If you’re tired of hearing me talk about vegetables….I apologize. The kids are occupied with some painters tape and the paper plates they finger-painted a few days ago, creating an “art museum” on the playroom walls, right now, and dinner is already prepped, so I have a few minutes to actually write, and what I’m thinking about is broccoli. Because the dinner I just finished the prep work for is called Lemon Broccoli Pasta Skillet, and it has a pound and a half of broccoli in it. And without fail, when I chop up broccoli, The Broccoli Song gets stuck in my head:….
Tag: vegetables
Arugula
…and more thoughts about salad and food.
I had never heard of arugula before I went on a pilgrimage to Rome at the end of my freshman year of college.
Back up. I didn’t really eat salad at all until my freshman year of college. In my opinion, this was one of those cases where peer pressure was healthy. “Huh, all these people like salad. I should start eating it, too, I guess.” Growing up….
Buy More Veggies
Let me humbly begin by mentioning that I just used up some extra homemade cream cheese frosting that’s been in the fridge for five days by squirting it onto chocolate teddy grahams and basically making epic makeshift mini oreos. #lifehack
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: vegetables!
Well, actually, first, I need to talk about candy for a second. When I was first married, with no employment except catching up on Dexter and learning how to meal plan and cook, I finally gained the “freshman fifteen” that I had managed to avoid in college. Darn. Sugar is a weakness for me. I quickly learned that it’s WAY easier to not buy candy at the store, than to buy it and then mete it out in moderate portions at appropriate intervals at home. So, I made myself a rule….
Actually, they’re not all that picky.
Things I do to encourage my kids to try new foods, without power struggles.
My kids don’t love leftovers. That’s fine, for now. I encourage leftovers with things I know they remember they like, and I figure we’ll work on it. So they eat a lot of grilled turkey-and-cheese sandwiches while I eat leftovers for lunch.
In spite of the monotony of their lunches, I would not categorize my kids as “picky” in the typical toddler/preschooler sense of “all she will eat is yellow foods!” (Chicken nuggets, applesauce, macaroni and cheese, toast, etc.)
It’s just that I prefer to choose my battles, and leftover brussels sprouts is a battle I’m unlikely ever to win.
However…
Pumpkin Roasting 2018
How seven pumpkins became 3.75 gallons of home-roasted pumpkin purée. (And how you can roast your own pumpkins, too!)
Last year, we made an irrevocable (but honestly, unsurprising) discovery: Homemade pumpkin purée really does taste better in pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread than what’s in the can from the store! I make a lot of pumpkin bread. Justin always makes his grandmother’s pumpkin chiffon pie for the holidays. Hence, we will likely be roasting our own pumpkins every fall for the rest of our lives….
Halloween Veggies
(Halloween update AND a quick recipe!)
Last night for Halloween, my kids’ enthusiasm got me into the spirit, so I put on a cat ears headband while taking them trick or treating. I’m pretty sure the last time I dressed up for Halloween was senior year of college, when my roommate was Rapunzel and I was her hair. Halloween’s just not my holiday.
The kids were, in Miryam’s words, “a monster Batman girl” and “the leftover cow” (leftover because we recycled her costume from 2 years ago for Luke).
Also uncharacteristically, I let them stay up late…