I am currently co-teaching a cooking class to a group of 6-9 year olds. Our goals have been helping all of the kids to gain confidence in the kitchen, introducing them to new healthy foods, and exploring new foods and food preparations.
Over the course of the past weeks we have been working with them to be open to trying new foods, even if the foods being offered are ones that they would normally be resistant to eating. We have done this in a few ways….
For most of us, there are two types of macaroni and cheese: the special occasion casserole with a crispy crust and soft, cheesy, creamy base and the box of mac ‘n cheese (Kraft, Annie’s, etc.) that was likely a common meal in our house growing up and often is in our homes now, too.
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Whenever I am in the kitchen to make a big meal, like I often am on Sunday afternoons, I like to try to make that time really count. This often means that while I am cooking one big dish, I also take on some simple side dishes or meal prep that will help me save time later in the week. So yesterday when I pulled out the veggies I was going to put into a big baked pasta that would last us for at least one dinner and two or three lunches, it was also time to roast the remaining broccoli and brew my chai (spiced tea) for the week.
There are a couple of tricks that I have learned over the years that help this kind of multitasking work well:…
As is true in many households, Italian food is one of our go-to cuisines. Pastas and homemade pizza are often on our weekly food plan. One of the reasons I like these options so much is that they are very flexible—I can almost always come up with a way to use whatever I have left in the house at the end of the week in an Italian dish of some sort. The leftovers of a meat can be added to a sauce or as a topping for a pizza. A little bit of ricotta can be used as filling in a pasta or put on pizza. And then there are the veggies as toppings on pizzas, as an extra crunch in a sauce, roasted and mixed in, the possibilities are endless!
And I have learned a trick that enables my Italian obsession: make the sauce ahead of time. There are a number of reasons why this has been such a breakthrough for me: 1) I save a lot of money not buying the jarred tomato sauces, 2) dinner is made a lot faster and there is a lot less stress because I always have the sauce on-hand, 3) I can incorporate a lot more vegetables directly into the sauce than are usually in the jarred stuff, and 4) it tastes SO MUCH BETTER!…