pan filled with water where the asparagus lies horizontally.    I take the whole bunch in its rubber band and chop off the bottom third of the stalk before I put it in the boiling water.  That is the woody part and what most people complain about.  You can save it for asparagus soup or just compost it if you’re like me.  Just need to lightly boil the asparagus for a few minutes until tender (you can always taste test one), take off heat, and cold shock with ice water.    It’s one veggie that needs to be cooled completely to stop cooking.  No one likes mushy vegetables.  Wish someone would tell/teach that to the cooks at the elementary school.  Once you’re ready to serve everything, reheat in a little butter, salt and pepper (once again, notice the pattern).

Tonight my middle son, who normally says, “I don’t want that” at every dinner, asked for more salad.  He’d eaten all his spinach, some of his brown rice, most of his bool kogi, and wanted MORE salad!!  He even asked his brothers if they would give up some of their salad.  No, they wouldn’t share!  I give several raw veggies a day and at least 3 salads per week, but it’s not always the favorite thing, not always first, or not always finished.   But today, all three ate all their salad (mixed CSA greens, organic Romaine, cilantro, Brianna’s vinaigrette) and wanted more!  Love that! 

When we were at a PTA pasta dinner not one of them ate the salad but had ziti and meatballs or pizza and ice creams for dessert.  I kept thinking if anyone sees them,  “Really my kids do really eat the foods I blog about.” Just not often when we’re out.  That’s why it’s so important to give them the good foods at home. 

©2010 MyKidsReallyEatThis.com

 

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Quick Meal- Pasta with Seafood & Micro-Greens

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It was one of those days around here, which is pretty often, when dinner time was upon us already and nothing was on the stove, in the oven or on the grill. So, what’s fast?  Pasta!  I had remembered earlier that we had a half package each of frozen large shrimp (uncooked) and Langostinos (cooked) and we could make a pasta with them.  Langostinos are a crustacean, like crayfish, just about 2 inches long.  I got these ones from Trader Joe’s. 

We took the frozen packages out and thawed them in 2 separate bowls of cold water.  Put some water on to boil the pasta. Chopped a couple of cloves of garlic, one shallot and 1/4 red onion (because that’s what we had in the house).  Sautéed them all in olive oil for a few minutes and added chopped organic white mushrooms (I tend to buy certain things organic and some conventional) a pat of butter, sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  After a few minutes added some white wine (please use what you’d actually drink and don’t ever buy “cooking wine” it would leave the same awful flavor in your food as in a glass)— about 1/4-1/2 cup and some more olive oil.  Added the drained shrimp that was cut into half (smaller bites) and took off the heat while the pasta is cooking. Once it’s finished and drained, added the pasta to the garlic, mushroom, shrimp mix, stirred in the Langostinos, package of baby organic spinach and 3/4 package of micro-greens and put back on heat stirring regularly for about a minute or two.  No need to really “cook” the vegetables or Langostinos, just heat them.  All done!  It was less than half an hour in total. 

The micro-greens I got from Trader Joe’s too (one of my favorite stores) and are the sprouts of Red Russian Kale, Red Cabbage, Purple Kohlrabi, Purple Radish and Beet Greens.  They are intensely flavored and only about an inch long- root and all.  Some of these ones are quite peppery too.  Micro-greens are really rich in nutrients too.  Because of their intensity, you don’t need other herbs with this dish, but you wouldn’t go wrong with some fresh chopped basil. 

We hadn’t done this dish as such before, so I wasn’t sure how the kids would react except I knew that my middle son would whine, “I don’t want that” per most every dinner.  Today he added, “I told you I wanted just plain pasta with butter.  Didn’t you remember that?”  Of course I did, I just ignored it.  My kids get plain pasta with butter often when we go out to eat.  It’s funny because we don’t usually have the things listed on the kids’ menu at home I let them order from it out.  It’s a treat we’re out, so I let them have a treat of chicken nuggets or plain pasta with butter!  The funny thing is as soon as the whine is out of the mouth, the fork is in.  He ate it all and really enjoyed it.  This was also one of the cases where he said he didn’t like mushrooms unless they were in a cream sauce, so I had him try it… he ate the rest without complaint.   

I’m sure some kids would love to eat cookies, candy and ice cream instead of all the good foods but as parents we know they wouldn’t survive on a diet like that.  Well, they need the nutrients in vegetables and fruits and if they’re served regularly they will eat them.  We got a taste for them at some point, so will they.  Kids have to be introduced to them to understand they should be eating them every day.  There won’t be the struggle some have over just a few veggies if they just have them in front of the kids every day.  And when there are so many quick (and yummy) ways to do it, it becomes easier for all involved.  

©2010 MyKidsReallyEatThis.com

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