Future Foodie Friday Tip - Kids in the Kitchen

I apologize for the delay in posts but summer fun has prevailed the last month.  This week's tip is a little lengthy, so hopefully it will make up for the gap in posts.

A great way to get kids excited about food is to get them in the kitchen with you.  It's never too early, place infants in the kitchen when you are cooking so that they can take in the sights, sounds, and smells of your food. This will help prepare them for these flavors when they are  ready. The smells will be familiar when you introduce them to these foods as they get older.

Let your toddlers help as soon as you can.  Now maybe it's not the best idea to have a toddler help when you are trying to fix dinner in 10 minutes or less, but pick a time when you aren't rushed in the kitchen and let them help.  Start with easy tasks like outing cut up veggies in a bowl or handing you ingredients as needed, then work your way up to letting them measure and pour in ingredients.  Sure it's messy and it will take time and patience, but the provide and ownership your child will feel will be totally worth it.  They may be more likely to eat the food and enjoy it if they helped make it

Our boys have worked up to being quite the sous chefs.  We find that if we get all the ingredients, tools, and bowls ready before we bring them in to help, it makes things go smoother.  The boys can now make zucchini bread and cookies with Mommy just reading the recipes to them.  They measure, level, and pour in the ingredients all by themselves.  Lucas has even graduated to being Andy's assistant for cutting fresh pasta.

Having your kids help in the kitchen is a great way to have teach your children life skills of cooking and math, encourage excitement about food and above all have some family fun!

Happy Friday!

Future Foodies Friday Tip -- Gardening Excitement

We have been watering our garden throughout this drought and it is working.  The boys love helping plant, water, and pick veggies from our garden. When kids feel like they have some ownership in the growing of the family food, they have pride in the results and want to enjoy them like the rest of the family. At least I believe they are more likely to try them and be excited about trying them.  So try to create some excitement about eating fresh veggies. If you don't have a garden maybe the way to create that excitement is to take your child to the local farmer's market and let them help you pick out some fresh summertime veggies.  Happy Friday!

Future Foodie Friday Tip -- Creativity with Food

We recently have had some success getting the boys to try new foods, by giving them creative names or stories. We tried refried beans and the boys were turned off by the appearance and the fact that the beans were mashed. We told them we had to mash them because they were magic jumping beans and otherwise they would jump right off the plate. We also told them if they ate them, they would have super jumping powers. Needless to say they both ate several bites and then jumped around the kitchen the next 10 minutes, swearing they were jumping higher than ever before.

 Last night I made fried zucchini chips and the boys were hesitant, but when I told them they were gold coins from a lost pirate treasure they gobbled them up. Try to get creative with the new foods your kids are hesitant to try in order to spike interest. You never know, they might be more willing to try it and like it.

I'd love to hear what stories or names you give food that helps your little one's eat more variety.

Happy Friday!

Tyler Makes Pancakes by Tyler Florence

Lucas and Adam got this book for Andy for Father's day and the boys have insisted on reading it every night before bed since.  It's a great book that any child would love and has a great recipe for pancakes.  It does a wonderful job of teaching children where the ingredients come from besides the grocery store. This is the first in a series of three and we can't wait for the rest to come out.  Check out the video and this great book from Tyler Florence!

Tyler Makes Pancakes

Future Foodie Friday Tip -- Read about Food

When our sons are anxious or scared of something new, I try to find a book about it, so that the boys can learn about what to expect in order to calm their fears.  I believe the more you know about something the more likely you are to enjoy it.  The same can be said about food, when it comes to getting young children to try new things.  We have several books about food and they are not hard to find.  Most of ours came from the dollar section at Target.  Some of these books discuss the health benefits of certain foods, others talk about where food comes from, and a few are about the fun of cooking with friends and family.  We are supposed to read to our children everyday, so try adding a few books about food to your library and see if it spikes your child's interest in food.  I've listed a few of our favorite "food" books below.  We would love to get comments on how this works for you or your favorite children's books about food.  Happy Friday!!

Super Baby Abigail's Lunch Time Adventure
Cooking with the Cat
Sesame Street's Busy Bakers
Tyler Makes Pancakes
Fruit Salad Day

Future Foodie Friday Tip -- Taste Tests

In an effort to keep our blog up to date, I'm going to try to do a Future Foodie Friday Tip each week.  So here goes.  Our first tip is to let your children taste your dishes as you make them.  We should all cook with our palates, and we should teach our children how to use theirs.  A few weeks ago, I decided that our family was going to give black beans a try.  I looked at a few black bean and corn salad recipes and decided to use those as inspiration and wing it.  (I chose a black bean and corn salad because the boys really like corn and I thought a familiar ingredient might make them more likely to try and like the salad.) Lucas wanted to help, so I let him taste the salad and tell me what he thought it needed.  I think this is a great exercise, because it teaches him to notice the difference after more of an existing ingredient or a new ingredient is added to a dish.  It will help him develop his palate and hopefully make his dishes more successful when he is cooking on his own.  Happy Friday!

Biscuit Pizzas

One of the boys' favorite items to make is Biscuit Pizzas.  They are quick, easy and always a hit at meal time.  Adam helped me make these recently. 

1.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  

2.  The crusts are just canned biscuits flattened out on  pizza pan or cookie sheet covered in parchment or greased.  (We don't cook anything without parchment anymore because it significantly cuts down on our dish scrubbing time.)  Adam enjoyed flattening the squishy biscuits. 

3. Add pizza sauce and let your little one spread it out with a spoon as Adam does below.

Spreading the sauce

4.  Next add the meat of your choice.  We happened to have some leftover browned sausage on this day, so we did a combination of sausage and pepperoni.  We prefer Turkey Pepperoni, since it is significantly less greasy and healthier.  It truly taste the same if not better than regular.

Adding Pepperoni and Sausage

5.  Add pizza cheese. I like to try to let the boys 'do their thing' without a lot of fuss, when we are cooking.  As you can see, Adam had some trouble evenly distributing the cheese.  Since this was something I could easily fix after the fact, I just let him have a good time.

Adding cheese

Adam being very proud of his handy work

6.  We topped our pizzas with some Italian Seasoning and I mistakenly let Adam put that on one pizza.  I caution you against letting little ones spread spices evenly, because this is something that cannot be easily fixed after the fact.

Ready to go into the oven

7.  Bake the pizzas according to the directions on the biscuit can.  Ours took about 8 - 10 mins. 

Quick, easy well balanced meal when paired with broccoli and peaches

This is a great way for your little ones to get their own individualized pizza and you can have toppings of your choice too.  It's simple so they can help and they taste great as well.  Enjoy!