I am officially working only one day of the next twelve, and am looking forward to quality time in the kitchen with the toddler. (Or alone while the toddler is distracted with all his new toys!) Here are the twelve treats, sweet and savory, on my “to do” list. Some are new, some are family traditions. I grew up having clam chowder on Christmas Eve, but the husband doesn’t like clams so we’re going with Shrimp & Crab Bisque this year. (With local Chesapeake blue crab.) Christmas morning, my dad got corned beef hash in his stocking and we’d cook it for breakfast before we could open the rest of our presents. I could never have Christmas without hash and my Italian panettone!

1. Gingerbread Trains
2. Painted Sugar Cookies
3. Mantecaditos
4. Snowball Cookies
5. Strufoli
6. Cheddar Cheese Ball
7. Salted Caramels
8. Shrimp & Crab Bisque
9. Corned Beef Hash & Eggs
10. Christmas Ham & Hoosier Corn Pudding
11. Hot Apple Cider with Rum
12. Marshmallows

Happy baking and eating to all!

The fourth installment in our foodie family Holiday Treats series is with Jennifer Carden, of Novato, California, who writes at The Toddler Cafe and has published a book by the same name. You can also follow her on Twitter, where she wrote recently of her daughter,

“Kidlet is frosting my b-day cupcakes scooping out the middles and filling them w/ peanut butter, she IS MY kid!! I love her!” – Chefjen

Clearly, she has passed on a love of cooking to her five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Claire. (No, being on Twitter wasn’t a prerequisite to being invited to participate in my series, but it helped…) Thanks for sharing some of your favorite recipes with us, Jennifer!

What was your first cooking experience?
I remember making cookies, chocolate chip of course, with my mom. I used to stand on a chair and “help.”

What is your greatest challenge in cooking for your child?
My greatest challenge in cooking for my child is trying to have a balance between our activities; I don’t want her to be in the kitchen all the time!

What is your daughter’s favorite recipe?
Good old Jewish Chicken Soup with “special salt.” I use a salt blend with lavender, poppy seeds and basil.

Is there any food your daughter just will not eat?
Very spicy, she will try anything but we just can’t get her little taste buds to like hot sauce yet!

What is your family’s favorite holiday treat?
Homemade marshmallows, we always make them in December.

Jennifer graciously shared her homemade marshmallow recipe, below. I just tried making marshmallows for the first time this weekend, using a different recipe that didn’t call for egg whites, and they didn’t come out as perfectly as I would have liked. I’ll be trying this recipe next time!

Marshmallows
By Jennifer Carden, The Toddler Cafe

You can make them white or add coloring.  Add color during the final mixing right before they go into the pan. Use clear vanilla to get bright white marshmallows; you can get it at a baking supply store.

Ingredients:

Confectioners’ sugar or more for dusting
2 Tbs plus 2 1/2 teaspoons or 3 1/2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup warm water about 115°F
1/4 tsp salt
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla

1. Oil bottom and sides of a 13-by 9-by 2-inch rectangular metal
baking pan and dust bottom and sides with some confectioners’ sugar.

2. In bowl of a standing electric mixer or in a large bowl sprinkle
gelatin over cold water and let stand to soften.

3. In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, hot
water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until
sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture,
without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers
240°F about 12 minutes. Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture
over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.

4. With standing or a hand-held electric mixer beat mixture on high
speed until white, thick, and nearly tripled in volume, about 6
minutes if using standing mixer or about 10 minutes if using hand-held
mixer. In a large bowl with cleaned beaters beat whites (or
Reconstituted powdered whites) until they just hold stiff peaks. Beat,
whites and vanilla into sugar mixture by hand until just combined. Pour
mixture into baking pan and sift 1/4 cup confectioners sugar evenly
over top. Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least 3 hours,
and up to 1 day.

5. Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert pan onto a large
cutting board. Lifting up 1 corner of inverted pan, with fingers
loosen marshmallow and let drop onto cutting board. With a large knife
trim edges of marshmallow and cut into small squares.
Shake confectioners sugar over the sticky edges, serve.
Keep them chilled overnight to retain freshness.

Thank you, Jennifer, and happy holidays to you & your family! Here at the FoodieTots’ house, I’m looking forward to spending Christmas Eve doing some holiday baking. Gingerbread trains and snowball cookies are on my list. What’s everyone else baking this week?

The next foodie parent I’m pleased to feature in our holiday treats series is Pamela Price of Red, White & Grew. She writes about growing her own food and the revival of the Victory Garden, and is a proponent of the “Eat the View” campaign which is advocating for the Obama family to plant an edible garden on the White House lawn. As someone who has yet to keep a plant alive other than herbs, I enjoy reading Pamela’s blog for inspiration and hope you will too!  Pamela has a two-year-old son, known on the web as “Tater Tot,” and writes to us from Central Texas.

What was your first cooking experience?

Oh, golly. I remember sugar cookies pretty vividly. My mom collects cookie cutters, so that was always big at major holidays. I remember cutting out cookies at 3 or 4, I think.

There’s a photo in my baby book of me with apples and a pan of flour in our garage. I must have been almost a year old. There’s a black cat in the picture, too. He was my sous chef! Unfortunately, I can’t get the picture to budge from my baby book, but I did locate this later photo of me “cooking” at age two. I’m not sure if the basketball was an ingredient, a utensil or just for decoration

What is your greatest challenge in cooking for your son?

Keeping it interesting. When he was a baby–and before I started working again, every day seemed open to culinary adventure. Now I feel like I’m lucky if I can keep a running tally of his week’s worth of veggies, using colors as my guide. Have we had enough orange? Enough green? What about blue?

What is your son’s favorite dish?

For breakfast, it’s eggs with a bit of garden-fresh swiss chard. For dinner, he likes broccoli steamed with a bit of lemon juice and garlic–though I’ve neglected making that of late. Unfortunately, he inherited my sweet tooth. Ack! He loves organic raisins mixed with a few semi-sweet chocolate morsels–not too awful, I guess.

Is there any food your son just will not eat?

Mushrooms.

What is your family’s favorite holiday treat?

Classic middle-class, all-American holiday goodies: sausage balls, cheese balls, Chex Mix, sugar cookies…stuff like that. I have a secret family recipe for pound cake that my mother made me swear we’d keep in the family! I like to make mini-cakes and give them to friends.

When we lived in Louisiana, I used to make steamed shrimp (from Tony’s Seafood in Baton Rouge) for New Year’s Eve. I miss those shrimp (and Tony’s!).

Pamela also shares with us her blog’s official muffin recipe, which I look forward to trying with some of my freezer stash of blueberries (my son’s favorite food) and zucchini.

Red, White & GREW-berry Muffins
By Pamela Price, redwhiteandgrewblog.com (reprinted by permission)

Ingredients:

• 1 C. sugar
• 3/4 C. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C. canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 3 tsp. vanilla
• 2 C. grated zucchini
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 & 1/2 C. oat bran (or substitute with oatmeal pulsed in food processor)
• 1 & 1/2 C. whole wheat pastry flour
• 3 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 C. blueberries (fresh or frozen)

I hope everyone has been over to visit Jenna’s blog at Kid Appeal. The next foodie parent who graciously agreed to share some memories and treats with us is Ruth from Once Upon a Feast, though you may know her as the founder of Presto Pasta Nights and author of Every Kitchen Tells Its Stories. Ruth is parent to two grown daughters, Joanna and Sharon, and grandmother of two boys, 2-year-old Boaz and brand new baby Dov. Ruth and her daughters grew up in Montreal, Quebec, but now reside in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She often blogs about some of her favorite places in or around Nova Scotia, which is always a treat. And with two generations of cooking for kids under her belt, I’m excited to have her share a few stories here with us!

What was the first cooking experience that you remember?

I can’t seem to recall a time I DIDN’T spend in the kitchen, but my best memory was making cookies for my dad when I was 5 or 6. My mother was an awesome baker and even when I was little I got to play with her scraps. I lovingly played with the dough until it was gray and tough (it looked wonderful to me), cut them into shapes and baked them along side my mother’s delicate golden ones. I still can feel the pride I felt as I gave it to my daddy. Looking back, I’m not sure how he even bit into one, but he put on a great show. I guess that’s what daddies do best.

What was the most memorable cooking experience with your daughters?

Making challah with my girls when they were 4 & 6 AND they invited a friend each! What was I thinking! But it became a tradition that lasted until Joanna went off to university. (Joanna is pictured at left, hard at work!)

What was the biggest challenge in feeding your daughters when they were young?

Getting them to eat vegetables, so I hid them into many dishes. but these two are ones they ask for even today. Green Chicken Soup and Zucchini Bread. Isn’t it amazing how chocolate chips make even vegetables taste delicious?

What are your grandson’s favorite foods?

Well Boaz is a pretty good eater, but his favorite are still breaded chicken, spaghetti with tomato sauce, grilled cheese sandwiches. And while he loves chewing on frozen green peas, he’s not really a vegetable fan.

Are there any foods your daughters just won’t eat?

Both girls grew up to be very adventurous, but Joanna still won’t eat beets or brussels sprouts – she doesn’t know what she’s missing.

Do you have a favorite holiday treat in your family?

Well every holiday has a different favorite, but Hanukkah is approaching and I can’t imagine not serving potato latkes.

Thank you, Ruth! We celebrate Hanukkah as well and are looking forward to latkes on Sunday. Happy Hanukkah to you and your family!

And a note: I am hosting Presto Pasta Nights this week, so read the instructions and please share your family’s favorite pasta recipe with us for the holiday edition of PPN. And check back on Friday for the round-up of pasta dishes from around the world!

Photos by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, used by permission.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to celebrate the holidays here at Foodie Tots. It seems that there are already gift guides galore for every man, woman, child and pet on your list, and no shortage of holiday cookie recipes to choose from. As I began hunting for healthier toddler-friendly holiday treats, it occurred to me that I could share with all of you some of my favorite fellow Foodie Mamas (and Grandmas, Dads, etc.). I am delighted that one of my new favorite bloggers, Jenna of Food with Kid Appeal!, agreed to guest post here with some advice on giving your favorite holiday treats a healthier twist. In addition to being mom to two young boys, ages 2 and 4, Jenna is a nutrition educator and her blog is filled with tips for getting your kids excited about the nutritional aspects of their food — who couldn’t use advice on that? Thanks so much, Jenna, for sharing your advice! Be sure to bookmark her blog, and follow her on Twitter.

Tips for Baking Healthier Holiday Treats

Baking sprees are going on in many homes around the holidays. More candy, cakes, cookies and treats are available at school, at parties and at home for your kids to nibble. So how do you make sure they get enough “grow” food during the holidays? Can a treat be healthy? Healthy isn’t the right word, but you can add some “good” to that bad carbohydrate treat. Here are some tips to make tasty treats a little better for kids, when you’re doing the baking. By adding fiber and/or protein you can make those treats a little easier on your little one’s blood stream.

Healthy add-ins for holiday treats:

• Ground flax seed (fiber and protein), substitute ¼ cup for flour, or use as an egg substitute.
• Chopped nuts (fiber and protein) add them into batters or sprinkle on top. Walnuts have omega 3s, why not boost brain function while we indulge in treats?
• substitute ¾ cup, plus 2TBS whole grain flour for one cup white flour (fiber and protein)
• choose recipes that call for whole grains: oats, whole wheat fiber (fiber and protein)
• choose recipes that call for fresh or canned fruit-in water not heavy syrup (fiber)

Other tips:

• Reduce sugar amounts. Most treat recipes are super sweet. I generally omit ½ cup (or more!) sugar from recipes and they are still tasty.
• Add fresh or canned fruit- adding canned pumpkin, crushed pineapple, bananas, carrots, zucchini, etc. to cakes, muffins, and breads provides moisture and natural sweetness and allows you to reduce oil/butter and/or sugar from recipes. See this recipe for Pumpkin Morning Glory Muffins from Blissfully Domestic on how to eliminate ½ the oil from a recipe!
• Icing is high in sugar and often in fat. Reduce icing amounts. Drizzle it on, instead of icing the whole top of the cookie.
• Look for recipes using honey as a sweetener. The body still digests honey as sugar, but when in its raw state is a less refined product than refined white sugar. It also has the health benefit of being anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and in some studies has shown to help treat cough and upper-respiratory symptoms. Be careful with conversions from sugar, honey is sweeter than sugar teaspoon per teaspoon. Click here for tips on baking with honey.
• Using whole grains-oats, whole wheat flour, etc.-will make your loaves and cookies heavier. Their texture will be altered. Most people appreciate an oatmeal raisin cookie even though it is denser than a chocolate chip cookie, you can enjoy your denser cookies and loaves for what they are. Just don’t expect them to be their white flour counterparts.
• Choose recipes that use oil instead of butter. Oil is a little more health promoting that butter. Save butter for a treat on veggies!
• When choosing recipes it’s best to use those that have been created or modified for alternative flours and sweeteners. Each grain has a different combination of gluten, starch and/or fiber, all of which effect the way a baked item rises.
• If budget permits, use natural food colorings in lieu of traditional petroleum-based food coloring (Yes! There are petroleum products in that box of Adams Extract food colors in your pantry). Try Seelect Tea’s or India Tree’s products. Others have purchased Dancing Deer’s product at Whole Foods, but I was unable to confirm they still sell this at the time this article was published.

Recipe links from my fellow healthy foodies:

• Meal Makeover Moms has a bunch of recipes using less sugar, oil instead of butter and including fruits, veggies (shhhh!), whole grains and/or nuts. Their Sugar Plum Fairy Treats recipe was published in a Kiwi article about a healthier cookie swap (pdf). They are packed with nutrition using two kinds of whole grain cereals, omega 3 nuts and plenty of dried fruit for a super natural sweetness. Now that’s a fruit cake made for kids! Thanks Liz for all the great suggestions!
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies- I have already made these and they were a hit with the family and playgroup. Thanks Cookie Madness!
• Black Bean Brownies- Thanks Karin! Haven’t tried these yet, but I like the idea of protein packed beans in dessert.
• Roasted Pears -This delicious fruit treat is simple enough to make for a family dinner. Thanks to Michelle at What’s Cooking! Sprinkle some nuts on top for a little protein.

Jenna Pepper teaches Kid’s Nutrition classes for parents in Houston, TX. Jenna is on a mission to bust the myth that good food tastes bad. The Kid Appeal! blog can inspire the parents of even the pickiest eaters to help their kids make better food choices. The Kid Appeal! Forum is a place for parents to ask questions about concerns they have about their kid’s diet.

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