Curly Endive Salad or Frisee with Poached Pear, Pecans and Blue Cheese

Feb 27, 2009 by

 

 

This salad recipe is a definite keeper! Out-of-the-ordinary, highly flavorful, elegant, and good-for-you in every way, yet quick and easy. It’s a huge favorite of mine, one of those winners that never falls off your list. It also includes nuts, a great source of protein and a nice change from meat, along with a little cheese. A full plate of it is a meal in itself, and an excellent option for vegetarian teenagers.

I’ve always served dishes like this to my kids, even when they were toddlers. They’ve always eaten everything because no one ever told them they weren’t supposed to like it.

If you expect resistance from your child, act a little happy-mad-scientist / exuberant chef while fixing it. Then just eat it yourself, act like…

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How to Stay Skinny and Healthy While Eating Whatever You Please

Feb 27, 2009 by

I’m pretty slim, and so are my kids and husband, so occasionally someone asks me if I “watch” what we eat. I don’t have a simple answer for that question.

I’m no Don Gorske, the guy in the documentary Super Size Me (an excellent tool, by the way, to turn kids off to fast food) who claims that Big Macs make up 90 percent of his solid food intake, averaging two a day since 1972. He also drinks little but Coke. Yet, at 6’2″, he weighs only 185 pounds.

I do eat whatever I want and, since they’ve gotten bigger and they’re conditioned, I let my kids eat whatever they want, but I don’t want to give the impression that we stay fit, slim…

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What I'm Cooking This Week

Feb 23, 2009 by

"Many cards and letters have come in requesting" some sample menus. That’s what my old French teacher used to say before he gave us some disagreeable exercise. I’m trying three new recipes this week, which I hope will be easy and delicious, anything but disagreeable. If they're winners, I will post them on this blog.

Moosewood Tonight, I’ll serve "Warm Salad," from the Moosewood vegetarian cookbook (http://www.nibblous.com/recipe/347), "featuring an assortment of ultra nutritious leafy greens, lightly cooked and delicately marinated."

I just came home from Central Market with armloads of ingredients: escarole (a curly salad), red Swiss chard, Savoy cabbage, mustard greens, leeks, cauliflower, celery and mushrooms. It's marinated in just vinegar, Parmesan and pepper. Seems like it could use a little olive oil to me. We'll see. With it, I’ll probably serve a garlic-pesto marinated pork…

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The Nine Worst and Best Things to Say to Kids at the Table

Feb 19, 2009 by

Brussels sprouts boy

The Nine Worst Things to Say to Children at Dinner Time

1. “Eat it.” / “You can’t leave the table until you eat your _______. ”

“Human babies, like the young of other species, have wonderful appetites unless they are sick or unless they’ve become disgusted with too much urging or forcing,” said Dr. Benjamin Spock.

We’re born willing to eat the foods our bodies need, and also knowing how much we need to eat. Force feeding results in the opposite of what you want, long-term. Encouraging a child to eat more than she wants not only teaches her to disregard her appetite but also builds resistance to eating what you want her to eat.

2. “Clean your plate.”

More classic force feeding. Why encourage a child to overeat? Perfect…

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For Pure Pleasure: Assume the Best

Feb 9, 2009 by

N-healthyeatingkids135x170 “Wouldn’t it be great if kids came into the world with the innate desire to eat the right foods?” asks Jessica Seinfeld, author of Deceptively Delicious, one of two recent books filled with techniques to smuggle vegetables into a child’s stomach by way of the foods kids willingly eat.

“Getting a child to enjoy healthy food is next to impossible, but there is no harm in trying,” says a website that advocates “making” kids eat healthy foods by piling them in amusing structures on the plate.

A baby’s inborn appetite leads her through pure pleasure to the nourishment she needs to grow, mentally and physically. How would our…

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