Learning to Eat – Page 113

Strawberry Fruit Leather

May 2, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: baking, cooking with kids, fruit, recipes, snacks, vegetarian

flat-of-strawberries

Fruit leather is a bit of a thing in our house. On the one hand, I just don’t see the point. To me, it’s perfectly good fruit to which sugar has been added and plastic has been wrapped around. Why not just eat an apple or a cup of berries? But on the other hand, of course, I truly do see the kid appeal: it’s packable; it doesn’t drip; it’s never unripe and never has funny spots; plus, it’s fun to rip and smoosh and play with.

Years ago, when Ben was a brand-new preschooler, he eyed the snacks the other kids brought in their bags and asked his teacher to write me a note. She wrote:

Mommy and Daddy, I want fruit leather in my lunch. Love, Ben.

But Ben read the note to us a bit differently; he said:

Dear Mommy and Daddy, I hate my lunch! Give me fruit leather in my lunch! Love, Ben.

I learned my lesson.

Now Eli is in fruit leather corner, as he would say (channeling his beloved Pooh), and he asks for one in his lunch box every day, and I provide it, cringing slightly at the plastic but knowing, too, that it’s certainly not the least-green or least unhealthy thing in our lives.

When I had the chance recently to get a deal on a flat of strawberries, and started thinking of all the fabulous strawberry things I could make — tart! shortcake! jam! smoothies! — fruit leather rose to the top of the list, and I found a recipe over on Epicurious. It takes a while, but for the most part it can do its thing while you’re off doing something else.

1 1/2 lb strawberries, halved (4 1/2 cups)
3/4 cup sugar (depending on your berries, you can cut the sugar a bit; remember that the sweetness will concentrate as the fruit is cooked)

Purée strawberries with sugar in a blender until smooth:

Then strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a large heavy saucepan:

This is the most tedious part of the process, so I highly recommend enlisting your kids to do the job; just let them run the wooden spoon around inside the strainer to push the puree through and into the pot.

Bring purée to a boil, then simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally (more frequently toward end), until thick enough to mound slightly and reduced to 1 to 11/4 cups, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 200°F with rack in middle. Line a large baking sheet with nonstick liner.

Pour hot purée onto liner and spread thinly (as evenly as possible) into a 15- by 10-inch rectangle using an off-set spatula.

Dry purée in oven until it feels drier (it shouldn’t stick to your fingers) but is still slightly tacky, 2 to 3 hours.

Cool on liner on a rack until completely dry, at least 3 hours and up to 24.

Place a sheet of parchment paper over leather, then peel leather off liner and roll up in parchment.

It will keep in a sealed bag at room temperature for a month, but it’s not likely to last that long.

Simple.

May 1, 2009 By lisa in Uncategorized Tags: comfort food, family dinner, farms and farming, fast food, produce

by Lisa

In 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Our life is frittered away by detail” and called for “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a milion count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. ”

It’s good advice for a busy parent, and it’s excellent advice for recessionary times. While not so many of us can uproot ourselves as radically Thoreau did, there is a lot to learn from his advice about self-sufficiency, living close to the land, and keeping scrupulous track of your accounts. Thoreau is, in fact, in some ways, the spiritual grandfather of the urban farming movement, which has a lot of lessons to teach us, even if you’re not ready to raise chickens in your backyard.

For my part, it’s spring in Northern California–or at least the vegetables think so. This means the markets are filled with seasonal things we can eat raw, and which go right to the table with a quick rinse: snap peas, baby carrots, English shelling peas, radishes, tender baby fennel, baby gem lettuces. Even young fava beans can be shelled and peeled and eaten raw, dipping as you go in olive oil in salt. We have cucumbers for slicing and a few early tomatoes, too. Artichokes get done with a simple steaming, as does the Bloomsdale spinach, which has a really meaty leaf and it is the only kind Ella and Finn will eat. And then there are the eggs: fresh, gorgeous, eggs, with bright yellow-orange yolks, which my kids will eat in any form they can get their hands on. I actually have to ration them, but that’s another story.

While I have to confess to liking labor-intensive things, like frying zucchini blossoms as often as I can, most school nights I want to live like Thoreau, which means dinner consists these days, as often as I can get away with it, with whole, raw, simple food. The good things about eating this way are legion: It’s fast, healthy, and economical. You can offer your kids a choice of 2 out of 3 things, and let them begin to self-monitor and make good choices about what they eat. Small individual pots or larger bowls of different colored and shaped vegetables looks really pretty on the table and satisfies a simple aesthetic urge in me. But eating this way also teaches children to eat real food that looks like real food. In this way, they learn to appreciate color, texture, shape, and the basic flavor of the food in front of them. They learn that fruits and vegetables have seasons, and that they taste best when eaten in that season. (Even Finn, who is only four, asked me last night “When it going to be pomegranite season again? I love pomegranites.” Next winter, I answered, and he was fine with that, as he knew there were strawberries waiting for him, and peaches and plums to come….).

Ella and Finn have lately developed an obsession with soft-cooked eggs, which they love to eat in the old-fashioned way: out of egg cups. (I told you, kids like mini-meals, things that are their size.) Three minutes in the boiling water, a cold rinse, and you have an elegant source of locally, humanely sourced protein accompanied by whatever I dig out of the vegetable bin.

The one thing I do to make it a little fancy, is provide a salt sampler. I have a salt problem, as in I collect salt the way my kids collect Japanese eraser buddies. (We all continue to have really low blood pressure, so health isn’t an issue.) In the center of the table, I placed about 5 or 6 of my salts, and let the kids pinch or sprinkle very small amounts onto their eggs as they ate them. We had Provence Salt, Black Cyprus Flakes, Red Hawaiian Salt, the gorgeous salmon-colored Murray salt, Sel Gris, even a smoked sea salt (in the middle) which Ella bravely sampled. The jars were a lovely present from a good friend, and the rest were purchased at Farmers Markets & Whole Foods.

From my kids point of view, there’s not a meal more satisfying. Certainly, the time will come when things get more complicated. So for now, this is another way to continue following Thoreau’s advice. Life really can begin at the table.

“Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necesary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.”

Eat at Eli’s. (And Ben’s)

April 29, 2009 By caroline in Uncategorized Tags: cooking with kids

by Caroline

Sometimes, whether due to renovation or repairs, our kitchens become unavailable. Lisa’s family lived through this, my family lived through this, many of you have lived through this. We wound up moving out of our house for the bulk of our renovation, and during that time my husband and then three year-old son built a play kitchen out of scrap wood and various plumbing fixtures:

It’s a compact little space, but it’s got 4 burners and a decent sink:

It’s got good open storage underneath the sink, for appliances and the like:

There’s even a spot to hang an oven glove (a felted mitten knit by my sister) and a few utensils:

We moved the kitchen into our house when our renovation was complete, and both kids still cook in it regularly, now using a combination of tools filched from my kitchen and utensils given to them expressly for their play kitchen:

Of course, its pantry is well stocked, both with toy food:

And “real food” (empty packages that we save and repurpose):

It’s got food made by family (again my sister with the creative knitting!):

And food toys given by friends (shape sorter cupcakes!):

With such a well-stocked pantry and well-equipped space, it was perhaps inevitable that they would start to think bigger, so they opened a cafe:

They advertise their specials and features with a few signs:

And even brag a bit about the menu (the sign says: “this cafe has relly yummy dishes so you might want to come here more often then you do other restrunts…”

You don’t need an elaborate play kitchen to encourage cooking and restaurant play, of course; a couple pots and a wooden spoon in the corner of your own kitchen, some empty food containers, and a pad of paper and a marker (to take orders) are plenty to get a kid going, and can result in hours of happy (and low parental-involvement) play. What does kitchen play look like in your house?

Cooking Without a Kitchen

April 28, 2009 By lisa in Uncategorized Tags: family dinner, fast food, produce

by Lisa

My friend Alicia and her husband like to eat. They also have 4 children, ranging in age and appetite from preschool to high school.

They are also renovating their kitchen, which, like most major renovations, is taking longer than anticipated. So, when I ran into her this weekend, Alicia said, only half-joking, “You should blog about how to cook without a stove.” I stared at her for a minute, blankly, as in, “Are you kidding me?” But her husband concurred that they were in kitchen/family eating hell, and then, because I like a challenge, we brainstormed. I promised them a blog.

They’ve been without a working kitchen for a while, which I know from our small, quick renovation three years ago, is a miserable situation. Even if you have a grill and a microwave and a convection oven (which they do), the general disarray, the lack of countertops, working dishwasher, and in my case even running water, made prepping and cleaning up virtually impossible. Eating out or take-out is an occasional option, of course, but hardly ideal on school nights–especially when you have mulitiple children’s homework to supervise and shuttle to activities.

So here, for Alicia and Michael, and whoever else wants easy, quick, nearly prep- and clean-up free family dinners, are a few ideas to get you through the last phase of a remodel or whatever other misery is confronting you in the kitchen today.

And please, after reading, share your own ideas for cooking without a kitchen.

1. Buy the best rice cooker you can afford. Not only will it cook you a fast, healthy side dish (brown & white rice, couscous, farro…) but you can use it to steam any vegetable you like–even frozen ones, which–since they’re often prechopped and cleaned–are a great option if you have no place to rinse and chop fresh ones. You can steam frozen pot stickers and pre-cooked shrimp in it, too. Also, it’s a one pot clean up.

2. Use your grill. Buy easy cuts of meat, like chops or chicken breasts, pre-made burgers, pork tenderloin. A lot of fish can be easy too: halibut or salmon steaks right on the grill, or fillets wrapped in foil, drizzled with olive oil, a handful of herbs, salt and pepper. You can throw sliced leeks in, too.) Vegetables can be cooked easily on the grill in a foil pack (sometimes called a hobo pack). Just toss the cut vegetables in a little olive oil and salt, crimp the foil all around, and grill until tender over medium-high heat. We like potatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini, & yellow squash this way, but as long as you watch the cooking time, pretty much anything can be cooked this way. I’d probably look for things that were already prepped in the store, or which required very minimal cutting.) Once, I met a man who put his wok right on his grill, but if you’re truly without a kitchen, even this much prep/clean-up is hard.

3. A really good convection oven can roast a small chicken and all manner of fish. They’re not cheap, but mine is a workhorse, and very, very often replaces my oven. They can also bake potatoes, roast squashes or eggplant, and handle a small casserole or pizza. Pre-cooked sausage heats up quickly this way. Trader Joes has great crab cakes, too, which in a pinch can be cooked in the convection oven instead of pan fried.

4. Fish tacos. A quick fillet of red snapper in the convection oven + tortillas + premade salsa, guacamole, etc. Around here, you can even buy pre-shredded cabbage to combat the inability to chop/rinse. Even simpler than using fresh fish, cook frozen breaded tilipia filets (always available at Trader Joes) in the convection oven, and use these for your tacos. Defrost some precooked shrimp for shrimp tacos. This same shrimp can be steamed in the rice cooker (see #1) while the rice cooks, and you can add soy sauce or any other dipping sauce your family likes.

5. Vegetables may pose the biggest problem. We’re lucky that it’s spring here, or at least the vegetables think so. This means that there’s a lot at the Farmers Markets that doesn’t actually need to be cooked. Many things go from refrigerator to table these days, including: snap peas, english shelling peas, carrots, celery, radishes. All of these are fun to eat if you plop a bowl down in front of the kids, especially since they need no prep/cutting. The kids have decided they like ranch to dip these days (we had 2 big tubs left over from potluck parties), but we also use olive oil and vinegar and homemade thousand island dressing. (Of course, you can’t make Thousand Island w/o a kitchen, but in a pinch, a bottle will do.) We also have a small pile on our counter of the earliest tomatoes which can be quickly sliced or coarsely chopped. If you can prep a little, shaved or thinly sliced fennel (think fancy celery) works, too. Again, as I wrote in Surviving First Grade, just look for things in season (it will be fresher and taste better) that you think your kids will eat. In a pinch, spinach can be steamed in a microwave with a small amount of water, and dressed with a good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.

The Power of Suggestion

April 23, 2009 By lisa in Uncategorized Tags: cooking with kids, lunch, new food, picky eaters, produce

By Lisa

The age old wisdom is true: put something in front of your kids–even the pickiest eaters–enough times and they will, very likely, eventually, eat it. It may take 6-months or a year or five or ten (as it did with me and squash, a food I refused to eat in any form for the length of my childhood), but this is the best way to ensure that they are exposed to a range of foods. Hiding food in other food is dumb. It will never teach your kids to like or eat that food, or even to know what that food is. So, my philosophy is that unless your kid is suffering from scurvy or other nutritional deficiency you and your kids should eat real food that looks like what it is.

And I am not speaking theoretically here. In a family of adventurous omnivores, my son Finn went from eating anything we set in front of him to being a defiant picky monochromo-foodist. For about 8-months, when he was around three, he dropped all red, green, yellow, orange food from his diet. He ate white things: Rice. Bananas. Some raw tofu. Baked potato. I actually did resort to plugging him with vitamins until he began, slowly to come out of it, by adding one color back into his diet at a time. I did nothing during this period but continue to put in front of him the same food that we ate every meal. There was nothing else I could do, so stubborn was resistance to eating. So I just refused to cater to him, and he eventually figured it out. Call it the power of implicit suggestion. I don’t, by any means, intend to sound glib here. It was hard. It was really, deeply worrisome. I worried constantly about his health. But it did prove to me that this technique works, and he now eats better than ever.

Ella, on the other hand, is the child who one morning, over breakfast, announced “I had a dream about the most amazing hamburger last night. It was so delicious. It was on a bun, and it had lettuce and tomato. It was so good! When can we have hamburgers?”

This was from a child who had never in her life eaten a hamburger on a bun, and who hadn’t had a hamburger cut up on her plate for six months. Not too long after that, though, she got her dream come true, and now hamburgers, when we cook them on Sundays, from the amazing grass fed meat we buy at our local farmer’s market, is the highlight of her week. Finn thinks they’re pretty great, too.

Which brings me to the latest culinary influence in our home: Harriet the Spy. I’ve written about our cake habit but Harriet has recently and completely infiltrated our lunches in the form of tomato sandwiches. As soon as tomatoes appeared in our market a few weeks ago, Ella snatched some up for her lunch. No matter that she had never had a tomato sandwich before. (Even though they’re our staple adult Sunday lunch all summer long, Harriet, who has been eating tomato sandwiches every day for 5 years, was a much more important factor in Ella’s conversion).

So, I happily made Ella a tomato sandwich and packed her off to school.

And the next day I made another and then another. And another. Now her favorite thing to do on days off or weekends, or when we lunch with dad in his excellent cafeteria at work, is to make herself her own tomato sandwich.

Which brings me to the point of this post, which is not really about feeding your family hamburgers or tomato sandwiches or even about the wisdom of reading books with good food in them, but about the way that our palate is influenced by the culture around us as much as by the actual food in our plates. How we think and talk and read about food absolutely influences our children’s diets, and so does how we present food to them–literally but also imaginatively. Ella and Finn are learning about choice, sure, but they’re also learning about the infinite, lifelong pleasures of the gastronomic imagination.

Desires, dreams, aspirations, expectations, ideals–these things can make us hungry, too. And, the most beautiful thing may be that these are cravings we can, sometimes, truly satisfy.

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