Spring is Bursting Out All Over!

periwinkle

periwinkle

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Kid Friendly Vegetable Dish

In 1998, My sister took ill and her two children came to live with me. They referred to broccoli as trees and broccoli rabe as poison. They ate corn and white potatoes. That is it. They developed a love for kale before they left. They liked it so much that they helped clean it so it could be chopped and cooked without  any fussing. They were exceptions to the rule. Few children like kale, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, broccoli rabe or mustard greens.

Ingredients:
1/4 of a small cabbage, green a white leaves
1 medium sized zucchini
1 cup of chopped broccoli
3 medium white potatoes
1 cup chopped asparagus
1 tablespoon olive oil in pan
1 tablespoon oil mixed with tablespoon of chicken broth & 2 tbs. of water to make dripping sauce

12 inch nonstick pan

Cabbage should be chopped in slivers. Think spaghetti. Chop it again in the other direction. if the leaves are the outside green ones they will be tougher and take longer to cook. Green kids prefer the white inner leaves. The inside white leaves are sweeter, contain more water and cook faster. Precut all veggies and place in a colander. Do not mix the vegetables together. This is not stir fry. Kids do not like it when veggies are all mashed together like a stew. An over sizxed sauce pan is best. 1 tablespoo of olive oil is usually enough.

Chicken broth

kids like the potatoes best. Chop them like french fries. The thinner, the better. Chop the potatoes last to avoid browning in the air. Strain the potatoes. Kids don't like soggy potatoes. Preheat the pan with olive oil. Mix a tablespoon of oil with 2 tablespoons of water and a tablespoon of chicken broth. Fry the potatoes on medium heat as if making hash browns. Hey, make hash browns. When potatoes are tender move to one side of the pan. Add the rest of the vegetables.  keep them separated as much as possible.

Don't worry about over cooking the potatoes. kids don't mind the flavor of the hash browns mingling a little with the other veggies. Slowly drip the sauce over the green vegetables. The vegetables are already cooking. Cover the pan.  Allow the potatoes to get the crunchy brown texture. Turn the whole pile of potatoes. Flip the cabbage. The cabbage may need flipping more than once if using the outer green leaves. 

Filippo Berio Extra Virginolive oil

Leave the vegetables to steam under tightly closed lid. Close the lid and allow the heat in the pan to cook the vegetables to your liking. Kids like crunchy. They also like a little more of the Chicken broth flavor than adults. Taste before serving to them. Sometimes only one taste not to their liking will turn them off from eating it. Always use a pan that has a lid that closes tightly.  This keeps the heat in so the vegetables cook evenly. Do not add too much water? Vegetables are mostly water. As long as the fire/heat is not too high they will cook in their own juices and the olive oil.

The Ground is Thawing!

Another day awakened by a lively 3 year old proclaiming a bright and shiny day.
"Its a bright and shiny day, Grandma. Get up!"
How does one resist that? Not at all on a day like today. There was enough of a chill on the breeze that we still wore our jackets. The day was channeling spring. We spent time in the yard chasing the dog, kicking the soccer ball, tuning up the radio flyer 3 wheeler, playing with Batman figurines and walking.

He found that he really can peddle the radio flyer. He discovered that crashing can sometimes be fun.

The daffodils are up with the yellow blossom ready to pop through the green covers. The crocus and periwinkle are blooming.

The crunchy soils in my flower and vegetable beds are getting soft. Spring is coming! Yea!

High Fructose Corn Syrup: How Do you Feed Carbohydrate Junkies?

My 3 year old grandson has refused meat products since he was old enough to eat from a spoon. He came into the world with a very discerning sense of smell. Nothing passes his lips before it has gone through his little smell test.

"No, that's yucky. That's too floppy. That's too spinach."

Today, I bought carrot juice. The expensive kind. I have become very worried about the fact that MD's are saying that high fructose corn syrup has been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and skin cancer. It seems that this sweetner is cheaper than cane sugar. It always boils down to money. He is very fair and loves outside and the sun.  So how do you feed a child who refuses all fruit, vegetables and meat of all kinds? What do you feed a 3 year old who drinks milk, juices, cool aid, apple juice, iced tea, and pediasure? He only eats baby pasta and odoodles of noodles.  Have you ever seen those tiny flecks of parsley in the soup mix packet? Well he picks out those almost microscopic specks of green. "No spinach." He is so picky that he only consumes the foods that the body makes into sugar. This means that the child lives on sugar.

High Fructose Corn Poison

I have often told my daughter that Mickey D's should stop lying about there being meat in Chicken Nuggets, because that is the only thing that resembles meat that he will eat. They pass his smell test. How is that possible? Do additives mask the smell of meat or is the meat absent.

He is extremely asthmatic and takes a melt in your mouth singulair daily. Singulair is said to cause hallucinations and violent rages. I'd say that the sweet little boy can go there. He also takes albuterol and pulmicort when in serious distress, which is almost all the time. He is lying in his little bed right now with the nebulizer running. Sometimes I think that the noise of it soothes the little beastie inside and puts him to sleep. Okay, that was wishful thinking. Too much Gogurt today. He may even be allergic. Sugar. Sugar. And milk makes phlegm? Even orange juice is said to make phlegm. He doesn't like orange juice anyway.
"Its too orange. Check and Check."
He couldn't do the walk yesterday. He is too heavy to carry. He is not fat. He is solid. His saving grace is that he likes Nick Jr. and will dance all night to the many songs, if you let him. Tonight he ate dinosaur shaped pieces of what  was supposed to be chicken. This was a turning point. Now it seems like there will be a fitful night of sleep ahead.  Okay, I will stop now. I am scaring myself.

I have been doing a lot of reading about the corn syrup, sugar, the drugs and asthma. 

Does a Healthy School Lunch Affect a Child's Behavior or Learning?

Tossed Salad anyone?

My daughter is 42. When she was in school I insisted on a boxed lunch. Why? I wanted to make sure she got a good meal. I did not trust what she would be fed in school. We did not qualify for free or reduced lunch and I could not see paying for the garbage they feed the children. She did not agree with me. She did not think it was cool to carry a lunch box, even if all the other kids wanted her lunch. She had a cool lunch box. I filled it with really good food that she traded for the lunches made in school. The other children really appreciated the food I made her. In the middle school, her principal even commented on how good her lunches looked and smelled. By middle school she was selling her carefully prepared meals for money. What can I say? She was very enterprising. 

The average American
school lunch?

When I attended Dwight Morrow high school in Englewood, New Jersey, there was a collection of round ladies wearing hair nets behind the petition separating the kitchen from the lunch pick up area. The smells that filled the cafeteria were very much like the ones from home. When one selected mashed potatoes, one knew they were going to eat mashed potatoes. Macaroni and cheese was made with real cheese, eggs and butter. It was good. Turkey squares were the favorite of all us all. I think they were served on Thursdays, especially near Thanksgiving. We looked forward to them. There were real green vegetables. Of course, we knew that some of the vegetables came from a can, but they were still palatable and made by ladies who waved to you from the kitchen. It was a balanced meal based on the FDA's basic food groups.

Spinach w/turkey bacon, mushrooms

There has been a lot of coverage given to school lunches in the news today. Perhaps it is because of the interest shown to the subject by our First Lady, Michelle Obama. She and Rachel Ray teamed up to visit schools and made an effort to revamp school lunch regulations.  Jane Black of All We Can Eat wrote, "More than 500 chefs gathered at the White House today to join Michelle Obama's newest effort to fight childhood obesity, Chefs Move To Schools."

Public domain image:
http://www.wpclipart.com/food/Food_Pyramid.png.html

Across the country parents and communities are talking about school lunches. For years, educators and medical professionals have agreed that a lunch laden with carbohydrates do nothing to stimulate a child's brain activity. Included in this blog are Dr. Oz's Shopping suggestions. The human body turns everything on the school lunch plate above into sugar. The styrofoam plate is also a problem if the macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes are served hot. The tray is also not biodegradable. It will sit around on the landfill for 100 years, maybe even forever. Some schools are beginning to go green, but until the trays are piling up in front of our doors, some people will never listen. These trays have no recyclable value. Why are we continually giving students mixed messages? We can't talk Green Team in one breath and serve them unhealthy meals on styrofoam trays while we speak. No one wants the used trays. They are totally NOT recyclable. Why are companies still making them? If the schools stop using them, there would no longer be a market for them. So why, you ask are our children still being served globs of carbohydrates on them? Ask your local Board of Education.

From my garden

We must all become involved in keeping the earth green and clean. Every school should have an environmental club or class that focuses on the effort to save the planet. Every child should and every parent must protest the use of styrofoam lunch trays for school lunches. It is bad enough that the food served on them is processed to the point that it no longer has any nutritional value. What ever happened to the old adage, "you are what you eat." Think on that for a second or two. Is there no wonder that today's children seem to have more and varied behavioral problems. There are people all over the country who are making the effort to get it right. That is behavior that we should emulate. It is time the New Jersey State Department of Education started to understand why New Jersey has been nicknamed the "GARDEN STATE." More of that fresh produce must begin make its way into the daily lunches in our cafeterias. We must use every strategy at our disposal to support our children as they endeavor to close the Achievement GAP so prevalent in today's educational system.


 New Jersey Nutrition and Wellness

• School Breakfast Program
• After School Snack Program
• National School Lunch Program
• New Jersey School Nutrition/Wellness Policy
• Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station
• Food Guide Pyramid: ChooseMyPlate.go
• Jersey Fresh: New Jersey Department of Agriculture

What are folks saying about School Lunches?

• The Economics of a Healthy School Meal
• Kids Heart Felt Health
• 30 Ideas for School Lunches: Sandwiches and Munchies
• School Lunches and Snacks
• Teachers Vs. Childhood Obesity
• Recess Before Lunch
• School Nutrition Association
• Jersey Fresh: New Jersey Department of Agriculture

Success Stories: They got it right

• CHOICE: Citizens for Healthy Options in Children's Education
• Tray Talk: New Salad Bar Offers California Students 18 Feet of Fresh Choices
• Success Stories: Waste Free Lunches
• USDA: Food and Nutrition service success stories 
• School Lunch Success in Austin, Texas: The Official "Whole Foods Market" blog.

STYRENE: Increase your knowledge of this potentially dangerous product on which your child's food is served daily.

• Styrene
• Earth Resource Foundation
• Waste Reduction: The Facts About Styrofoam
• Styrofoam Products
• Bad Things About Styrofoam
• Bad Things About Styrofoam Trays and What you can do To Eliminate Them
• One Mom's Battle Against Styrofoam lunch Trays
• Portland students push district to abandon styrofoam lunch trays
• The Story of Styrofoam Trays and What you can do To Eliminate Them
• A Possible solution for ridding the world of styrofoam?
• The Dangers of Polystyrene
• Joint the Fight Against the use of Polystyrene in food service

Alternatives to Styrofoam

• PrimeWare - Leading Manufacturer of Eco-Friendly, Biodegradable and Recyclable Tableware
• Go-Green Sugar Cane 100% Compostable
• Tree Cycle Recycled Paper
• Oceansgreen: Biodegradable, Disposable
• Ithaca Natural Resource
• Sustainable design for Living Branch
• Go Green 100% Compostable
• Green Choice
• The Corn Starch Lunch Tray
• The Bamboo Lunch Tray
• Sustainable Food Service Trays - Biodegradable
• And then there is paper...

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This is the first in a series of gardens that I will feature on this blog. Last week I had occasion to visit a friend. We had spoken about her gardens prior to this. I remember when she moved into this house. There was no garden. The previous owners did not have any type of flowers or shrubbery. This beautifully groomed area makes a really nice place to sit and sip a mint julip or a vintage merlot. The fence was installed to increase privacy from the street. The shrubbery planted along the fence creates even more privacy,  makes for a fine breezeway and sound barrier. It is not easy to grow roses. They require a lot of attention. A lot of love and cultivation has nurtured these roses that have been trained to grow on this open cast iron gazebo. The cast iron dinette set compliments the area making a great place to have a meal on cool afternoons.

We settled in another beautiful area of her yard that I chose not to photograph. It was a time of day when the rear yard was shaded and I did not wish to reveal the location. My good friend is enjoying her yard. She has now decided to stay in the area instead of leaving for some far away pastoral part of the country. She has created a  beautiful outdoor living space that has caused her to fall in love with the place she has chosen to live. Gardening therapy has calmed the need to fly south that very often influences us to pick up and leave a town. We sipped merlot and spoke of the times when I worked and the times when she will no longer work. All in all, it was a great day.

Thank you Cynthia South for sharing
 your merlot, your company and your
beautiful yard.

American Pastoral,  
Pastoral Retreat Art Poster Print by Steven Harvey, 37x28,
Windowsill Whimsy, Gardening & Horticultural Therapy Projects for Small Spaces
Horticulture Therapy Methods: Making Connections in Health Care, Human Service, And Community Programs (Haworth Series in Therapy & Human Development Through Horticulture)
Projects for Horticultural Therapy Programs