Strollerderby : cooking for kids

They Say: Kids Like To Eat Vegetables. I Still Don't Believe Them

JeanneSager — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:51:00 GMT

Kids like vegetables. They like them better than candy. OK, I didn't believe it either. But the results of a survey of California four- and five-year-old kids claims if peas and a Tootsie Pop had a fight, peas would knock 'em out of sight.

What bothers me about these kinds of studies is not only the size (there were just 100 kids involved) but the fact that interviews with kids are conducted the way they would be with adults. Chatting with four- and five-year-olds in English and Spanish over a period four days really tells us nothing about kids' eating habits. It tells us that a bunch of pre-schoolers, whose attitudes toward food are generally as fickle as they are toward their toys, gave some adults the answers they wanted to hear.

What would be more telling would be a process that tracked what kids actually ate when presented with options. Give them a plate of peas and a Tootsie Pop and see what they reach for first. Do they ignore the Tootsie Pop? Do they opt to eat it last? Or do they go glutton and find out just how many licks it takes to get to that chocolate goodness?

As an adult, my tastes are pretty well formed. I'm not going to decide tomorrow that I've given up on dark chocolate M&Ms for taste reasons (size of my butt reasons, maybe). My three-year-old will tell you tomorrow that the same cauliflower she devoured for dinner is "yucky." Last night, she announced that she wouldn't eat the ziti I'd made because, "I don't like sauce." It was the first I was hearing of it after almost three years of dishing out extra helpings of "red stuff" for her ravioli. By the same token, convincing her to eat just four green beans to satisfy the "green quotient" in a meal can take intense amounts of cajoling. But on an "all about me" poster she made for nursery school, listed right under "favorite food" are the words "green beans." Huh? Apparently that's what she told her teacher, and the unwitting teacher wrote it down.

Sure, she likes some vegetables. She even likes some she pretends to hate (and gobbles down while we're not looking). But give her peas or that Tootsie Pop, and I know where her loyalties lie.

Image: PBS Kids

When the Characters are INSIDE the Kids' Lunchboxes

World's Cutest Monkey Rejected by His Mom

They Say: Children 'Programmed' to Share

Trick or Treating for Fair Trade

Australian Family Says They Were Served Poop Ice Cream

They Say: Don't Eat Your Veggies!

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:31:00 GMT

Dr. T. Berry Brazelton is about to become your kids’ new hero. In today’s New York Times Well Blog, he colorfully answers readers' questions about their children’s health, and gets the ball rolling with a firm admonition against vegetables.

Forget about veggies, he says. Battling your child to eat any particular food will only backfire in extended dietary struggles throughout your kid’s childhood. Buy a multivitamin for those picky eating years, and save yourself and your kids some headaches.

If you do feel like getting creative, Dr. Brazelton suggests Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious cookbook. But he cautions against getting bent out of shape over any dietary experiments with your kids. Instead, he says, “keep mealtimes relaxing and enjoyable, and focus talk on fun things, but not on food.”

For Dr. Bazelton’s advice on Vitamin D supplements, low cholesterol diets, and calorie counts, visit the Well Blog.

Strollerderby Playdate: Mama Says Clean Your Plate

Adrienne Martini — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Forgive me if I unbutton my pants. I've just been on a Playdate with The Cleaner Plate Club. Man, that Mama can cook. Plus, she and I are both attempting to make the food that we serve in the house better both in a nutritional and an environmental sense.

Which is cool and all -- but the best part is that she fails to take herself too seriously. Witness the picture at right, used to illustrate a post where our hero decides to eat like a Hobbit.

She also makes a mean soup, like this Mostly-Veggie Cheddar Broccoli. And her sister just won an Oscar. And she has a great six-word story and knows where to get some "Barick Obama" cheese.

I'm so full I think I'll need to take my pants clean off. Avert your eyes.

Photo Credit: Cleaner Plate Club

No More Sugar Mama

Amy Kuras — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:03:00 GMT

When I was a kid, Valentine's Day was a great excuse to overdose on sugar, chocolate, and red dye #40. School parties featured cupcakes and punch and candy hearts while my parents usually had some kind of treat for us at home. It was second only to Halloween in terms of the deliciousness level, not to mention the sugar high.

How times have changed. Last night, for my daughter's preschool party, I made not cookies, not cupcakes, but plain, lightly salted popcorn. Other choices on the sign up sheet included red apples, snap peas, strawberries, and bagels.

All perfectly wonderful and tasty food, but party food? Come on now.

My daughter's school has a "healthy lunch policy" that carries over into celebrations. Anything sent to school has to be free of added sugars, artificial sweeteners, and food dyes. And it seems more schools are going this way. One, in Georgia, calls itself the first sugar-free public elementary school in the country.

I know, and fully support, all the good reasons to do this – not least of which is not creating the association between "celebration" and "junk food." And heaven knows I would not want to be the teacher that has to handle 25 energetic preschoolers after they've been all amped up on sugar. Dealing with the one I have when she gets to have, say, a brownie can make me wish for a child-safe tranquilizer dart. We try to stay away from processed and junky food at home.

And soon enough, she'll know the small thrill of a pink-frosted heart-shaped cookie.

Photo: NoSugarAddedShop.com

Jessica Seinfeld Woes Keep Getting More Woeful

Kelly Mills — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:29:00 GMT

Soooo, what happens when a celebrity-by-association puts out a book on hiding veggies in otherwise innocuous foods? Well, at first it's all Oprah love (sez FameCrawler) and interviews, and then...the backlash. Critics of the covert food strategy pointed out that camoflaguing foods could keep your kids from developing good eating habits that include appreciating stuff with seeds, and leafy greens, and so on. (And by the way, my child will be eating all her meals at CityMama's house from now on.) And then on Friday the NY Times and other places reported that Ms. Seinfeld's book bears an uncanny resemblance to another book on the market, The Sneaky Chef, written by Missy Chase Lapine and published in April. Ooops.

Now here's where it gets extra bad: Of course, Missy Lapine submitted her book proposal to HarperCollins (Seinfeld's publisher) but was rejected because her idea was too, um, similar to another one of their books. Then when Jessica Seinfeld came knocking two weeks later with the same idea and a William Morris agent, they took her call and the rest is history. Seinfeld's agent described her in a cover letter as, "smart, stunning, and infinitely promotable" and clearly the key word here is promotable.

Seinfeld claims ignorance of Lapine's book. Jezebel points out that generally when you put out a book, you look at competing titles, so this could be disingenuous. I think it's just as likely that she didn't see the book, because when you are so promotable you don't really have to do research or all the stuff other authors have to do (though I'm--uh, let's say 'surprised'--nobody at the publishing house or agency found the similar book). If Seinfeld didn't have that big name and attractive grin I doubt she'd be getting this much fallout, but it sounds like she also might not have been published in the first place. Hmmm, is this justice?

The Dark Side of Seinfeld’s Sneaky Veggies

Madeline Holler — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:52:00 GMT

While Jessica Seinfeld single-handedly ups the Vitamin A and antioxidants intake of our nations’ children with her stealth veggie offerings, some damn celery-crunchers are exposing a darker side to the chocolate-zucchini muffin.

By tucking peas in here, spinach in there and watching her children unwittingly lap it up, experts warn that the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld is betraying her picky kids' trust.

To both the experts and Seinfeld, I say: Oh, come on!

Our kids are fine when we lie to them about harmless things -- Santa, the tooth fairy, "grown-up naked wrestling." I don’t think Seinfeld's kids are going to grow up doubting their mother when they find out she's been stirring spinach into cake batter. On the other hand, so what if kids don't eat many vegetables now? All this blender-work is just delaying their inevitable encounters with anything green and inadvertently raising what will be very picky adults. Who, by the way, are nothing but trouble.

Here’s how I think her sneaky approach goes wrong:

First, she’s stirring squash in to macaroni and cheese and adding cauliflower and broccoli to chicken nuggets. I haven’t read her book, but I’m seeing a lot of “kid-palate” pandering. When does she propose they make the transition to a main course and two sides kinds of meals? When will they take the plunge and eat a stir fry? Do she and Jerry eat the nuggets or separate, grown-up meals? I think regular meals that are different from the parents' keep kids from sucking it up and choking down a green bean even more than odd textures and grassy taste.

Most importantly, I think parents have to learn to prepare vegetables in a tasty way. Very few vegetables are super-nummy raw. In-season tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, red or yellow peppers … am I missing anything? … all good fresh off the truck. Most others, though, you’ve got to do something to them – at the very least salt and more often than not, a little cooking and herbs.

Another thing: why all this emphasis squash? Unless nicely adulterated with salt, garlic, herbs and cooking, squash is bland, bland, mealy and bland. Of course Seinfeld has to boil it, puree it and stir it into something before her kids will eat it! A sophisticated palate wouldn’t enjoy a pile of squash, cooked or otherwise, that didn’t have anything added for flavor.

With veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, sure, you can eat them raw. But they carry that faint taste of garbage. A little blanching and they’re so much mellower (and, hey, give a little with the ranch dressing if it gets your kid to try a real floret. With ranch, no betrayal necessary!).

If you’re really getting desperate, throw it all in a spicy/sweet curry, or a stir-fry that includes pineapple, or melt it all under cheese on a pizza, or roll it up in rice and nori for sushi. Kids will get a few bites, at least, before picking off what they don’t like but the vegetables are still there on the plate, part of dinner, to be expected, until the end of time. Tolerance with this pays off. Just last week, my six-year-old made it through a slice of pesto pizza without first pulling off every bit of spinach. That’s progress!

I love vegetables and I also like to cook so we sit down to pretty tasty veggie-heavy meals regularly. The approach in my house, though, is to serve every veggie dish on a no-pandering platter (with a fresh dollop of “no other options” on the side). Draconian? Sure, but for this I’ll get skinny kids that might one day actually eat a fresh blueberry or take more than two bites of a salad.

Remember, it’s 2007 and the Clean Plate Club disbanded at least a decade ago. Two bites and it's over until tomorrow. So what if your kid doesn’t eat five servings of fruits and vegetables everyday? You didn’t either and, except for those thighs, you turned out juuuuuuust fine.

Update: For family photo of the veggie chowing family, look here.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Can Send Your Kid To College

Melissa Summers — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:04:00 GMT

As the school year starts I'm facing about 250 days of making peanut butter sandwiches, I'm thinking this is a contest I need to get my daughter into. Jif brand peanut butter is running the Most Creative Peanut Butter Sandwich contest and the award is a $25,000 scholarship fund.

Last year's winner was twelve-year-old Alexandra Yoder of Fort Wayne, Indiana with "Peanut Butter Rolls - Sushi Style," The 'sushi' used pretzel rods for chopsticks and chocolate yogurt for soy sauce. Creative.

The contest is open to children ages 6 to 12, and sandwiches will be judged on the following criteria: creativity, nutritional balance, taste, appearance and ease of preparation. Entries must be postmarked by November 15th and five finalists will eventually compete in a live contest in New York City in March of 2008.

Make sure to check out the past winners from the last four years. Like Shannon's (age 7) "Peanutty Pretty Purse Pita" and Jessica Delaney's (age 12) "Peanutty Wrapple Rolls with Maple Dipping Sauce".

Kitchenista: Mac and Cheese Revisited (Yet Again)

Patti — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:00:00 GMT

For awhile now, I've been pondering The Mac and Cheese Question. Between facing the truth about "natural" macaroni and cheese products, reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, and just a general consciousness-raising about food processing and production in general, I'm just not so crazy about putting a box of bright-orange noodles on the table and calling it lunch. Come wintertime I'm more than happy to undergo the process of making a big pan of baked mac from scratch, but my kids want their cheesy noodles year-round, and finding an alternative to the Blue Box (or the purple one) that's quick and easy, that both tastes good and is good, has been a trick: bechamel sauce takes time, grated cheese alone is too stringy. But I think I've got it now. Ladies and gents, your lunch is ready:

Mac & Cheese

Boil your choice of pasta according to the package directions (any shape that floats your boat, and may I suggest spinach-filled tortellini or ravioli?). When the pasta is cooked, drain it and return it to the pan. Then add a generous spoonful of plain yogurt—whole milk for the littlest diners or the skinny minis, reduced or nonfat for everyone else—and stir it up. Add your favorite grated cheese to your taste and stir until melted (thin with a little milk if necessary). If you like, add peas or other leftover vegetables, shredded chicken or chopped ham, or whatever your favorite mac and cheese add-ins might be (I'm a purist myself). This is definitely a meal that's ripe for child-participation, too.

Vegans and the lactose-intolerant need not despair, this works with soygurt and cheese substitutes. Try soy feta, it doesn't really melt but if you throw some chopped tomatoes in at the end, you'll have yourself a delicious Greek-ish flavor.

Is it really quick? As fast as making Kraft according to the package instructions if you use pre-grated cheese or do the grating while you wait for the pasta to cook. I timed it. And you can control where the ingredients come from, how they were manufactured, and what their fat and nutrient contents are. Gotta love being in control in some sense, even if you're serving up mac & cheese by request for the fourth day in a row.

Father's Day Gift Guide: For The Dad Who Cooks

Patti — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:39:00 GMT

The carnage of Mother's Day is barely cleaned up, and it's already time to think about Father's Day. Cooking.com's got a selection of gift ideas for dads, complete with free shipping code.

It's kind of an unsurprising list, heavy on grilling accessories and barware. Add a nice omelet pan to the list and it's pretty much tailor-made for the kind of kitchen activities my husband gets up to, so I guess there's a reason for the stereotype. There are also several knives on the list, for which I assume we can thank Alton Brown and his magical way of making men, at least my man, think it might be fun to chop some shit up.

What would I add to this list? Well, one of the best cooking-related gifts anyone ever gave my husband was a set of leather gloves for grilling, which he uses several times a week and which have also come in handy for stoking the logs in our little outdoor fireplace thing. But I'd hate to give my husband the impression that I just want him to cook for me more often. I'm thinking about getting him a nice grill pan or finally giving him the gift of a Kitchenaid mixer, two things that would ensure him a long life of having things grilled for him for a change, and having tasty things baked on his behalf. I'm thoughtful like that.

Four Culinary Moms Share Tips on Feeding Families

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:06:00 GMT

"Mom, what's for dinner?" Hate that question? Then you'll want to read this, because just in time for Mother's Day, four culinary professionals (who also happen to be mothers) share their tips and tricks for feeding their families.

Cooking delicious and nutritious meals for my family is a passion of mine, so I devoured this article when I saw it in the paper this week.

Speaking with writer Tara Duggan, San Francisco area mother Joohee Muromcew, mom to four kids and cookbook author, says dinnertime is all about feeding kids before they become "puddles of neediness, melting all around my feet." Sound familiar? She cooks with her kids as much as possible, and thinks they eat better when they are involved in the process.

Single mom Sara Deseran tells Duggan that her family eats "lots of 'hybrid' meals: a combination of purchased rotisserie chicken and home-cooked vegetables, for example." Hybrid meals are popular in my house as well. I might buy a rotisserie chicken and serve that alongside rice and sauteed green beans, or I'll use it to make the main dish (like enchiladas or Chinese chicken salad) quicker. And let's not forget the convenience of bagged salads and steam-in-bag veggies.

Melissa Swanson started her own fresh baby food company after the birth of her son, waits tables, and is married to a chef. Her tip: cook on the weekends and make enough for the week, shop farmer's markets, and don't forget that the simplest ingredients—sweet potatoes, avocados, or beans—can make a satisfying meal.

Chef Maria Helm Sinsky avoids processed foods and focuses on seasonal ingredients. She's also not afraid to have her kids try, try again when it comes to eating new things. "It's more about perseverance and patience," she says.

Be sure to check out the rest of the article for wonderful recipes from all the mom-chefs.

[Photo credit: Craig Lee/San Francisco Chronicle]

Family Dinner Time Is a Crock

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:07:00 GMT

I have no idea why I didn't think of this earlier. It seems so simple. So easy. So ... lazy? I don't know -- and I don't care. I think I'm falling in love with the crock pot -- even though I've never used one.

Heather at Rookie Moms offers a great solution for families with their hands full: the all-day cooker. Throw the food in when you can, and at dinner time -- voila ... gruel! Or stew. Or vittles. Whatever. It's done.

Our family just survived a round of flu that passed from one to the other faster than David Brooks can shout, "You kids! Slow down!" So the idea of spending precious down time at the stove for the rest of the week has me feeling ill all over again.

I can finally see now why my mom insisted on casseroles for what seemed like every. freaking. meal. I don't blame her. I'm just wondering if there are any other quick and easy family dinner tips I'm missing?

Kid Food Hacks: Top-Your-Own Pizza

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:04:00 GMT

With places like high-end supermarkets and Trader Joes's selling ready-to-bake bags of pizza dough, it's pretty easy to make fairly healthful pizzas custom-tailored to your kids' personal tastes. And you don't want to do that you can grab a Boboli, slap on some sauce or olive oil and go that route. But what if you are really short on time (or just plain don't feel like cooking)? How can you bake a pizza that will satisfy a family's diverse tastes?

The idea came to me this weekend as I was shopping for "date-night dinner" (the dinner my kids eat when we go out). I was looking at take-and-bake pizzas at the grocery store and trying to decide which one to get. My preschooler likes salami on her pizza (as opposed to pepperoni) while my garbage-disposal of a toddler will pretty much eat everything. It occurred to me that if I just got a cheese pizza, we could top it with whatever we wished. So a pie, a package of salami, and a few assorted veggies later, we had our custom-made pizza. Now mom and dad can have their linguisa-jalapeño-anchovy special, while the kids eat plain cheese or JUST pepperoni.

Such a simple idea, I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner.

Raising Gourmet Kids Is Next Parenting Trend...Because Experts Must Label Everything

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:03:00 GMT

An article in Sunday's New York Times had me rolling my eyes just a bit. These Kids Never Say 'Yech! outlines the growing trend of foodie parents raising kids who appreciate "good food." These parents take their kids to "regular restaurants," order off the adult menu (because there is no children's menu), and sign up for kids' cooking classses. I roll my eyes not because preschoolers are eating manchego and membrillo, but at the fact that this being called a trend.

For many parents like me, where eating well is a way of life, the fact that our choices are being called "trendy" seems ridiculous. My parents love good food and made sure to expose us to a wide range of culinary experiences from hand-made pasta to sashimi to arugula salad fresh from our garden. "Slow Food" wasn't a culinary trend, it was the only way my parents knew how to ~~cook~~ be. I'm falling back on what I know to raise my kids the same way.

Take a look at this party I recently attended. This was exactly the kind of party I went to as a child growing up in Hawaii. There was nary a chicken finger or bowl of macaroni and cheese to be found at the party, so what did the kid eat? Sushi and musubi (rice balls) and tempura, in other words, what the adults ate.

Call it trendy if you must, but for many parents, appreciating great food isn't an overt, overly-thought-out lifestyle choice, it's a normal way of life. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

[photo: my two-year-old enjoying organic wild boar sausage, spaetzle, and red cabbage at Suppenkuche, San Francisco]

What's Cookin'? Weekly Menus, That's What

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:02:00 GMT

The Zero Boss (Hi Boss!) thinks they're BS, but I am a huge fan of weekly menus. Everyone knows that organizational junkies get off on making yet another list each week, and weekly menus are perfect for that. I'm not that "together," so I like meal planning for a different reason: they help me avoid having The Dreaded Leftovers. Which I haaaaaaaaaaaate.

When I was a kid, I am positive I drove my mother to pour her nightly glass of Carlo Rossi full to the top by asking her what was for dinner as soon as she picked me up from school. Every. single. day. Whenever she responded "leftovers," I was pissed. Fickle is my middle name.

I'm sure that particular childhood experience was the catalyst behind my wanting to cook something deliciously different every night, and my weekly menus help to accomplish that goal. Weekly menus mean you don't have to cook seven nights a week. We have sandwich night one night a week and we usually go out or have take-out one night a week. Only five nights left to cover. W00t!

When I know what I am cooking for the week, I cook exactly those things. I go to the store with my list of ingredients and buy and cook pretty much only what's on the list. (Another benefit of weekly menus is that they help you stick to your budget at the grocery store.) Sometimes a particular ingredient like a beautiful piece of fish or brilliant tomatoes will inspire me to change my mind mid-stream, but for the most part, I know what I feel like eating that week, I know what my family favorites are, and my weekly menu helps me not to have to think about what to make for dinner.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get in the hang of sitting down on Sunday to think about what to cook, you'll become addicted. If you need a little push, these sites are here to help.

Yummy in Your Tummy: Top Food Blogs for Family and Kids

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:01:00 GMT

Cooking is an issue near and dear to my heart, and cooking for my family is an even nearer and dearer issue. I chronicle my family's food exploits on my food blog, and am always on the hunt for new inspiration.

The Well Fed Network is asking people to vote on their favorite family- and kid-focused food blogs, and there is plenty of inspiration to be found among the top candidates, especially if you are at your wits' end dealing with a picky eater. The nominees are:

Vegan Lunchbox

Sweetnicks

Cooking with Anne

Daily Tiffin

Gastro Kid

All great choices, but they left off a couple of my faves: Foodmomiac (now with video!) and our own Patti Nichols' new food blog Cookin' (In The Kitchen of Love). As Jacques Pepin would say, "'appy cookeeng!"

[photo credit: BBC]