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)

This past weekend was the fall open house and potluck at our CSA farm, Potomac Vegetable Farms. We stopped by Crooked Run Orchard for apple and pumpkin* picking first. It was such a gorgeous, warm fall day to be out in the orchards. When we arrived at PVF, we had missed the hayride but set to work breaking apart garlic cloves to be planted for next spring. The potluck was full of wonderful, nutritious food and the kids had quite a spectacular hay-fight in the wagon.

For the potluck, I brought mini muffins because they’re easy finger foods, always popular, and guarantee there will be something the toddler will eat. I had been meaning to try a chocolate zucchini bread recipe, and came across this one. I modified it slightly to incorporate my local, organic buckwheat flour. (Adding fiber to compensate for the sugar!)

Recipe: Whole-Grain Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Adapted from The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c unbleached flour
• 1 c buckwheat flour (or whole wheat)
• 1/2 c turbinado sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• 3/4 c milk
• 1/2 c oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 t vanilla
• 1 oz grated unsweetened fair-trade chocolate
• 1 c shredded zucchini

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350*. Lightly oil muffin tin. Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then gradually pour dry into wet and stir until smooth. Pour into muffin tin and bake for 12-15 minutes for mini muffins (18-22 for regular size muffins). Makes 36 mini muffins. Enjoy!

*Crooked Run uses integrated pest management (IPM) techniques which means their apples are minimally-sprayed, better than conventional but not organic. Their non-tree crops are “eco-ganic.”