A confession: my dinner menu hits quite a rut in the last long, cold stretch of winter. Tired of heavy foods but without fresh spring produce, it’s a struggle to find inspiration in the kitchen. When the weather does finally turn warm (or jumps straight to 90 degrees, as it suddenly was this past week), the produce at the farmers markets still isn’t quite ready. Fortunately, I received some new cookbooks for Christmas that I finally cracked open to plan our recent holiday meals. I’m particularly smitten with Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. (I’m not the only one — the book was just named cookbook of the year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).)

Between the pictures and the background stories I could spend many a evening curled up on the couch reading it — but it wouldn’t be long before I’d feel driven into the kitchen to try a recipe. Not content to try just one, I made two recipes for our Passover/Easter weekend: Saturday night’s seder featured the Marinated Sweet & Sour Fish (pictured above) and for Easter dinner the next day, Stuffed Eggplant with Lamb and Pine Nuts.

The fish recipe starts with a flavorful red and yellow pepper, onion and coriander sauce — and there was far more sauce than needed for the amount of fish I used. (I used hake, which looked fresher than the cod at the supermarket that day. I’d probably try it with cod next time though.) So for lunch the next day, I reheated some of the pepper sauce, spooned it over toasted bread and topped it with sliced hard boiled eggs, olive oil and sea salt. It was so good I’m actually considering making just the pepper part again to keep on hand.

The lamb-stuffed eggplant gave me a new way to prepare lamb on Easter when it was just the family and I didn’t have an excuse to cook a whole leg of lamb. The recipe is definitely company-worthy, though, and not too labor-intensive. The eggplant is roasted first, then topped with ground lamb and pine nuts and baked some more, until it is tender and saturated with the paprika-infused sauce. Delicious.

As an added endorsement, the colorful pictures also caught the eye of the littlest foodie tot — who likes to flip through the book with me and was eager to help mix the spices to season the eggplant dish.

I will definitely be making the eggplant many more times, especially when local eggplant arrives at the markets later this year.

There are so many more recipes I’m eager to try. Do you have Jerusalem yet? Let us know what we should make next. (Or get your kids in the kitchen and let’s cook Jerusalem together! Need more inspiration? Mardi of Eat Live Travel Write recently made the book’s turkey and zucchini burgers — with her middle school boys’ cooking club. Love it!! And OMG! Yummy hosts a monthly “Tasting Jerusalem” cooking event, with a recipe contest going on right now.)

It’s the third month of the year — how’s everyone doing on your food resolutions? I confess, I’m not a big resolution maker — I’m more likely to start something new as spring approaches than in the depths of winter. But one thing I’ve been working on, since the holidays ended (well, except for Valentine’s Day) is pushing back on my son’s nightly candy/sweets habit. (You know, since Halloween. Sigh.) The boy is old enough now to understand the game rules: the one-bite rule has grown to at-least-three-bites of nearly everything, always something green, and he’s even eating salad without complaint most of the time. Still, I keep trying to rein back the treats, as I don’t believe kids need dessert every single night. So exasperated one night last week, when we’d already gone out for frozen yogurt after school, I told him his sugar-quota had already been reached and he could have fruit for dessert. And before he was two words into the predictable “but fruit is not a dessert” whine, inspiration struck: “How about if I cut up some fruit and you can make your own fruit sundaes?”

Honestly I was a little surprised that he stopped mid-whine and agreed to the suggestion. So I arranged some cut apples, bananas, blueberries and blackberries on a plate, gave them little glass bowls and let them mix their own creations. And they loved it! In the words of my six- year-old, “It’s a healthy dessert that tastes good and everyone can make it!” Score one for healthy alternatives.

Now if you wanted to gussy these up a little more, for a special occasion like, you know, random Thursdays off from school (seriously, why aren’t three-day weekends enough?) you could offer one or more of these additions:

• plain, Greek-style yogurt or unsweetened, vanilla-flavored whipped cream
• toasted coconut flakes
• a touch of honey or maple syrup
• pomegranate seed “sprinkles”

For bonus points, let kids help you chop the fruit with kid-safe knives. Bananas make an easy starter fruit for teaching toddlers safe knife practices.

What new food habits has your family adopted this year? How are they going?

Happy holidays from the FoodieTots fam to yours.
We hope you’ve made many happy & delicious memories
this holiday season.

It may be the end of November, but I figure there’s still time to share one last pumpkin treat before the holiday baking begins in earnest. You need something healthy for those lunchboxes and after-school snacks to offset the Christmas cookies, right? These soft-baked granola bars are easy to put together (even with little helpers). I made them for my son’s school bake sale — a not-too-sweet treat you can still feel good about.

Recipe: Pumpkin Granola Bars
Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod
Makes 10-12 bars

• 3 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Crunchy Cinnamon Granola Bars from One Hungry Mama
• Granola Bars with Mango, Hazelnut and Ginger from Cookin’ Canuck
• Fig, Date and Almond Granola Bars from Brown Eyed Baker

This was intended to be a quick post about a healthy and fun pre-Halloween lunch, but of course my six-year-old had other plans. Oh, he was amused enough by the first sandwich, but then he asked for a second. And then he said it wasn’t scary enough. So I told him the jack o’ lantern was saying “Boo!” — to which he replied that he needed to see the word bubble to believe it. You can see how that went below…

First, though, the recipe — though it’s pretty simple. Whole wheat sandwich bread, a touch of pumpkin butter, and a blend of shredded cheese. A large pumpkin cookie cutter shapes the sandwich, and small cookie cutters are used to cut out the face. The cheese does ooze through while cooking, though, so the face won’t look quite so perfect when you’re done. *I* think that adds to the charm, but it depends how tough your critics are…

Recipe: Jack O’Lantern Pumpkin Grilled Cheese
Makes 4 sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 8 slices wheat bread
• butter
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used a blend of cheddar and gouda)
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin butter

Instructions:

1. Cut bread into pumpkin shape. Use small cookie cutters to cut out a face in four of the slices.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium low heat.
3. Spread 1/2 tablespoon pumpkin butter on the bottom slice of bread and place in pan. Cover with 1/4 cup shredded cheese and the face side of bread. Cook 1-2 minutes on each side until golden bread. Repeat with remaining slices of bread.

Note: Straight pumpkin puree can be substituted for the pumpkin butter — a good way to use up any leftover puree after baking.

And, as promised, here’s my first “Boo!”…

… but he said it had to be ON THE PUMPKIN to count. No pressure or anything.

Needless to say, next time he’ll be in charge of “carving” his own sandwich.