Kid-Friendly Veggie Recipes


Families who have to cope with a nightly struggle over who won’t eat what vegetable might be interested in the Love Your Veggies™ Campaign (LoveYourVeggies.com). Readers may also want to check out Chef Art Smith’s (photo) commonthreads.org to read about getting children involved with vegetable gardening and healthy cooking.
I’m sure kids are not the only ones falling short of the recommended 2-5 cups of daily fruit and vegetables, so treat yourself to one of Art’s tasty dishes:

Moroccan Chicken with Roasted Vegetable Couscous

Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat couscous
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 bay leaves
5 whole cloves, crushed
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon dried, ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, chopped
1 16-oz. can garbanzo beans
1 16-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 48-oz. can chicken broth
2 carrots cut into ½-inch pieces
1 zucchini cut into ½-inch pieces
1 packet Hidden Valley® Original Ranch® Salad Dressing and Seasoning Mix

Instructions:
1. Prepare the couscous according to package directions
2. Heat the oil in a large pot, over medium heat, and cook onion until tender.
3. Mix in bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, turmeric, and cayenne pepper.
4. Place chicken in pot and cook until well-browned.
5. Pour garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and broth into the pot and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 25 minutes.
7. Mix carrots and zucchini into pot and add Hidden Valley® Original Ranch® Salad Dressing and Seasoning Mix.
8. Continue cooking 10 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Serve stew over cooked couscous.
Serves 4
Courtesy Chef Art Smith and kitchen tested by students at Common Threads on behalf of Hidden Valley® Original Salad Dressings.

Popular posts from this blog

Musings on the Relativity of Time and The Arithmetic of Overpopulation

Image
I celebrated my birthday recently. Beyond a certain age, birthdays become a double-edged sword. You’re glad you made it to the next one, but realize that there are far fewer years ahead of you than behind you. The list of absent friends grows ever longer. Colleagues grow grey; everyone else looks like they just graduated from middle school. I used to console myself by calculating that I still had at least 2 5 more years to go, which made the end point seem very far off. But, now that would mean I’d live to an unrealistically old age, a concept supported by neither family history nor actuarial tables. I’m reminded of Einstein’s summary of his Theory of Relativity: "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour." I guess I’ve been having too much fun. But that can’t go on forever. My immortality would not be good for the planet. It’s not sustainable. At the same time that medical advances have
Keep reading

Please Garden Responsibly. Because What You Spray in Your Garden Doesn’t Stay in Your Garden

Image
American Lady caterpillar on licorice plant. Photo: Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden Scores of their silky tents covered the licorice plant in the container on my porch. Inside the tents, something was gobbling up the leaves faster than I could pick them off. The plant must have been infested when I bought it. As I reached for my organic insecticide, I thought, “Wait, you don’t know what kind of caterpillars these are!” I recalled an article on pest management by a friend who cautioned: “Sometimes, the best treatment is no treatment at all.” It took the better part of the afternoon for me to identify the miniature mowing machines. In the meantime, half of them had started dropping from their perches and wriggling off into the underbrush. I hoped I had made the right decision. The licorice plant was devastated. But then I noticed that the caterpillars had not eaten the leaves all the way down to the stem. Possibly, secondary buds could sprout and still provide a silvery
Keep reading

Arbors: Style and Placement

Image
This is Dan’s first arbor, an earlier version of the one pictured in the previous post. While I’m not crazy about the use of twinkle lights in the garden, here they lent an ethereal air to the forest and served a practical purpose, as well: A night light for the doggy relief area during those late nocturnal and early morning runs. Choosing an arbor that is in harmony with the architectural style of the house and the landscape style of the garden, and siting it appropriately, are crucial to having it integrate well into its surroundings. While budget is an issue for many gardeners, as is not having a live-in arbor-artist, there are still many choices available ready made, or with only “some assembly required.” Smooth, unfussy surfaces and sleek styling go well with contemporary, modern, or mid-century homes; ornate curlicues and botanical themes with cottages, farmhouses, and Victorians. Unpeeled logs or rough-sawn boards are good choices for a rustic look. If you are fortunate
Keep reading