Spinach Pancakes… Veggies Hidden in Plain Sight!

One of the TV shows I watched as a kid was Popeye, so I needed no convincing to eat spinach. I actually believed the leafy vegetables had special powers.  I guess with all the recent talk about antioxidants, there was some truth to that belief.  Well, my little girl is not so easily fooled and spinach has been a tricky vegetable to get her to accept. When she was around a year old, she loved spinach and cheese omelets but when she became a picky toddler, she stopped eating spinach altogether.  I’ve had some success with mixing spinach into spaghetti sauce and store bought spinach quiche (provided it’s slathered with ketchup). I’ve also had some major flops, most recently with a macaroni and cheese Florentine.  I definitely want to widen the spinach repertoire and find something that the Little Miss can feed herself.  One of my favorite spinach dishes as a kid was spinach pancakes so I decided to give them a go, especially since I had some sour cream left from a recent enchilada dinner. When my two year old saw the pancakes, she said, “Cookie!” I wasn’t about to correct her especially if it meant a difference between her trying the pancakes and not.  Thankfully she liked them and even exclaimed, “Is gooooood!” That’s like getting a Michelin Star! 

This recipe for Spinach Pancakes comes from a book called Natural Cooking the Finnish Way by Ulla Kakonen, published in 1974 by Quadrangle. 

Ingredients:
¾ - 1 lb spinach (I used a 10 oz. box of frozen spinach)

1 cup water (for cooking the spinach)

1 egg

1 ¾ cups unbleached white flour

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp raw sugar (I use regular granulated sugar)

2 tbs melted butter or oil plus additional for frying

·         Wash the spinach leaves, put into a saucepan and cover with water. Cover the pan, bring to a boil, and simmer about 5 minutes, or until the spinach is limp. Drain the spinach and reserve the liquid. Chop Spinach fine. (If using frozen spinach, put it in a microwave safe bowl, cover with damp paper towel and thaw in microwave, about 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, break apart with a fork and add about ½ cup water. Return to microwave for 3-4 more minutes to finish cooking. Drain spinach in a sieve, pressing to extract as much liquid as you can. Reserve 1 cup of the liquid. Puree spinach in a food processor/mini chopper, using some of the reserved spinach cooking water to help puree. I used about ½ a cup.)

·         Beat the egg lightly and add the spinach cooking liquid. (Note: if you are using frozen spinach you will have less liquid to add at this stage because some was used in the puree.)

·         Beat in the flour and sour cream in turns.

·         Add salt, sugar, and melted butter or oil.

·         Stir in spinach. The dough should be nicely green.

·         In a small-ring pancake pan or a crepe pan, fry rather thick pancakes on both sides, until crisp and brown. Keep warm until serving time. (I made smallish “silver dollar” pancakes using a rounded tablespoonful of the batter per pancake. Because it’s a thick batter you need to spread it out a bit after placing it on the pan. I got 26 pancakes out of this batter.)

·         Serve as a main course, with melted butter, and cranberry or lingonberry preserves. (This is a very Finnish thing and the tartness of the cranberries or lingonberries is a nice contrast to the mild flavor of the spinach. Of course you can also serve these as a side dish with a meat or other vegetarian main course. A couple of pancakes also make a great kid’s snack.)

Sloppy Joe? Sloppy NO!

Recently, during the all too short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which this year flew by even faster with a new baby in the house I decided to take some dinner help from a can of Sloppy Joe mix. Touting a serving of vegetables in each portion, it seemed a home run.  A sure thing. What could go wrong?  To top it off the stuff was on sale at the store. But then again, I have a feeling it always is. Since dinner was coming out of a can, I even decided to lay off my health kick and bought white Kaiser rolls to go with the Sloppy Joes.  Why be a kill joy and try to offer up whole wheat rolls?

In the sliver of time I had between breastfeeding sessions, I browned some ground beef, cracked open a can of Sloppy Joe, mixed the two, and voila! Dinner was done.  Now, I did not grow up eating Sloppy Joes, but judging from the sheer Sloppy Joe induced glee of the kids I’ve babysat over the years, this stuff is like manna from heaven.  Plus my little one loves any kind of food that’s messy to eat. The messier the better, and what’s messier than ground beef mixed with tomato sauce, eaten with your hands? The name itself couldn’t be clearer about its messy nature.  I was so proud of myself when I delivered Missy’s plate, fully expecting to be able to sit back and let her have at it, whilst making a megabath worthy mess. I was already planning to stock up on ingredients for a healthier home-made Sloppy Joe mix that could become a staple of our dinner table.  I’m sure you, dear reader already know where this is headed. 

Missy would not even give it a try. I’m talking hysterical wailing, flailing arms and kicking legs.  Who would have thought food could elicit such a passionate response?  I know it’s supposed to take up to ten tries for a kid to accept new foods, but I’m not sure I’m willing to go through that kind of drama that many times.  What I didn’t get is this kid loves the main components of a Sloppy Joe: tomato sauce, ground beef, bread. None of the flavors were new and I didn’t think the veggies hidden in the mix could possibly come through strongly enough to be a turn off for the kid, but still it was a no go.  Even my fail safe trick of eating off mommy’s plate didn’t work (not fail safe anymore, I guess).  Maybe next time I need to try a deconstructed Sloppy Joe… Let’s see, freeze dried tomatoes, vegetable crisps, beef Carpaccio, and toasted croutons.  I think I’ve been watching too many cheffy shows. 

Breakfast for Lunch

I knew I was taking a big risk planning to make an omelet for the little one for lunch since the former queen of quiche and lover of all styles of egg has long been turning her nose up at anything to do with eggs (unless they are in cookie form…) but I thought maybe bacon would entice her to eat the egg… that and a healthy dose of ketchup. So, for lunch I offered up a thoroughly uninspired but filling cheese omelet, bacon, and Heinz vegetarian baked beans.

These beans are not quite like the smoky molasses beaked beans you or I might be used to but more like the ones you would find in the Irish section of the supermarket, in a sweet tomato sauce. My husband, being Irish refuses to try this version of his childhood favorite purely on nostalgic grounds. But for the price difference between an imported can of beans and a “home grown” can (both by Heinz, mind you) I see no substantial difference in taste. Of course growing up I thought the British version of beans was simply vile so there are no nostalgic memories of eating beans on toast at the kitchen table for me. My memories are more along the lines of forcing down the nasty concoction, which was all too frequently part of my school cafeteria lunch (I’m shuddering just thinking about it). I’m happy to say though that I have since expanded my palate to be able to enjoy these little tomato-ey legumes, particularly when served alongside a proper Irish breakfast (that will have to be another post).

The bacon, I am very excited to share is Stop and Shop’s Natures Promise brand, which is uncured, and nitrite and antibiotic free. I recently discovered it on the top shelf of the bacon display tucked away in the corner. I don’t know if it’s a new thing or if I’ve just never seen it before (since I don’t make it a habit to peruse the bacon shelf too often), but it has become a favorite. It has a nice but mild maple flavor and is not too salty. And of course the major selling point to me as a mom and mom-to-be was the uncured, antibiotic and nitrite free part. I can confidently feed it to my little one and eat it myself, knowing it is not harming us.

I have in the past struggled royally with making a decent omelet. The eggs always have seemed to fall apart and it’s turned more into a scramble with stuff in it. Recently I happened upon Julia Child’s PBS episode on omelets and had an epiphany of sorts. I was shocked to see simply how much butter she used in her omelet pan, but it really worked. Julia’s omelet slid nicely in the pan as she shook it, on that lake of melted butter and then slid effortlessly onto the plate. Whereas my omelets have always stuck to my non-stick pans, even with some oil. That was my problem; I never used enough fat. Silly me, thought non-stick actually meant food wouldn’t stick to it. So, a while back I thought, why waste that lovely bacon grease? Why not use it instead of butter for an omelet. I think I need to add a little disclaimer here that we don’t often eat bacon and omelets, so those of you who might be gagging at the thought of all that grease can relax. Also, with the pan hot enough, the eggs don’t soak up the grease and with enough practice you can slide the omelet out of the pan and leave most of the grease behind. You can of course wipe off some of the grease with a paper towel before making your omelet too. But I have to say that with the well oiled pan, I have not had a problem with the eggs sticking and I haven’t really even needed a spatula when de-panning (if that’s a word) except to just guide the omelet to fold over. My only downfall has been that I can’t seem to make my omelets perfectly pale yellow like Julia did, which is how they are “supposed” to be, but I don’t really mind a little brown on my eggs!

Today’s omelet was a simple Swiss cheese version made with 3 eggs and 3 slices of Jarlsberg, since momma was making enough for both of us. Little missy had about a third of it, while momma ate the rest. Missy’s slice was slathered with ketchup, just to be on the safe side. Maybe it was the ketchup, but she thought it was pizza. I wasn’t about to correct her because that meant she was eager to put the first piece in her mouth. Thankfully she kept eating it after that. The bacon she outright refused even when I tried to convince her that she was really missing out. But I think it’s a texture thing. The bacon is just too chewy. After most of the pizza omelet had been devoured missy turned her attention to the beans, which were in a separate bowl. I don’t know about you, but I have greater success when I present foods separately. This is when the messy fun began. She allowed me to feed her the first couple of forkfuls but then wanted to feel herself. At first she allowed me to guide her hand in stabbing the beans and moving the fork to her mouth but soon Little Miss Independent wanted to do it all by herself. She stuck with the fork for a little longer, managing to stab one bean at a time. Most of them even made it into her mouth. But soon she ditched the fork for her hands. Ah yes, sauce was everywhere and those slippery little things had a way of slipping onto her lap, where they wound up smushed under her butt. But you know what? The important thing was that she actually ate the eggs and beans. That was a small victory in and of itself.

Braised Carrot Soup

After my success with cream of broccoli soup I’ve been on the lookout for other soup recipes to get my little girl to eat those pesky veggies. Hannaford’s free monthly in-store magazine recently featured an interesting looking braised carrot soup recipe that met my requirements for cooking: short ingredient list and few steps. Carrots are another one of those veggies that Little Missy used to eat at the puree stage but has refused since then, no matter what form they took. Given that I had everything needed already in my pantry, this recipe was definitely worth a try. The recipe originally appeared in This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello and all ingredients are organic or natural, though I used regular stuff (perhaps I will write a post about the whole organic debate some day).

Braised Carrot Soup (serves 4, 25 minutes prep time)

Ingredients:
4tsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 tbs balsamic vinegar (can be pricey but I buy the cheapest stuff I can find at the grocery store)

1 ½ tsp sea salt, plus additional to taste, divided (I just used regular old table salt)

6-8 carrots, cut into small chunks

½ yellow onion, diced

2 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced (I used the red skinned potatoes already in my fridge)

Scant pinch of ground nutmeg

4 cups water

2 sprigs finely shredded fresh mint, leaves removed (the one item I do not stock, so I left this out, I substituted a shake of dried parsley)

· Process:
Place 2 teaspoons of oil, vinegar, and ½ teaspoon salt in large, flat bottomed skillet set over medium heat. Arrange carrots in oil mixture, avoiding as much overlap as possible.

· Cover skillet and listen closely for strong sizzle sound. When you hear this, reduce heat to low and cook until carrots are tender and liquid has become a thick syrup. 15 to 20 minutes (depending on size of carrots). I have to say here that there wasn’t much liquid to form a syrup. While the carrots were braising I peeled and diced the onion and potatoes.

· In large saucepan, place remaining 2 teaspoons of oil and diced onion over medium heat. When onion sizzles, add a pinch of salt. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add potatoes, nutmeg, braised carrots, and water. (I sautéed the potatoes for a few minutes before adding the carrots and water to allow carrots to cook completely and to develop some flavor in the potatoes. I also added a few shakes of curry powder to the potato onion mixture at this stage since I think carrots and curry make a wonderful flavor combination. Because the braising did not produce much liquid but definitely left lots of flavor on the bottom of pan carrot, I transferred the sautéed potatoes and onion into the carrot braising pan to make the most of those flavors. After adding the water, I added a tablespoon of no sodium chicken bouillon powder and a shake of dried parsley for even more flavor.)

· Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer for 5 minutes more.

· With ladle, transfer soup o food processor and puree until smooth. Return to pot and warm through. Serve garnished with mint.

This recipe produced a wonderfully flavorful, thick, deep orange soup. I would recommend serving it as a side with any meat dish. It can even make a nice complement to a sandwich or salad for lunch. The curry I added did not feature very prominently in the final product so in the future I’ll add even more, or even add some garam masala powder for a little more kick. Hubby’s one comment, which was preceded by, “well, you know I don’t eat soup,” was that it could use pepper. I added some freshly ground black pepper to my bowl, but left it out of the pot since I was making it for Little Missy and didn’t want to overwhelm her with the pepper.

Little Missy enjoyed the soup very much, and we even have a new word: soup! I think this soup could be replicated with a host of fall veggies like pumpkin or butternut squash and made more complex with the addition of other root veggies like parsnip and turnip and perhaps even some sugar free apple sauce or some diced apple at the sauté stage. One thing I loved about the recipe is that it does not call for cream or milk but still produced a nice thick soup thanks to the potatoes. I apologize for not having a photo to share. I certainly should have taken a picture of the carrots as they were braising as they developed a beautiful deep brown color from the balsamic vinegar. If you’re nervous about the vinegar, it is barely noticeable as a separate flavor but definitely adds some depth to the soup overall. If you’re adventurous you could try garnishing the soup with a drizzle of some good balsamic or olive oil. You could even add a dollop of sour cream if you wanted to make it richer, though it certainly is not lacking as it is. A final note about the prep time: the recipe says prep time is 25 minutes, but cooking time is around 45 minutes.

Steamed Veggie Dumplings Recipe

Sometime back I saw an ad on Nick Jr. for recipes inspired by the shows on the channel. One of the more intriguing ones was a recipe for Steamed Vegetable Dumplings from Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, one of Little Missy’s favorite shows. I decided to give these a try. Dumplings can definitely be a good way to add veggies to a picky toddler’s repertoire. Last week I actually went to the grocery store with a list (a rare feat) and a meal plan. Sadly all the produce I wanted to get looked really sad and wilted. I’m talking limp, brown edged cabbage, wrinkly peppers, and slimy mushrooms. I was so dejected by this initial disappointment that I quickly slipped back into my typical shopping mode of just getting the things we always get with no specific meal plans. Sigh.

I found myself back at the store the other night to pick up a few things and decided to take a look at the produce. It was looking better and I tried my best to remember the ingredients for the dumplings. The next day, after Little Missy zonked out after a marathon play session in the park, I figured I had my best chance to tackle these dumplings. It’s not easy to cook with a toddler underfoot.

Ingredients

· 2 cups finely shredded cabbage (I used Napa)

· ½ cup finely diced firm tofu

· ¼ finely chopped red pepper (I used sweet red pepper, not sure if they meant hot peppers…)

· 2 scallions sliced thin

· ¼ cup finely chopped water chestnuts

· 1 ½ tbsp soy sauce

· 1 tbsp chopped cilantro (I used 1tsp dried. I just don’t cook enough to get a bunch of the fresh stuff)

· I clove garlic, minced

· 1 tsp minced fresh ginger

· 1 tsp sesame seed oil

· Freshly ground pepper

· 48 wonton wrappers

Directions

· Combine all of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl until well blended together (except of course the wonton wrappers…)

· Line a cookie sheet with wax paper. Place several wonton wrappers on a clean work surface. Spoon about 1 heaping teaspoon of the filling into the center of each wrapper. Brush the edges with warm water. Fold over the wrapper and pinch to seal the edges. Place the filled wontons onto the prepared cookie sheet. Continue with the remaining filling and wrappers.

· Place several of the wontons onto the bottom of a bamboo steamer, about ½ inch apart. Arrange more on another layer of the bamboo steamer.

· Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Place the bamboo steamer over a pot of simmering water and cook until the juices are clear and the meat is cooked through, about 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the cooked dumplings onto the prepared sheet pan and place in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining wontons.

· When ready to serve, transfer to a serving platter. Serve with additional soy sauce.

This is the recipe exactly as it appeared on the Nick Jr. website. I’m not quite sure where the meat comes in to the vegetarian dumplings. I’m guessing this was an editing oversight. It’s hard to imagine any kind of meat being cooked in 10-12 minutes. And I’m not exactly sure how you’re supposed to see clear juices when steaming these things. Maybe the recipe was copied and pasted from some meat wonton recipe, which would explain the interchanging use of wonton and dumpling.

When making the filling, I left out the ginger and water chestnuts, not being a fan of either ingredient. I also left out the garlic simply because I couldn’t see it cooking through in the 10 minutes and didn’t really want to serve raw garlic to Little Missy (or eat it myself). While the recipe doesn’t specify the kind of cabbage to use, I decided upon Napa mainly because it’s more tender and would wilt if not cook faster and is more palatable even when uncooked. I also thought with a milder taste, it would be easier for a picky eater to stomach.

I struggled a little when assembling these suckers. At first I put too much filling in each wrapper. The delicate wrappers tore as the cabbage poked through and the edges didn’t really stick together. I ended up putting a scant teaspoon (as opposed to a heaping one) in each wrapper and then crimping the edges with the tines of a fork to make sure they stayed sealed. Since I don’t own a bamboo steamer, I used a regular steel steamer that I placed inside a pot of steaming water. What this meant was I was only able to steam 6 of these at a time, so it ended up being a slow process. The dumplings became rather sticky as they cooked and were difficult to peel off the steamer and also stuck to my rubber tipped tongs. As a result, a few of them tore. Perhaps they wouldn’t stick to a bamboo steamer. Also a few of the dumplings opened up a little. But all in all, the end result was satisfactory for a first attempt. I did not put them in a warm oven, but just let them cool on a serving platter. They actually became less sticky as they cooled (and the surface dried a little). I found that the filling part shrunk considerably as the dumplings cooked, so the “pastry” to filling ratio was rather large. I think this may be resolved if you give the filling a quick stir fry to wilt down the cabbage. That way you can put more filling in each dumpling. This would also allow you to add minced meat to the recipe and not worry about it being raw.

These dumplings turned out quite mild but had a pleasant taste of soy and sesame. I am sure that had I included the ginger and garlic they would have added some kick. I’m not sure how the crunch from the water chestnuts would contrast with the otherwise soft filling (but then, that crunch is precisely what I find off putting about water chestnuts). If you are preparing these for a more adventurous eater who can handle stronger flavors you could add some heat with crushed red pepper flakes. You could also play with flavors with your dipping sauce. I added a little bit of the sesame oil to the soy sauce and it gave the sauce a little more depth. You can also let the filling sit a little before assembling the dumplings to allow the tofu to marinate in the soy sesame oil. The filling might benefit from some acidity from a little rice wine vinegar. This recipe yielded 38 dumplings for me. It was a time consuming recipe mainly because of my small steamer. I started steaming as soon as I had enough to fit in the steamer basket and then continued to assemble as each batch steamed. All in all I spent about two hours making these.

My little taste tester was a little skeptical at first. She has issues with chewy gummy texture, which these dumplings tend to have. The edges were especially chewy, so I ended up biting off a corner and then letting her eat the rest. The filling was very crumbly and the dumplings were a little too delicate for her to feed herself but she did enjoy chomping down and tearing off bites of dumpling as I held them for her. I think I will experiment with other fillings to try to incorporate more vegetables and flavors to these dumplings and figure out a way to make them more sturdy in the hands of a toddler.

Mastering the Art of Deception

I recently started reading Deceptively Delicious, a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld. Yes, that’s right, reading. It’s not just a collection of recipes that you can browse through to find something to make for dinner. It’s really a guide for developing a system for feeding healthy foods to your children. It’s centered around the notion of pureeing vegetables and fruits and mixing them into kid friendly recipes to get around that whole picky eater aggravation. I got the book from a mommy friend who successfully used it with her two daughters. Before you even get to the recipes there are about 40 pages of information about nutrition, pantry items, kitchen tools and pureeing how-to’s. I have to admit when I first heard about this book (before I became a mom) I scoffed at the idea. I certainly had no intention of hiding veggies in my children’s food. I would ensure my children would grow up liking veggies and happily eating them openly. Ah, the idealism of inexperience.

I've had the book for a few months now and up until today I’d flipped through it enough to realize that in order to make this work I would really need to change my M.O. of peering into our fridge and pantry around dinner time wondering what I could make. Though in many other aspects of my life I am an incessant planner, for some reason I cannot bring myself to plan meals and shopping trips. At the very most, as my husband and I push the shopping cart up and down the aisles of our grocery store, we try to think of different meals for that week. Not exactly a recipe for dinner success (pun very much intended). So, according to Seinfeld, I need to first set up my pantry with a host of useful and healthy items (think whole grain pastas, brown rice, various condiments and spices, and different canned foods) that I can call upon to make a multitude of dishes. And second, create and freeze a variety of fruit and vegetable purees to blend in with the recipes. And so, as Seinfeld writes, “the deception begins.” To return to my original issue with deceiving my kids into eating veggies, Seinfeld does advocate including a vegetable served openly and honestly with meals, to allow kids to learn to eat and appreciate veggies for what they are. As veggies are routinely offered, the assertion is that your children will eventually taste them and learn to like them. Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?

Since I’ve just started reading the book, I have obviously not created the purees or tried any of the recipes, though I did try out the theory this week. One night I made macaroni and cheese (out of a box) and mixed in some roasted sweet potato and some ground turkey, which I finely minced after sautéing. I had no doubt the meal would go down well (which it did), since sweet potato is one of the few veggies my little nugget actually eats as is. I was a little nervous about the turkey as she’s turned her nose up at it pretty much every time I’ve tried to serve it in the last few months. Hence the turkey being finely minced. Tonight, I made spaghetti with red sauce, into which I hid a puree of sautéed zucchini and pearl onion. Not only did little nugget happily chow down, but so did daddy who has stated on multiple occasions that he absolutely abhors zucchini. Double coup! So, over the next few weeks and months I will be trying out Seinfeld’s tricks and recipes and report back.

What it's all about

I’m a mom on a mission to be creative with feeding my itty bitty 20 month old picky eater. I was blindsided by my little nugget’s pickiness when suddenly she turned her nose up at all the foods she had previously happily gobbled down. Up until she was about a year old, she happily downed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, chicken, fish, turkey, beef, you name it, she ate it. Maybe it was getting a taste of that birthday cake, because it was around then she declared an end to the bland, unseasoned (homemade) baby food she’d been so happy with before by unceremoniously spitting out whatever food she was offered. I knew it had to come at some point. Who really wants to eat unseasoned pureed food on a continual basis? I just wasn’t prepared for it. When she was younger, I briefly dragged her to a play group where one of the moms bragged that her two year old loved sushi (though not the raw fish variety) and I wished then that my daughter would grow up to have similarly adventurous taste buds. At the time it looked like she was well on her way to reaching that target.

So, here I was faced with a new challenge: how do I develop my little angel’s palate while providing her with healthy, delicious food? Did I mention I’m no gourmet cook? I mean I like to watch cooking shows and all and imagine myself whipping up delicious meals, but that’s about it. I just can’t plan ahead enough to be able to buy the ingredients to make meals. I usually wind up peering into the fridge and pantry a little before meal time to see what I can put together to make an acceptable meal. That’s fine for me and my frozen pizza loving husband but not OK for kids in my book. With baby number two on his way I need to get comfortable and more than competent with cooking and making sure my little girl will eat whatever I offer, especially when I consider that in another year I’ll be starting with the mushy peas and pureed sweet potato routine again. It’s time for me to start emulating some of my favorite Food Network chefs and get cooking.