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The Balanced Kitchen

Time for food. Time for Life.

Grilled Fennel and Red Onion Salad

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Over the past year or so my sons have shown little to no interest in what I choose at the farm share each week. This has been a source of disappointment for me for two reasons: 1) I love walking through the selections with them and talking about their favorites as well as about new fruits and vegetables they (or we) hadn’t tried yet and 2) I felt like somehow this weekly ritual that I consider to be such a privilege and treat just seemed commonplace to them. Then this week I realized that I was seeing it all wrong.

My older son was playing at the nearby playground while I was picking out our food and I called him over in the hopes that he would help me pick out one last vegetable. He came trotting over, I told him what I had already picked out and asked him to pick out one more vegetable. He walked around the table, looking at everything that was there, and then reached for the fennel. As we walked back to the car he asked if he could munch on a stalk of fennel as we drove home, which of course I happily agreed to, and in that moment I realized that the magic of the farm share had actually been working the whole time. You see, not only did he enjoy fennel (which I did not know even existed when I was his age!) to the point that he couldn’t even wait to get home to eat it, but all those years of weekly treks to the farm share had gotten him to a point where he was able to recognize everything on the table and make an informed decision that was truly exciting to him!


So in honor of his appreciation of fennel I wanted to share with you a favorite grilled salad that helped me to learn to enjoy this vegetable that I was not crazy about when I first tried it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with fennel, when it is raw it has quite a strong anise (black licorice) flavor to it, but if you roast or grill it the flavor changes completely and it become subtle and sweet. This salad can be made on the grill outside or on a grill pan on your stove and it is a great summer salad to serve with grilled meats or veggie burgers. It is light, refreshing, and wonderfully crunchy.


Grilled Fennel and Red Onion Salad
 
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Recipe type: Salad, Side
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 small red onions
  • 2 small bulbs of fennel
  • 1 tablespoon crumbled feta, or more to taste
  • 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves, or more to taste
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • half a lemon
  • salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat your grill or grill pan and set it to a medium heat.
  2. While the grill is heating, cut the onion into ½-inch thick slices. Then cut the stalks off of the fennel bulb so you are left just with the bulb. Cut it in half lengthwise and then, like the onion, again into ½-inch thick slices.
  3. Brush the onion and fennel slices with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, on both sides.
  4. Lay the slices on the grill let them cook for 3-5 minutes on each side, or until they are just starting to soften.
  5. Place them on a platter and top with thyme, crumbled feta, a drizzle of olive oil, and a good squeeze from the lemon. Add more salt and pepper, if desired.

 

Cheesy Broccoli Tots

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“By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by Kikkoman and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.”

I have a confession to make: I hate tater tots. Maybe it is because I never tasted one until I was in my late 20s and so I don’t have any sentimental attachment, but to me they just taste like clumps of sad, soggy, kind of greasy, overly salted French fries. I just don’t get the appeal. And yet, when I started seeing recipes for vegetable tots floating around I was curiously intrigued. I loved the idea of small nuggets of vegetables that could be made to go along with a meal, could be a new spin on vegetables in the lunch box, or could be a fun new snack option, so I started experimenting to see what would work well, because more than anything I didn’t want to end up with a tater tot equivalent that would leave me feeling bummed out and disappointed.

And I have to say, I think that the idea resonated with some of you as well! As I have started posting my weekly meal plans (new in 2017! If you don’t follow me on Facebook yet, I’d love to have you join in the fun!) people have noticed the veggie tots listed and have asked about them more than any other dish. I guess it is a sign!…


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Managing Treat Season for Ourselves and Our Kids

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As much as we may want to live in denial, we are about to enter what I like to call treat season, that time of year from Halloween through New Years when there are seemingly endless supplies of sweet treats. This is a time of year that used to stress me out both because of my own treat consumption and because I felt like I was in a constant state of negotiation with my kids. In the past two years, though, I have not found it nearly as stressful and I wanted to share with you the things that I have done that I think have been helpful, both for myself and for my kids….

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Homemade Applesauce

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The boys and I are out in Colorado for a few weeks, which means lots and lots of time outside on fun adventures from hiking to visiting farms to riding horses. One of the activities that the boys have been most excited about this trip is apple picking in the horse pasture. And can you blame them? I mean, how cool is it that we get to walk out into a pasture with horses grazing next to us while we pick apples from the trees that have been growing pretty much wildly there for as long as anyone can remember?! We are so unbelievably lucky.

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The only pitfall is that the apples are quite tart. My 8-year-old will eat them pretty happily, but my 6-year-old has declared them to be too sour. The solution? Applesauce! If you have never made your own applesauce, you are missing out on such an amazing and very easy-to-make treat! Homemade applesauce is so much more flavorful than the store-bought stuff. Every fall I stock up on apples and make huge batches of apple sauce to freeze and then am so disappointed when we have finally run out, usually around February, and I open a jar of the store-bought stuff which barely even tastes like apples! Apple sauce is a go-to for us as a lunchbox staple either on its own or mixed with plain yogurt, when kiddos are sick with colds or stomach bugs and can’t manage eating too much, as the basis for cakes and breads, and even as a side dish on nights when I am making a new meal that I suspect one or both of the kids will have a hard time with. …

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Baked Chimichangas

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I don’t know about you, but getting meals on the table during the summer can be a bit of a challenge. I always think that the summer is going to be slower and more relaxed, and in some ways it is, but then suddenly, because of that relaxation and lack of routine, it is 6pm, I’ve got starving kids, and I haven’t even started thinking about dinner yet! Panic!

That is where quick and easy dinners save the day and I have been depending a lot on quick pastas, egg dishes, and rice bowls of various sorts. These are all great, but we all need something new from time to time… or at least I do.

Enter the baked chimichanga. Now, I know that this is not even close to a traditional chimichanga, especially since they aren’t deep fried, but to be totally honest, calling them chimichangas was quite a selling point with my kids. They thought it was fun to say and if it is fun to say, then maybe it is fun to eat, and then suddenly I have two boys who are in love with a new dish to the point where one declares that he loves chimichangas more than hot dogs (true story!). So maybe I could call them baked-delicious-pockets-of-goodness, but it just doesn’t quite roll off the tongue in the same way….


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Embracing the Imperfect: The power and productiveness of accepting reality

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This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we were going to go to museums, and the boys were going to help me with some house projects I have been longing to do. I was going to be a supermom and we were going to have an amazing time!

And then my 8-year-old got sick. For two days he didn’t leave the couch, which led my 5-year-old to get squirrely and crabby, and my plans for our perfect week to go up in smoke. Normally this kind of week would have made me grumpy, stressed, and anxious to get out of the house but I was shocked to find that, for the most part, I was able to just accept the reality that was my home-bound life.

So this morning, instead of going for a bike ride, we ended up at a local coffee shop, board games in hand, to eat a late breakfast of chocolate croissants and juice. Gone were my mealtimes and generally healthy food choices. Gone was my hope for some exercise and time outside with the boys. But when I stopped to notice, it was more than ok, it was actually fun. I didn’t feel anxious about the calories consumed, the sugar ingested, the lack of fruit or vegetables, or the fact that nothing was getting crossed off my list, instead I just embraced the reality of what was possible and enjoyed the time we were having….


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My 8-year-old refused birthday cake and what it taught me about healthy eating for all of us

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It is rare that I have a moment in parenting when I think: “Wow! Something is really going right here!” But this week I had a couple of those and I wanted to share them with you along with some thoughts about why they happened and what it taught me about healthy eating for all of us….

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4 Ways to Make Trying Something New a Success (with Kids or Yourself)

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Each Monday I teach a cooking class to a group of first through fourth graders at a local school. The focus of the class is on cooking healthy snacks and goodies, but it is also a way for me to start to teach them some fundamental cooking skills and concepts. This week I wanted to work with them on the idea of building flavor. So we started with a common ingredient, yogurt, and then made two sauces from it, one that was savory (tzatziki) and one that was sweet (honey, cinnamon, and vanilla).

Many (most) of the students were very skeptical about either one or both of the sauces and a few declared that it was going to be disgusting and that they wouldn’t eat them. I calmly reminded the students to please choose their words carefully (we have a rule in the class, “don’t yuck someone else’s yum”) and I asked that everyone try at least a tiny bit of each, even if it was just a lick. Some were nervous, but everyone agreed. So when it came time to try the two sauces I went around and put a tiny bit on each kid’s plate (less than 1/8 of a teaspoon). They had apples, carrots, and pretzels to dip in the sauces. And this is where some really cool things happened….

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2015 Holiday Gift Guide: Great Cooking Gifts for Everyone on Your List

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I don’t know about you, but I’m not even close to done with my holiday gift shopping. For some loved ones the gift purchases are clear, but for others it is tough to figure out the perfect gift. So this year I thought I would help all of you out by suggesting fun and helpful cooking gifts for some different categories of gift recipients: kids, new or reluctant cooks, and avid cooks.

I hope this list will help you in your gift buying this year!…

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The Truth About Family Dinners: What it looks like in our house and simple guidelines that helped to make it better

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We all know the benefits of family dinners— less picky eating, lower risk of obesity and eating disorders, higher academic achievement, lower risk of teen pregnancy and substance abuse, the list goes on and on. And we all have that idyllic idea of what it should look like—perfect table manners, no tension, everyone together, beautifully prepared meals.

The reality, though, can be very different. People can feel frantic, tired, and stressed. Family members can arrive late. Someone refuses to eat the meal in front of him or her. The presentation of the meal is haphazard. Or family dinners just aren’t even happening.

The truth is that family dinners can be a challenge, but they are a challenge worth having.


From my own childhood I have memories of long family dinners with wonderful food and tons of laughter from a seemingly endless stream of puns (yes, I come from a very verbal family), but I also have memories of tears, slamming doors, and meals I found unappetizing. The truth is, that is what family dinners are. They are a chance for us to be our best selves and our worst selves. It is an opportunity for everyone in the family to be themselves as they are in that moment, and to still be loved at the end of it.

A lot of my clients feel really guilty about what their family dinners looks like. People stressed, less-than-perfect food on the table, or not everyone eating together. And what I tell them, and myself, is that it is ok. We are doing the best we can and making due with what we’ve got.

So in an effort to help to take some of the angst out of the concept of family dinner I thought I would share what our family dinners look like at this stage in our family life….

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