Foodsperiment Sweet Potato Fries

This was me trying to use the sweet potatoes we have and do something that the kids might actually eat.
I tried just baking sweet potatoes and giving Duckie and Kiwi chunks. Failure.. But I can put Sweet potatoes into JUST about ANYTHING and they will eat it. (french toast, muffins, pancakes.)
So I decided to make some sweet potato fries.
I sliced a sweet potato, then tossed it with some oil.
Then I quartered a about 8-10 carrots and tossed those too.
I preheated my oven and my baking sheets to 400.
I spread the potatoes and carrots out on the pans. Turned them after about 12-15 minutes. I think it took about 25-30 minutes to get everything ince and soft.. ( they didn't get crispy on the outside, maybe if I had baked them on a wire rack. but i can't find mine....)
I remembered something my grandmother had asked when I had seen her last, "Do they like cinnamon?" I decided to make sweet sweet potatoes.
In a big bowl I sprinkled about 2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4-1/5 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg and about 2 tbs of sugar. then I tossed the carrots and sweet potatoes in the cinnamon and sugar right out of the oven. Then Serve....
Declan had two servings, Daddy had two servings, Caleigh ate all of hers, I was JAZZED, and this was all that was left.
I tricked my family into eating sweet potatoes and carrots.... AWESOME.

Little Boy Blue Muffins and Pink Berry Muffins

These are basically just Blueberry muffins and Orange Cranberry muffins. With a twist... The Pincess wanted pink muffins, I figured if I am making muffins for her. I should make muffins for him too. I was given a cookbook. It is a Betty Crocker cook book from 1972. It has a FABULOUS muffin recipe. Super simple. It is a base recipe and then it tells you what to add to change the recipe. However, I cannot, just make the recipe normal... I have to change it up. Here was our recent experiments and successes.
Little Boy Blue Muffins. These are basic Blueberry Muffins. I used frozen ( buy them fresh, when they are on sale, toss the whole container in your freezer and when they are frozen solid transfer them to a ziplock baggie.) I changed part of the oil out for plain non fat yogurt, and I did a little zest of lemon in the batter and a sprinkle of white sugar on top. ( I will do the original recipe further down and the changes I made for each of these muffins)

Pink Berry Muffins.... These were fun to make.. because I was experimenting. AND they came out pretty good too. The neighbors loved them.
I used a Cranberry Orange recipe, I added, beet puree (to make them pink) and yogurt to cut the oil content, I didn't have enough orange zest, so I tried to use orange juice. Note, the Zest really makes the orange flavor, the juice really didn't cut it. I had my friend over for the weekend. She looked at me like I was out of my mind that I wanted to MAKE muffins, then when she saw me put beet puree in them, she said "I am NOT eating those. " I said "YES you will and I guarantee you won't taste the beet and that you will like them." 35 minutes later, and 3 muffins gone in her tummy.... I was right. ( does that count as another score for me???)

Original recipe.
Sweet Muffins-
1 egg
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of salad oil
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
Heat oven to 400. Grease 12 muffin cups.
Beat egg, stir in milk and oil.
Mix in remaining ingredients just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy.
Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown, immediately remove from pan, serve warm.

WHAT DID I DO?
Little Boy Blue Muffins
First I doubled the recipe.
Sweet Muffins-
2 egg
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of Plain Non Fat Yogurt
3 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp baking soda ( to counteract the acidity of the yogurt)
3/4 cup frozen Blueberries. (still frozen, this minimizes berry bleed..Original recipe called fro frozen, thawed and drained.)
I loaded the muffin cups almost to the top. I got about 18 muffins, that made nice big muffins. :)

Pink Berry Muffins-
First I doubled the recipe.
Sweet Muffins-
2 egg
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of Plain Non Fat Yogurt
3 1/2 cups of flour
1/4 of beet puree
1 cup of sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp baking soda ( to counteract the acidity of the yogurt)
1 tbs grated orange peel (I used orange zest, done on my microplane) 1 cup cranberries ( I used 1 cup of Craisins)
This made 20 muffins. Next time... more beet puree, these weren't very pink. It did make the tops of them look pink, though.

Foodsperiment- Peanut Butter Banana Magic Muffins

This is our recent Foodsperiment. ( with plans of repeating it tomorrow.)
Peanut Butter Banana Magic Muffins.
Here are the ingredients, peanut butter, banana, brown sugar, 1 egg white flour, baking powder, baking soda, oh.. and the MAGIC.. in this case it was Sweet Potato. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of carrot or cauliflower puree, I didn't have either. I did have sweet potato puree.
The first time I did them. My daughter wanted to help make them. she saw me making the sweet potato puree and started in with " EWWW I don't like that" I said " You don't know that you don't like it you haven't tried it". Then she asked what it was. I said. "Magic." She said " MAGIC?" I went with it... "This is the magic that gives fairies and princesses their magic." She seemed to be good with that. The first batch was realllly sweet. (The 3 year old and the 18 year old loved them. I think because I didn't reduce the brown sugar to accomadate the sweetness of the sweet potato. But I liked them. I am making another batch tomorrow. The next try, I am doing 1/2 the brown sugar. I used smooth peanut butter the first time, but I think I will use chunky next time.
Here is the recipe- and my changes in BLUE
1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar (1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter ( 1/2 cup JIF because it is what we had.)
1/2 cup carrot or cauliflower puree (1/2 cup sweet potato puree)
1/2 cup banana puree ( I actually pureed up some bananas, but I think it was an unnecessary step. I keep bananas in the freezer to make muffins. All you have to do is let them defrost and cut the peel and slide the banana goo out. )
1 large egg white
1 cup whole wheat flour ( I used AP because; say it with me now: it was what I had)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
1. Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray or liners.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix 1/2 cup of the brown sugar and the peanut butter, the vegetable and banana purees and the egg white using a wooden spoon. (I was trying to read the recipe and let the three year old help. so I did all the brown sugar at this point. and we used a silicone spatula.)
3.Put the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a smaller bowl or ziplock bag, stir or shake to mix. ( I put it through a mesh strainer, instead of dirtying another bowl or wasting another bag) Add to the peanut butter mixture and stir just to combine. Batter will be a little lumpy, do not overmix. ( pretty sure that the Three year old helped over mix a bit...) add the remaining 1/2 cup of brown sugar and stir once or twice. ( like I said.. I didn't have any sugar to add here.)
4. Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake until the muffins are lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean. 15-20 minutes. turn muffins out onto rack to cool.
5. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or wrap and freeze for up to one month. ( there were only 3 left and they were eaten the next morning.)

I don't know how many changes you have to make to a recipe to call it your own and not someone else's. But CREDIT where credit is due. this was originally a recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious.

Tomorow is Peanut Butter Banana Magic Muffins take two and Pink Berry Muffins (and depending on the size of the fit my daughter pitches.. Little Boy Blue Muffins too.)

Scrambled Egg-Speriments

I have this great cook book, Deceptively Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld. It is all about ways to incorporate and hide vegetable and sometimes meat in foods, normal foods for your kids.
One of the fist recipes I found and tried was for scrambled eggs. Caleigh LOVES scrambled eggs and I figured sneaking veggies into it would be great.
First, I tried sweet potato puree. No go. She ate one bite and spit it out.
Second try, I tried the actual recipe. 2 eggs, 4 egg whites, and cauliflower. NO GO again. Total ambivalence, she ate a few bites, but not like her usual breakfast eating habits.
Third try, this time I did 6 whole eggs, and 1/2 cup of cauliflower puree. Success. Both hubby, and Caleigh devoured them, no question.
I have since played with Egg beaters, and egg vs egg white combos. I can get away with a half and half ratio. I have used cauliflower and squash puree. Both eaten successfully.
I have found for my kid. it needed to look "normal". The sweet potatoes, actually add a sweet taste. If you started off with that and it was all the kids knew, you could maybe get away with the sweet potato. I like the cauliflower and the squash.
For adults. I have also added, cooked chopped broccoli, carrots and zucchini. I have had people who HATE zucchini, But love my veggie scramble.
Score one for the Mommy. I have managed to convert my kids to love something that has veggies in it... WOO HOO.

Little Picky Eaters

This is the beginning of what I am calling FoodSperiments. I need to get food into the kids. I need for that food to contain veggies and to be good for them. They want to eat crackers, muffins, cheerios, macaroni and cheese and as my daughter calls it "chicken srench sries". So this is the battle ground. Mommy's goal to trick the children into eating as many veggies as I can. Kids goal, to try and thwart mommy and only eat Yummy food. These are my opponents. Declan 18 months and Caleigh age 3.

Here are the battles so far. (Blog posts coming to describe each battle in detail....)
*Scrambled Eggs with sweet potato puree... BIG fail the first time. (Kids 1- Mommy 0)
*Macaroni and Cheese with sweet potato puree, another fail. (Kids 2- Mommy 0)
*Cauliflower Mashed " Potatoes" 1/2 win for mommy, Daddy LOVED it, and he normally hates cauliflower. (kids 3 -Mommy 1/2)
* Scrambled Egg whites with Cauliflower (another fail....) (Kids 4 -Mommy1/2 )
*French Toast with Sweet Potato puree. HUGE SUCCESS. My daughter's friend, who had already had breakfast, ate 2 whole pieces. Caleigh ate 4 pieces and Declan at 1. BIG success (Kids 4- Mommy 1 1/2) With NOTHING but successes since.
*Scrambled Eggs with Cauliflower FINALLY a success... WOO HOO (Kids 4 -Mommy2 1/2)
*Pancakes with sweet potato puree. ANOTHER success. (Kids 4 -Mommy 3 1/2 )
*Oatmeal with apples and applesauce. Success ((Kids 4 -Mommy41/2 )
AND MOMMY PULLS AHEAD
*Turkey meatballs and rice. Partial fail. Once I got Caleigh to try it she liked it, but Declan wouldn't eat it. (Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 5 )
*Black Beans and rice (aka Con Gris. ) Always a winner. (Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 6 )
* Chicken Strips Parmesan with cauliflower puree. ( hopefully a replacement for chicken and french fries...) Score one for the home team.. (Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 7 )
Macaroni and Cheese with cauliflower or Squash puree ((Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 8 )
Scrambled eggs with sweet potato humus. Success. (Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 9 )
Chicken Poncit with broccoli, carrots, celery and bean threads, instead of rice noodles. Score for mommy. They Both loved it. ((Kids 4 1/2 -Mommy 10)
That is how the battles have gone so far. As you can see. Mommy is in the lead. When they have a few days of finickiness, I resort to one of the Big winners. usually french toast for dinner.
I still use some pre-made and boxed things. But it is all better, than fast food. Right?

Fish Experiment # 31

I don't mind fish. I have had fish that I totally loved, however, I am consistently afraid of fish. I hate fishy, mushy fish. I am never sure what to try. I do really well with ocean fish. I do mahi-mahi, salmon and shark pretty well. But, I have also had fish that was mushy, fishy, slimy and to me... totally gross. So every time Alex wants to try a new fish, or something, I wait as long as possible. I have to build up courage to try it. Last night we tried Tilapia again. This was the second time I have made it. However, it was the first time I have seasoned it.
We had pan seared tilapia with roasted potatoes and green beans.
I didn't think I had any lemons, so I used grapefruit. I zested it for the potatoes. Then I segmented it for the fish. I used the juice from the grapefruit and a couple of the segments broken up. 1 clove of garlic, minced, 1 tbs of oil, 2 tsps of basil, and (I did find a lemon) zest of one lemon and juice of half of a lemon. I let the fish rest in the marinade for a minute, then into a hot pan with a little bit of oil. I seared them for 2 minutes. Then I topped them with the rest of the marinade. Then I put them into the oven to finish off. (350*) I left them in there for about four more minutes.
They came out AWESOME. The fish was tender, flavorful, moist and perfectly cooked. The potatoes were Yummy. Here is a picture.
Yummy. I think tilapia is added to the list of fish I like.

Meatless Monday Experiment

My mom told me about this alternative to MEAT, called Jackfruit. It is an Asian fruit that looks like a bumpy football. (or if you get it my way it looks like a metal can...) you tear it apart and pull the middle core out. Then re-heat, season, and sauce or flavor it and build a dish.





I decided to make Pulled Not Pork Barbecue Sandwiches. Then I decided to make my OWN BARBECUE SAUCE. (thank you Bobby Flay for showing me how to do that).




OH MY WORD DEAR the sauce is fabulous. It had a nice flavor, good build up of heat, but not overwhelming. I sauteed the jackfruit with minced garlic and onions. Then I added the sauce and cooked it in for a few minutes. Heat up some sandwich rolls, add yummy barbecue stuff.














MMMM YUMMY.