Category — Kid food

There’s a lot of activity shaking down in our neck of Ottawa these days and as much as I want to just focus on food writing and cooking, my inner community activist is being consumed by the completely foolish reconstruction plans of an arterial highway/main street not far from us.  Yes, highway and main street!  That’s Ottawa planning for you.

Sigh.

I’ve been putting together some items for Alden’s expanded “play kitchen 2011.”  Last year, the husband crafted a lovely tabletop cooktop for him out of spare Ikea shelves and now we’d like to build an oven and shelf unit for the cooktop to sit on.  My role was to find some new playfood to use.  As much as he’s loved all the crochet foods I made last year, I just didn’t have time to dedicate to crafting more food.  I relied on the internet and found some super cute Erzi and Haba playfood on the Baby Naturopathics website.

I really like the Haba felt noodles: fettucine, bow ties and ravioli.  They were sort of ridiculously priced for felt and my inner “crafty mom” is still feeling a bit guilty for not making my own.  If you are crafty, you could easily whip these up with some felt at home.  But alas, time was of the essence.

Some things, were just too amazing to resist.  The coffee beans in the little tin?  He is going to love putting those in the mini espresso maker for “coffee”.  The roast chicken with the removable legs?  I think he’s going to love roasting it up in his oven.

I looked at many play versions of coffee makers but they were so expensive!  The mini espresso maker is the perfect size and essential for the kid who likes playing with the “real” thing.

I also picked up some tea bags, sausages, fish filets, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and jam.

The clincher?  The mini chef hat.  I found this one at J.D. Adams in the Glebe (but they also have them at the Glebe Emporium).

Making a pumpkin pie

The older Alden gets, the more I realize that we are solidly in the “Granola Parent” category. As Halloween draws closer, not only are we preoccupied finding allergy-safe candy for the BIG day, but all of the other “week of” activities that seem to go along with major holidays these days.

Take for example our daycare, they’ll be doing a “trick or treating” activity on Friday the 28th. (Presumably, some children don’t attend on Mondays so they don’t want them to be “left out.”)   Then there will be the real Halloween on the 31^st.  AND to top off that candy train, I had a message that someone wants to bring in treats to Alden’s class the week of Halloween.

REALLY? Are our three year olds not getting enough candy after two trick or treating outings?

And this rant, this has nothing to do with food allergies.  This is about using basic common sense when teaching small children lessons about healthy eating habits.

And before anyone accuses me of being anti-sweets, I am not.  I just want to control when and how often sweets are consumed at this time.  Because right now, we are in the middle of a very anti-vegetable phase and  I can’t compete in a competition between carrots and candy.

There are enough birthday party celebrations held in-class without adding “just because” treats to that list.

And tonight, I’m treating the little guy to cupcakes.  Because he’s had a rough week at school and he’s been super keen to try new (healthy) foods.

I missed all of the Vendemmia events over the past weekend, but I had a good reason. I was prepping for a certain three-year-old’s birhtday party! Initially, I was thinking of having a theme for the party, but in the end, I knew no one would care but me. Kids just want cake. Any shape. Any size. Cake. Why complicate things? Entertaining adults and wrangling toddlers is enough work isn’t it? Totally.

I was going to create a Lego cake, but at the last minute changed my mind and went for sprinkles.  Lots of sprinkles.

On the birthday menu there was a little something for everyone. We served:

• Baby carrots and cauliflower hummus (from Veganomicon)
• Veggie straws
• Berries from the garden
• Burgers (veg and non-veg) with buns made at the bakery on Preston
• Homemade pickles and relish
• Homegrown broccoli and carrot slaw with raisins (I did a variation on this recipe. Loved it! But didn’t snap a photo. Will definitely be making it again. A no mayo slaw! Yes!)
• Grilled eggplant and chickpea salad
• Cranberry and mango punch, apple juice, water
• One very large chocolate cake with sprinkles

I dug out my piping set and quickly traced a 3 and the edges with extra frosting.  Mmm.  And added lots of sprinkles.

The cake was a hit, but next time I’d only do a single layer.  There was a lot left over.

We ran out of time in the morning to make the sharky watermelon treat, so we did it in the afternoon for snacktime.  There are so many fun carving ideas on the watermelon organization’s website.  I’d do this again for sure.

And there you go.  Three!  Happy birthday big boy!

This is a super easy allergy-friendly ice cream recipe that takes almost no time to prepare.  If you can measure coconut milk and Sunbutter, you can make this.

I was flipping through my Vegan Scoop book again over the weekend and the peanut butter recipe gave me the idea to substitute Sunbutter.   We love our Sunbutter in this house.

(Side note: our giant sunflowers finally opened up and Alden’s eyes nearly popped when I told him that’s where they get seeds to make Sunbutter.   Shazam, kid!)

Ok, so Sunbutter was the first substitution.  Next, I replaced the soy creamer for some of my homemade coconut milk.  (I’m sure canned would totally work too.  But right now, I’m kind of obsessed with making coconut milk.)

Other than that I followed the recipe as the book suggests.  However, since the Sunbutter contains sugar, in my next batch I’ll reduce the amount of sugar I use.  The final ice cream was RICH.  Ritchy Rich.  Although, no one really seemed to mind.

(And yes, Alden’s nails are painted blue.  They did it at school.  He loves it, I … love it less.)

I was flipping through my vegan ice cream book for inspiration for my next batch – I knew I wanted to do chocolate, but I wanted it to be a bit quirky too. The herb garden is overflowing these days, so I’ve been trying to incorporate herbs into as many dishes as possible (like tabbouleh, I made a lot of tabbouleh this weekend).  Adding mint seemed too common and I was on the fence about adding basil. What about the rosemary?

Rosemary and chocolate. Hmm.

I Googled around to see if anyone else had done this combo before. There were loads of honey and rosemary version … and I stumbled on one person who made a non-vegan chocolate rosemary version. Perfect!

Another search today turned up this blog from jolly old England who confirms that a grocery chain on the other side of the pond sells a chocolate-rosemary ice cream.  I guess, it’s not quite as unique as I thought!   It’s a flavour created for Waitrose in partnership with Heston Blumenthal, so I guess I feel a bit chuffed that we both thought of the same flavour. (Hi Heston!  Call me, we’ll make ice cream!)

I used the chocolate recipe from the Vegan Scoop as my base, but again sustituted the soy milk for my homemade coconut milk.  I added a large sprig of rosemary into the mixture while it heated on the stove to infuse the rosemary-ness into the ice cream base.

We had to sample it right away when it finished churning in the ice cream mixer.  Mmm.  Just a hint of rosemary is detectable in the final version.  It adds a nice woodiness to the chocolate, dare I say umami?  No… I won’t.   It’s definitely a complex chocolate taste.

Best of all… it pleases the wee one as well as the adults.

Here are some other good spoon-licking rosemary ice creams (albeit non-vegan variations):

• Honey Rosemary Ice Cream 
• Buttermilk rosemary ice cream
• Rosemary olive oil ice cream
• Honey orange rosemary ice cream

Vegan coconut cinnamon ice cream

Have you ever cracked open a coconut?  I hadn’t until today.  Coconuts were filed in my mind alongside pineapples in the “too tricky to open at home” category.  But, the urge struck to buy a coconut last week so into the cart it went.  And sat at home for days.  What to do with it?  And moreover, how do I open this thing?  What was I thinking?

A few YouTube videos later, I was feeling pretty confident that I could totally crack open a coconut.  In fact, it seemed so easy I started feeling guilty for not trying it sooner.  This tutorial by Jenny over on Nourished Kitchen was particularly inspiring.  Jenny also lists about 80 or so (I kid) reasons why making coconut milk from scratch is all around better than canned.

Here’s how I cracked it open (I have an added step that makes getting the meat out much easier):

I held the coconut in my left hand and tapped around the circumference with a small hammer.  I kept tap tap tapping until the shell cracked.  I opened the coconut over a bowl and saved the coconut water.  Now, you should be left with two halves.  Turn on your oven and heat it up to about 350 degrees.  Toss the halves on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.  Doing this, loosens the husk from the coconut meat.  It makes getting the meat out a breeze.  Then, I used a vegetable peeler to finish the job of peeling the brown skin off the meat.  Voila, coconut meat.

Coconut inspector.

Alden enjoyed tapping the coconut with the hammer. The CHEO part of my brain said giving him a hammer was a bad idea, but my Saturday brain said “ok.”

Toss meat and hot water in blender

The meat got tossed into the blender along with about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of hot water.

Milk strained from coconut meat shreds

Using cheesecloth or muslin, strain the mixture into a bowl.  Less water will make your milk “creamier”.  Tada, you now have coconut milk.

Coconut milk and coconut shreds ready to be dehydrated

I made about 1 1/2 cups of coconut milk out of one coconut.  With the remaining shredded meat, I tossed it into the dehydrator on the fruit roll-up tray and dried it out.  This resulted in a generous one cup of dessicated coconut.

With my coconut milk, I whipped up a batch of cinnamon ice cream, a variation on a couple of recipes from the Vegan Scoop.  It was easily the best ice cream I’ve ever made at home.

Sunday update: I checked my grocery bill. The coconut cost $1.79, cheap! You can’t even buy a can of coconut milk at Loblaws for that amount. It makes the ice cream even sweeter now.

Tuesday update: It’s even better in a cone.

Yay! Ice Cream!

I’m happy to report that we are up to 3 tablespoons of milk in Alden’s bread recipe with no adverse reactions.   He eats 1-2 slices of this bread every day.  Based on this success, I pulled out a special treat from the cupboard – Goldfish crackers (just the plain ones, not the cheese flavoured).  Now, if you don’t have kids, you may not know what a hot toddler currency these little crackers can be.  They are addictive to say the least.  And they have skim milk powder in the ingredient list.

This would be Alden’s first store-bought cookie with milk.  I don’t know how long it takes to bake a Goldfish cracker, so I crossed my fingers that it was long enough to tweak the milk proteins into a safe substance.  Given that it was skim milk powder, I was pretty confident that it would be ok.

I gave Alden a small handful.  Munch munch munch.  It’s a fish, Mommy!

He got up and threw his arms around my neck and gave me a huge hug.  He was so happy.

He wanted more, but I insisted that he play for a while before eating more.  We played.  We waited.  I put more in a bowl and we sat reading stories on the couch, munching away.

So far, so good.

I’m still mentally working up to the animal cookie challenge.

Even though I take pride in our homemade cupcakes and cookies and I know the ingredients are Alden-friendly, wholesome and safe, there’s a flip side. He was clearly disappointed when he couldn’t eat goldfish and snacks with his friends on the walk home from school. And he really wanted  them.  And it’s hard to see him so disappointed over a stupid goldfish cookie.  My homemade snacks just couldn’t compete..  they were different.  And at two, he didn’t want to be different.

I decided that I would search for some safe cookies the next time I went grocery shopping.  You know, the “Big Ag” preservative laden, GMO monster cookies.  Gah.  I hated being in that cookie aisle.  It was clear, I was going to have to suck up the fact that the ingredient list was not going to read like a trip to grandma’s pantry.

I read a fair amount of parenting, kid cuisine and crafting blogs and let me tell you, if you think the term “foodie” for adults was overhyped, it’s got nothing on the parenting tit-for-tat of my granola is more homemade than yours. Don’t touch palm oil with a ten foot pole unless you want to be responsible for killing the rainforest. Rice must be brown. Plates must be BPA-free or preferably stainless steel. Attachment parenting, baby-led-weaning, toddler vintage fashion…  it drives me batty and yet I support all of those things at the same time.  After typing this, I realize that I probably need to unsubscribe from many of those sites because it’s only making me feel bad.  WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A MONTESSORI NATURE CORNER.   How will Alden appreciate nature without a pine cone stuck in a corner of his room???  Ok.  I’m getting ranty.  Let’s bring this post back to food.

I guess, what I’m trying to say is that it’s easier to keep a “back to basics” and wholesome diet when you can choose anything to eat. Don’t like Girl Guide cookies with panda-killing palm oil? No problem, buy another organic rainforest friendly chocolate cookie. But for us, sometimes the only safe cookie I can find has palm oil or…shhh…. white flour. (Nooooooooooooo!)

I decided that I needed to lower the bar and bring some of these things into our house.  Because making the little guy feel like a normal kid was just as important as my pride over my pantry ingredients.

Last week I cruised the cookie aisle at the grocery store to find safe snacks. But, reading all of the labels made me cringe. For two years, we’ve avoided processed foods, corn syrup, weird oils and preservatives and here I am scanning for the least offensive set of ingredients. PS: Mr. Christie, you do not make “good” cookies.

First, I scanned the cookies in the baby food aisle. The PC Organics animal cookies (and several other varieties) were actually horrible from an allergy point of view. All contained warnings about milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. For cookies designed for “toddlers”, these cookies should not contain traces of nuts and peanuts. I can’t imagine these are flying off the shelves. And yet, there they are. I moved on to the normal cookie aisle.

I knew Alden’s friends liked goldfish cookies and teddy grahams, so that’s where I decided to start. The “cookie bears” were the easiest to find. We already knew of a couple of safe brands of graham crackers, so these were basically the same. The PC Honey Crunch Cubs Graham cookies were free of milk, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. Alden tried them and liked them, but he wasn’t wowed. I was kind of surprised because, it’s a cookie bear!  They gave him no reactions, so we scored a safe cookie option, albeit, not as tasty as his Shreddies.

In general, the Presidents Choice products had better ingredients (or at least fewer) in their “Mini Chefs” line of products. (UGH. Don’t get me started on that branding. Yet, they are committed to making peanut-free products, so I can’t rain on this parade too much.)

Next week’s test? Plain Goldfish.

Sure, the snow had not fully melted off the patio in the yard, but the sunny afternoons were uncovering the telltale smell of mud and wet grass. Spring (was) in the air and I started thinking about summer, sandboxes and non-stewy food: guacamole, fresh herbs and limes.  All signs pointed to tacos.

I decided on the lime crema and taco slaw recipes from the Baja taco recipe in Veganomicon, the tasty lentil taco recipe (although, we ended up using meat at the last minute) a basic guacamole with some lime and salt and horror… supermarket flatbreads.  (It’s hard to find a flatbread that isn’t full of crappy oils.)

Full disclosure, this meal is going to take some time to make.   Either plan for a lazy afternoon of cooking or make some of the side dishes in advance.  (You can also cut some corners by buying a bag of coleslaw mix and flatbreads.) I intended to make these for dinner on Sunday night, but only managed to get halfway through before you-know-who decided that he wanted to “help” in the kitchen.  Ok fine.  I conceded that the wee one could help mash the avocado for the guacamole.  But, I knew it was game over when I sliced open the newly purchased avocados and found they were grey inside.  Not only was my guacamole plan going down the tubes, but it threw the kid into a tailspin and he flopped on the floor whimpering “avocado!  avocado!”   GAH.    Taco night was cancelled.  Call it locavore karma. We put pasta on to boil.

The next day, I went to the grocery store again and bought a bag of avocados that seemed ripe. Guacamole take two. With my helper at the helm, I cut into a new avocado and it was green! Hurray! Taco night was on again. Alden helped smoosh it up. Below you can see him going a bit Gordon Ramsay on his dad who was frying up the meat at the stove.

And voila… the finished taco that only took two days and two trips to the grocery store to make.

The slaw was a great addition, but I added a bit of sugar to my version to make it less tart. The lime crema? Well… I probably wouldn’t bother with it again. It still tasted like soy yogurt no matter how much lime and cilantro was added.

The pork bun idea started out with this recipe from The Kitchn and a head a green cabbage that was feeling a bit neglected in the fridge. Given the carb to vegetable ratio, I also thought it would make a very toddler friendly meal.

The prep for this meal started out promising – the boy was even chomping on raw cabbage. This was clearly going to be a stellar, home run, ball-out-of-the-park recipe.  I was feeling smug.

I tweaked the original recipe in a few ways: we used cubed pork chops, our own BBQ sauce and my standby pizza dough recipe. I also removed the dairy parts of the recipe (butter and cheese) to make it Alden friendly.  (I think cheese seems really out of place with BBQ sauce anyway.)

In the end, Alden sort of tried one, but he was way more excited about eating the raw cabbage than the final product.  On the other hand, we loved them.  And they’ll definitely be served again.