Preschool Cooking Class- Hummus

Alexa and Caroline at the Small Scholars Cooking Class.

Miss Cathy's class of four and five year olds had a great time talking about whole foods and making hummus.

My kids love this as a dip for carrots or cucumbers or as a spread on whole wheat pita. We tend to double or triple the recipe and it keeps well in the fridge for up to two weeks. You can always add a bit of olive oil if it starts to get a little too thick.

Everybody Loves it Hummus

1 can organic garbanzo beans – rinsed and peeled
1 clove garlic
2 tbp fresh lemon juice (about ½ lemon)
3 tbsp tahini
½ tsp sea salt
Aprox ¼ cup water (add a little at a time to get the right consistency)
Aprox 2 tbsp really good tasting olive oil

· Throw this all in a food processor and mix until smooth or put it all in a bowl and mix it up with an immersion blender (just a little more effort but it works great).
· Adjust the amount of oil and water for texture and taste
· Optional add-ins: pepper, cumin, paprika (the kids tend to like it better without these)
· You can easily double or triple this recipe
· An easy way to peel the beans is to rinse them in a colander then put them in a bowl of water while you peel them. The skins tend to float to the top. You can just skip the annoying task of peeling the beans if you want to do this super fast but the texture is a lot smoother when they are peeled. Don’t worry about getting every single one if it is driving you crazy.

Extra bonus- making hummus at home saves money! Especially if you want to make it organic.

Reducing the Noise...and Tuning in

Do you ever get mad at yourself for craving something you "know you shouldn't have"? For most of us it is usually sugar, right?

But our bodies are amazingly intelligent, aren't they? Your heart beats, your blood circulates, how many incredible things does your body do for you without you ever having to think about it?

And yet...when the craving for something "bad" hits, why don't we trust ourselves? Why don't we recognize that our body really does know what it is doing?

I'm going to post more soon about cravings but for now I'd like to suggest something to consider:

If our bodies are super intelligent, then the messages they send us about what we need have real value. But what if our interpretation skills are a little off?

What if our body says....REST! And we hear...SUGAR! (Because, probably, we're too busy to rest). What if our body says...SLOW DOWN! And we hear...COFFEE! (Again, sorry, too busy!).

In her book Healthy Living from the Inside Out, Mariel Hemingway talks about "noisy foods". Noisy foods are processed sugar, caffeine, and chemical additives.

Take a moment to think about the possibilty that the noisy foods you are consuming might be interfering with your ability to correctly interpret what your body is saying. What if you could reduce the noise a bit and tune in to what your body is really trying to tell you?

More on cravings soon. In the meanwhile, I will be working on reducing the noise in my body and my house tomorrow since the impending snow storm here in Massachusetts may mean the kids will be home from school!

Here it is..The Granola Recipe

Since I gave this granola as Christmas gifts, I have had countless requests for the recipe.

I have been trying to figure out why it is so fantastic and I am really not sure. Maybe we are so accustomed to eating things that have been in a box for months (or, yikes, much longer!) that having something this fresh and homemade is just simply an incredibly welcome treat.

My great friend (and cousin by marriage), Fabiana Esteves, gave me this recipe. Fabiana is a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Cooking School in New York and is a great teacher and cooking inspiration to me. (As an aside, she and her husband Fabio are also incredibly generous hosts, letting me crash at their apartment every month while I am attending school in New York. But, this generosity is, I think, a part of the big picture of who she is and the love she brings to her food and her friendships).

I made a small change to the recipe (substituted Coconut Oil for the Canola Oil she uses- you can try either) but, Fabiana deserves all the credit.

Be warned...you may not be able to stop eating this!

Fabi’s Fab Granola

2 cups rolled oats
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup chopped hazelnuts
½ shredded coconut
½ cup slivered almonds
¼ cup coconut oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
Pinch of sea salt
½ tsp cinnamon (optional)

· Mix all ingredients together in a bowl
· Spread on a jelly roll pan (it will be very full but it seems to cook best when it is all on one pan)
· Bake at 275 degrees for 45 minutes (turn in the pan at 20-25 minutes)
· Different nuts can be substituted,
· Use as many organic ingredients as possible

Happy New Year

I'm keeping it simple in 2008. My resolution? Just be really good to myself. Whatever that means each day, I intend to tune in and really treat myself right.

This might be the best thing I ever ate

Mango-Avocado Salad

Via greenchefs.tv & raw chef, Vanessa Sherwood

Ingredients
2 Ripe Mangoes, peeled, pitted and chopped
1 Large Avocado, peeled, pitted and chopped
1 Tablespoon Lime Juiced
2 Teaspoons Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Cilantro Leaves
1 Tablespoon Black Sesame Seeds
Instructions:Hand mix all of the ingredients together and serve.

Yum!

I am not kidding. I think this is a little bit of heaven.

I found this recipe on a raw food blog. But let me tell you, you don't need to be all that interested in raw food to appreciate this dish.

I discovered the blog when I linked through the website of raw food chef Sarma of Pure Food and Wine. I am definitely going to check her restaurant out on one of my next trips to NYC.

Roasted Kale- Simple and Quick

Check out this you tube video for a great Roasted Kale Cooking video.

Naoko does a quick (and fun!) video presentation that inspired me to cook kale for the first time. Guess what? It was ridiculously easy and delicious! I ate the whole pan!

2nd time making it update- Brace yourself: My husband and my kids LOVED it!! A success for the whole family- hurray!

The most fun part about eating this is using chopsticks (or, as Nick calls them, “pinchers”). To make it easy for kids, attach the top end of the chopsticks with a rubber band to hold them together and put a little rolled up piece of paper just below the band to create a little space to pinch. Or just buy kid chopsticks.

Roasted Kale

1 bunch of kale- organic is preferable
Bragg Liquid Aminos or Organic Shoyu (soy sauce)
Sesame Oil (Toasted or Regular)

· Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
· Rip the kale off the stem (smaller pieces are easier for kids) and throw it in a big bowl of water
· Swish the kale around in the water to wash it
· Drain the kale in a colander
· Line a cookie sheet (or two if you have a big bunch of kale) with Release Foil
· Plop the kale pieces on the cookie sheet and use a paper towel to quickly blot up the excess water
· Sprinkle the kale with a little Braggs or Soy Sauce and the Sesame Oil (a little of each of these goes a long way)
· Put the sheet of kale in the oven for 5-6 minutes, take it out and dig in
· Watch the time because it can burn pretty easily (experiment and see if you like some pieces to get crispy etc…)
· Eat as a side dish or just as a snack

Heart Apple

Could there really be a heart on this apple?

This heart apple appeared in a bunch of organic Fuji apples (my favorites!) that I bought recently.

Let them dip!

Do you ever feel like you need to be a purist to really be healthy? This is a trait I'm working on eliminating from my personality because....it just never works out. Not for any length of time. It just isn't sustainable.


So I am trying to impart some of that newly gained wisdom to my kids at an early age. And vegetables come up a lot.

Most moms know that kids love to dip. So, if it takes a dip to make those veggies more enticing (for the kids or the adults)...go for it!

Lately we're dipping carrots, cucumbers and red peppers in Annie's Cowgirl Ranch Dressing. You can get product and nutrition info at http://www.anniesnaturals.com/

We're also enjoying Amy's Organic Salsa. http://www.amys.com/


Just be sure to look for the most natural ingredients you can and avoid things like high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, msg, and mystery ingredients you can't pronounce or don't understand.

A great way to make shopping for these kinds of things easier is to seek out brands (like Annie's and Amy's) which generally produce healthy, organic products (but still read those labels- just in case!).

Apple Picking

There are not too many things more fun than this. Why do kids love apple picking? Why do adults? There is something so much more delicious about the apples when you pick them yourselves.







We paid what seemed like a small fortune for a giant bag of Honeycrisps. I thought we'd never eat them all.

They were gone by the end of the week.

But we're still talking about apple picking.