This week was a no swap week for Shalinee and I. It is Kavya’s 5th birthday week– with her school birthday Thursday, and her big at-home dinosaur party (none of us in either family can wait!!!) on Sunday, there was just too much to do this week… swap just couldn’t fit in. And that is totally o.k. because sometimes it just can’t happen, and that is just real life. I did a Food post this week instead (see below). And now… phew!… onto the weekend (it has been quite a week here in J-M-land… lots of movin’ and shakin’ goin’ on… hopefully will be able to post about all that sometime soon…).
This post has been a long time coming. Over the past few years of blogging I’ve had lots and lots of people ask me, “How on earth do you get your kids to eat all those fruits and vegetables?” I hate the thought of sounding like a preachy-know-it-all-Mommy-Blogger, so I’ve put off posting my answer to that. But, at the risk of sounding like a preachy-know-it-all-Mommy-Blogger, here goes—My attempt at a Top 10 List of Our Secrets for Getting Young Kids to Eat Lots of Fruits and Veggies.
- Start them young. We were letting all three of our kids gnaw on fresh fruit and veggies at very young ages. People worry about choking hazards, and rightfully so, but –whenever safely humanly possible— we have tried to let our bambinos eat the real deal as early as it can possibly be introduced. We are big believers in the baby fruit net (here is the one we always used, but there are tons on the market), and we used it early and often for all sorts of fruits and vegetables.
- Raw & fresh. We have always conscientiously worked hard to provide fruits and veggies raw and fresh. That means a lot of time spent cutting and chopping (major hassle), and it also means very high weekly grocery bills (seriously painful!), but it is worth it if it is at all possible (so sadly, and unfortunately, definitely not possible for many families to shell out the required cash; we are grateful that we can prioritize healthy food in this way).
- Eat fruits & veggies in their presence. Young kids mimic us, so we need to model for them. Braydon and I are big on fresh, raw fruits and veggies ourselves, and our kids see us eating it. This is hugely important because they want to do what we’re doing and eat what we’re eating. Fruits and veggies need to be a family affair!
- Make it finger-food/bite-sized. Chop it and slice it and dice it to make it easy to pop in the mouth. This is key as key can be. It is amazing how quickly platters of fruit and veggies will disappear around here if it is “cut” instead of “big” (as K, O, and M call it).
- Make it look good. If we handed them a pear, a banana, and a bunch of blueberries, it just wouldn’t be the same as presenting them with a platter that looks like the picture above (top of post). Braydon and I try to have some fun with this when we can make the time to do it (the photo is a platter that Braydon created one day). I think kids know when we’ve put some heart and soul into things. They appreciate it at some level. And they like it. We’ve been doing beautiful fruit and veggie platters for our kids since they were tiny toddlers. They love it. And don’t we (as adults) too? If it is pretty and colorful it seems a lot more appealing than it otherwise might be.
- Dips. We are big into dips, especially for veggies. And by “dips” around here, we’re generally referring to store-bought salad dressings. Ranch and Thousand Island are favorites for our three. Vinaigrettes too. They also love yogurt for dipping with fruit. And then, of course there is…
- Hummus. And other extras. Such as cheese, crackers, chips & salsa, nuts, etc. to go with a nice spread of fruits and veggies. These things mix it up, make fruits and veggies more fun, and add some breadth and depth and texture… and some good old fashioned protein. A bunch of baby carrots is one thing. A bunch of baby carrots with a nice little bowl of hummus to dip them in is another.
- Fruits & Veggies as “Appetizers.” We are big on the fruit and/or veggie platter as an “hors d’oeuvres.” While I’m making dinner we’ll often put a platter on the counter and the bambinos will go to town! They are hungry, they’re waiting for supper, and before you know it, the fruits and veggies are devoured. This does a couple of things: for one, it gets them to eat fruits and veggies right up front, and it also means that I don’t need to worry as much about serving a salad or vegetable with the meal.
- Buy it in bulk. I know this might sound crazy, but I’ve found that the best produce is at our bulk-club-store (you know… BJ’s, Costco, Sam’s, etc.). Seriously, believe it or not, that’s where I consistently find the best-quality, freshest, best-priced fruits and veggies. And when you’re eating as much of it as we are, buying it in bulk is a great way to go.
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Be as calm, cool, and collected about it as possible. I don’t think I’ve ever put fruits and veggies in front of my kids and said, “EAT IT!” I just act very laid-back about it from beginning to end. I put it out, without saying much about it, and then when it disappears I don’t say much about it either. There’s no big fanfare when they eat it, or when they don’t. I swear, this –playing it cool— is the most important trick in the book. Our approach has been sort of the polar opposite of the “sneak it in”-“hide-it-in-something-they’ll-eat” approach; rather than sneak fruits and veggies in to other things, we’ve been right up front about it from the start. We don’t make a big thing over how “healthy” or “good” fruits and veggies are; rather, we simply give it to them, without batting an eye, as if it were perfectly normal for a 2-year-old to eat raw broccoli and celery sticks. They don’t know otherwise… so they don’t know that, for example, kids are “supposed” to hate peas. And by the time they realize that… it is too late (because they already like peas).
What are your tips and tricks?
Yes, we’re suckers for this sweet little one named Meera Grace. At the end of this month she’ll officially be two and a half. And yes, for better or for worse, we’re still letting her drink bottles. She loves bottles of milk more than anything else (except her bunny; Bunny is her #1). We all know that we’re going to have to cut her off at some point (we’re trying to get the guts up to do it sometime soon), but all four of us are such push-over’s when it comes to our girl, that we dread the day that we eventually go cold turkey even more than she does. In the meantime, she has us wrapped around her little finger… and she knows it.
To be noted! To be recorded in the annals of the J-M Family History! One small step in the grand scheme of their lives, but one giant leap in their twinship! Last week I took K & O shoe shopping for fall shoes… and… drum roll please… THEY EACH CHOSE A DIFFERENT PAIR OF SHOES!!!!!!! This is huge. Huge I tell you! They each independently and self-confidently chose shoes that were different from one another. They each liked their own choice based on what they looked like, and felt like, to their self and their self alone. And they did it happily, together. It was a big first for K & O!
This is my favorite picture from this past weekend – of the three in Boston – taken on Saturday morning. These bambinos love to go, go, go and on that morning they were excited for the latest adventure. We try to resist the urge to ask them to pose for photos too often. But it is necessary every once in a while. And so worth it to capture a moment like this one.
Heather and I lived in Boston for 6 years while in graduate school, and although we’ve now lived in the Mid-Atlantic for the last 10 years, Boston is near and dear to us in many ways.
We spent many a day and night going to our favorite restaurants, spending time with friends, going to events, museums, movies, site seeing and enjoying life. Now, don’t get me wrong, working on Doctorate degrees is not what you call a walk in the park, so I don’t want to romanticize it too much at the risk of forgetting how rough it was, but we also did do quite a bit of walking in the park (Franklin park mostly). In some ways, it really was romantic (seriously – Locontes), but we also missed a lot of our 20’s with heads down in books.
But, with that experience, we knew we’d have fun when my mother invited us to come up for the weekend and go to the science museum with the kids. I’ll skip over the car 5.5 hour car ride with 3 small children up and back, but to say our kids are really really good travelers, and thank goodness for in-car DVD players. Walt Disney – you’re my hero.
Make way for duckings: make way for sleep!
After getting a bit lost down Storrow Drive, and seeing Mt. Vernon street, where the ducks from Make Way for Ducklings (we love that book) waddled up to the public garden, and then twisting our way through the Back Bay, and down to MGH, behind Beacon Hill, back over to MIT, and finally, accidentally, and miraculously, we arrived at the Boston Science museum.
All three kids loved the science museum. Some key highlights:
1. The Archemedean Excogitation (the amazing rolling ball sculpture)
2. Making windmills to test wind power
3. the IMAX movie “Whales”
4. The lightning show (which apparently was reported back to their class in full on how to not get struck by lighting. Wish I had been a fly on that wall).
It’s a full day going to the Science Museum….
We also had a chance to hang out with G’mma at her place and enjoy the playground. And Owen enjoyed more than several chocolate chip cookies and all the kids loved playing with the search and find books, and reading books and puzzles.
I tell you what though – our soft Mid-Atlantic selves suffered in the cold. Yes, it was only 45 degrees, but wow – cold in New England is different than other places. You forget – even though we get up there for Christmas. And G’mma’s/Auntie Sabrina’s poor Chihuahua not sure about how that little dog survives…, but somehow, our kids just keep on keeping on having fun wherever they find a nice playground – and this one is a nice one.
We left on Sunday morning – checked out of the Staybridge suites.
Thought we might dip in to Boston on the way to see our old apartment….Kyle nixed that – it was a short, good trip and everyone was ready to head home. Stopped at one of our favorites – Chipotle and had good burritos. Nice way to end a nice visit.
The Meal
– Vegetables and Rice Noodles in a Coconut Broth
– (Store-Bought) Plantain Chips
The recipe for the vegetables and rice noodles dish comes from one of the THREE Indian cooking shows on TV right now. This is from Anjum Anand; her BBC show “Indian Food Made Easy” airs on the Cooking Channel. The other two are Aarti Sequeira, who is the host of “Aarti Party” on FoodTV, and Bal Anerson, the “Spice Goddess” also on the Cooking Channel. I’ve DVR’d all three and based on what I’ve seen, I suspect there will be more recipes from these shows popping up in the swap in the months ahead.
This meal is part of Anjum’s Kerela menu. Kerela is a state in south India. South Indian food is significantly different than north Indian food (incidentally, I’m from northern India). Many south Indian dishes use a good amount of coconut and curry leaves (as is the case in this recipe). This is the first time I’ve seen a recipe for south Indian (savory) rice noodles…so I just had to try. But I had to modify the process to account for the make-ahead factor…so I hope it works!
To enjoy alongside, I’m sending plantain chips, also prominent in South India.
I sent Heather four parts of the vegetables and rice noodles dish separately. She will have to combine them together when reheating:
– Empty coconut broth into pot and place over medium-low heat.
– Empty pre-sauteed vegetables (minus peas) into pot and simmer cook for 5-7 minutes.
– While vegetables are cooking in broth, in a separate pot, boil water (enough for the noodles). Once boiling, remove from heat and put in desired amount of noodles. Agitate and leave in hot water for a couple of minutes (like 3-4 minutes or so) till they have the right cooked texture.
– Add peas to vegetable broth. Cook for another 1-2 minutes and remove from heat.
To serve, put noodles in a bowl and ladle in the vegetables and broth.
The Verdict
Tuesday: We had the rice noodles and vegetables tonight. Big hit! Both kids actually enjoyed the vegetables more than the noodles! Kavya wanted all the cauliflower and Alex all the broccoli. I think the broth (which they both slurped up) did the trick.
Thursday: Again a series of random events forced us to put off having Heather’s dinner till Thursday night. The salmon was very delicious! I’ll definitely be using this salmon recipe in the future. The kids and the adults all enjoyed all aspects of this meal. Thanks, Heather!
Mustard-Maple Salmon ~~ White Rice ~~ Green Beans with Garlic ~~ Pumpkin Muffins
For this week’s swap I tried fish for the first time. I bought frozen salmon and kept it frozen right up until loading into Shalinee’s cooler. I was happy to hear from Shalinee that it actually stayed frozen. We have now experimented twice with seafood for swap. I think that as long as the weather is on the cooler side (i.e., not the heat of late-spring-summer-early-fall), seafood can work quite well for the swap.
Anyway… this dinner is one of our old-time favorites. I don’t remember when I started making this. I do remember that I originally found the salmon recipe years ago in a Cooking Light magazine (for years I subscribed to that magazine). I’m not sure which issue it was because I eventually lost it. But in 2002 I managed to find the recipe online at CookingLight.com. So I know we’ve been eating this since at least then— it is salmon with a mustard-maple marinade/glaze. It is a very intense flavor, so I always serve it with plain white rice to sort of counter-balance the strong flavors of the salmon. And I usually serve it with fresh spinach sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and salt. Since I knew the spinach would not hold up well for the swap, I made green beans instead (prepared the same way: simply sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and salt).
We also made pumpkin muffins this week to go with the dinner. The pumpkin muffin recipe came from a blog reader, Haley, a few weeks ago when I posted in a swap post about making pumpkin muffins (the post, with Haley’s comment, appears here). Thank you for reading Haley, and thank you for the recipe!!! I wanted to try Haley’s pumpkin muffin recipe because it looked super, super, super easy. Braydon volunteered to make the muffins (he’s a much better baker than I am). At first we weren’t too impressed with these muffins, but they quickly grew on us, big time, and by a couple days into eating them they were completely gone. They were a huge hit with Kyle and Owen, who, by their request, were eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ate almost all of them in less than two days. The recipe made a lot of muffins— we got about 3 dozen muffins out of it— although we gave Shalinee about 1/3 of them, that still means that K & O ate almost a dozen muffins each in less than 48 hours.
I have already posted the salmon recipe on the blog. It appears here, but I’m re-posting the recipe here:
Mustard-Maple Salmon
Ingredients:
3 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (6 ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
cooking spray
Directions:
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add salmon. Seal and marinate in refrigerator 20 minutes. Prepare grill or broiler. Remove salmon from bag, reserving the marinade. Place salmon on a grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray, and cook for 6 minutes on each side or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork; baste salmon occasionally with the reserved marinade. NOTE: The salmon marinade will become a “glaze” by baking it… it can be drizzled over the salmon.
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Re: Shalinee’s dinner this week… We J-Ms generally truly enjoy anything that Shalinee makes, but it is a special treat whenever she makes us any Indian food. All five of us really liked the noodle dish this week. And the plantain chips were an added bonus (we love plantain chips!!!).
We’ve been able to make it to three home football games this fall at Lehigh. The third, and last, home game was on Saturday. Lehigh vs. Colgate. It was an absolutely spectacular day – perfect football weather. And we planned for a special first: J-M family tailgating! Before we had kids, Braydon and I did some tailgating at Lehigh football games (the first experience with tailgating in either of our lives), and quickly came to understand the allure of it. But as soon as K & O came along, our tailgating came to a screeching halt. We decided earlier this fall, however, that it was time to give it a good-old-family-try. The boys had started to notice the tailgating in the parking lot; had started to show interest in it and ask about it; and were completely excited about the idea of us doing it. And so, we did. We packed up a very simple tailgate spread, and set out early to the football game. And… as is so typical of K & O (and M for that matter)… they all acted as if they were old pro’s at it – as if they’d been tailgating their whole life. We had barely parked the car before the boys had the football out and were tossing it in the parking lot~
And they had no problem getting right into the full swing of tailgating: the eating and the drinking~
It was a lot of fun. A couple of friends dropped by our tiny little tailgate party, we chatted it up with some of the tailgating-neighbors, and we just had a darn good time. All three bambinos agreed that we should probably tailgate for every home game next year. The two parents agreed that we’ll aim to make our tailgates increasingly more elaborate in the years to come (Bloody Mary’s anyone???). But soon it was time to head to the field. And get settled in to our spot on the grass behind the end zone. Kyle and Owen love going to these games. The other three of us like it a lot, but mainly do it for the sake of spending a few hours of fresh-air-and-family-bonding with our sports-fanatics-boys. (Even though, for much of the game, those boys abandon us for socializing with the college crowd… if you look closely at the photo below you’ll spot them far away from us tossing the football with some frat boys)~
Here they are (again, if you look closely, you’ll spot them) participating in their favorite LU home-game ritual: clamoring with the big boys to try to catch the football during a field goal~
Meera tolerates all of this quite well, all things considered~
From the tailgating, to the game (Kyle always needs to get at least one order of fries), it was all good. And by the end of the afternoon, we had one very sleepy-2-year-old for the drive home.
It has been a fun fall of football here in J-M-land.
My Dear Three Bambinos,
I’ve been a mother now for six Halloweens. Hands down, the six best Halloweens of my life. And I have great memories of the Halloweens of my own childhood, so that really tells you a lot about how great our Halloweens have been. My parents were big on tradition. As you know (probably all too well!), I am too. And so, our J-M Halloween traditions are a sturdy combination of those passed along from my own childhood, and the traditions we have created ourselves. I’m sure when you look back on these years you’ll have your own memories of your Halloweens as a kid. But this post is a little reminder –from my perspective here and now— of our mainstay Halloween traditions during your childhood.
Tradition #1: Halloween afternoon, carving jack-o-lanterns. You dig out the pumpkins, draw on the faces, and we help you carve them out as best we can!
(And just so you don’t think that my rose-colored glasses never come off… here’s a gem of a non-rosy moment from this year’s carving session: the fun-of-it-all veered off in a bad way at one point when Meera took it upon herself to use the marker as “chapstick,” and right at that same time Kyle broke down crying in utter frustration because he couldn’t figure out how to make his pumpkin’s mouth look “scary” enough. We very quickly got right back on track with the good-and-happy… but this is just a reminder that, no, it wasn’t all perfect. And it never is, of course. But, not perfect is just perfect, as far as I’m concerned.)
Tradition #2: Roasted pumpkin seeds.
Tradition #3: Carrots for dinner (so that while trick-or-treating you can “see better in the dark”… this is a tradition begun entirely by Kyle and Owen… and it has stuck) –along with whatever else we can get you to eat amidst all the excitement (this year it was mac-n-cheese).
Tradition #4: Get into costumes! And head outside to light the jack-o-lanterns!
Tradition #5: Just one posed photo! (Thank you for putting up with it!)
This was Meera’s first “real” Halloween where she fully had a grasp on what was going on. You only have your two-year-old Halloween once. Thankfully, this was a great Halloween and Meera loved every minute!
Tradition #6: Trick-or-treating of course! Here you three are, heading out. Our neighborhood is wonderful for trick-or-treating! MorMor and MorFar have been coming for Halloween every-other-year (rotating with Sadie). This year they weren’t with us, so Mommy and Papi take turns trick-or-treating with you and staying home to give out candy.
Our house on Halloween night:
Tradition #7: At the end of the night, dumping out all of your loot and checking out what you got! The truth is, you don’t really like any of the stuff very much. But it is still super-exciting just to have it all! And we pretty much let you eat whatever you want (which isn’t much). But it is quite a thrill to have that sort of candy-eating-freedom!
Tradition #8: The Candy Witch. For our family this tradition began last year. And, completely 100% initiated by K & O, it has stuck again for this year (and I’m guessing for maybe many years into the future???). It sort of blows my mind that you three would be willing to dump out all of your trick-or-treating candy into our big basket of whatever-is-left-from-what-we-gave-out and then give it all away to The Candy Witch. But, you do it. And you do it completely voluntarily (seriously! this isn’t something that I would necessarily choose to do!). And you believe. Oh, how you believe! So, tonight, after less than 24 hours with your trick-or-treat loot, you left it all in a basket by the front door. And you went to sleep with pure faith that The Candy Witch would come and leave you something in return. So, you won’t have any idea it happened, but tomorrow my Sociology of Education students will receive a big bag of Halloween candy in class (!), and several hours before that happens, when you three bambinos wake up, you will run downstairs to find this awaiting you at the front door (among other things, K & O will be thrilled to find the digital clocks for their rooms… something for which they’ve been asking for quite a long time now):
I had to take this (photo below) picture last night, just as we were heading out of our driveway to trick-or-treat, of these five tall trees on the edge of our yard. When Papi and I first looked at this house with the realtor, before any of you were even born, one of the things that sold us on it were those five trees. We love them. Little did we know that we’d end up being a family of five. Those trees remind me of us five now… growing strong, rooted in real and meaningful traditions. I hope that as the years unfold you’ll question most all of life, but that you three will never question the depths or the heights of our love for you.
Love, Mommy (and Papi)
Halloween 2010. The costumes were in the works weeks and weeks before today arrived. By mid-August, Kyle and Owen had already decided that they were going to be Toussaint L’Ouverture (legendary leader of the Haitian Revolution), and there was no going back. We have always given them a slow and steady stream of information regarding all-things-Haiti, but in the past couple months they’ve been learning quite a lot about –specifically— early Haitian History (thanks, mostly, to Braydon, who, over the past several years, has educated himself quite well on the subject). And, of course, like any good-history-buff-young-Haitian-American-boys… Kyle and Owen are absolutely enamored with the stories of Toussaint L’Ouverture. (They particularly like the fact that he carries a huge sword). It was originally Kyle’s idea to be “Toussaint” for Halloween. Owen quickly jumped on board. (At least, as of now, they’d never ever even consider being two different things for Halloween). So, Toussint L’Ouverture (x2) it was. I must admit, I got a little nervous about how on earth I was going to make that costume happen (x2!!!). But, in the end, the boys were beyond thrilled with the close resemblance (particularly the swords!!!), and I was really pleased with how it all came out (thanks to a little online shopping and my trusty hot glue gun). Here’s the most famous image of L’Ouverture…
…and here’s K & O (pretty good, huh?!)…
And Meera. Well, given her adoration of all-things-Lion-King, it only made sense to use the hand-me-down Lion costume from the Halloween when K & O were two years old. Meera was thrilled with the idea of being Lion King (or, in her words, “Li Li Ti”) for Halloween. But, she let it be known early on that she wanted to not just be “Li Li Ti,” but to be “Li Li Ti Wid Pink Bow.” Lion King with a pink bow?! No problem! And so, she was “Li Li Ti Wid Pink Bow”… (again, thanks to my trusty hot glue gun)… and she loved every second of it. Here’s the boys when they were lions, Halloween 2006 (they were so incredibly cute that in planning for Halloween 2010 I honestly did not think that it would be possible to reach that level of cuteness with Meera, pink bow or not)…
…however… our girl rarely disappoints. The cuteness level was (in my humble opinion) reached, and reached fully. Here’s Meera 2010…
Happy Halloween!!!
Our 6th Annual Traditional-October-Pre-Halloween Family Trip to Trauger’s.
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