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Our first year kitchen garden experiment didn’t yield a whole lot in terms of edibles, but the pride in the four-year-old’s face as he told people (family, neighbors, total strangers in the garden store…) about his garden made it all worthwhile. He may not have liked the sungold cherry tomatoes, but he loved to pick them whenever we had company and pass them around.

This year we’ve got a head start with strawberries already flowering! A rhubarb plant I was sure I had killed — let’s just say it never quite made it out of its plastic pot on the deck last summer… — grew back this spring and is more than ready for a permanent home. I tasked the boy with choosing his four plants for this year, and here’s what he drew:

In case you’re wondering, that’s a hot dog plant between the sunflowers and strawberries. The fourth plant is peas.

We’ll plant the sunflowers elsewhere around the yard, and together we’ve come up with the following list for our garden bed:

• strawberries
• multi-colored carrots
• peas (a warm-weather variety this year)
• French breakfast radishes (my choice)
• cherry tomatoes
• basil
• peppers

I have a pot on the deck to replant with mint and rosemary, plus my window sill box for the rest of our herbs. I’d also like to put a few berry plants in but we’re still figuring out what to do about our rolling hillside gently-sloping backyard. Also, I’m pretty sure we have a resident groundhog (??) about, as something got through my bunny fence last fall and made of with the carrots while we were out of town.

Have you planted seeds yet this spring? What are you growing? (And don’t forget, there’s just about 24 hours left to enter to win your own copy of The Whole Family Cookbook.)

If there’s such a thing as a family food superhero, my friend Michelle Stern surely is one. Founder of a certified-green cooking school in the San Francisco Bay area and author of the What’s Cooking with Kids blog, Michelle was invited to the White House for the launch of Chefs Move to the Schools and is leading the charge for school lunch changes in her own school district. Somehow she also found time to write The Whole Family Cookbook — a hands-on guide to getting kids into the kitchen. Her no-fuss recipes have a color-coded guide to which steps are appropriate for different age groups, and special green boxes geared to kids provide interesting facts and explanations about ingredients and sustainable eating. (And answer the question, how do those seedless watermelons reproduce, anyway?) A seasonal recipe index is a nice starting point if you’re looking for ideas for what to do with this week’s CSA or market haul. My favorite part about this book is that its recipes are simple, real food — not overly cutesy or filled with sugar. Michelle shares my philosophy that kids can get excited about healthy food, too — really!

We made the A-B-C Frittata (recipe reprinted below). He’s been very excited about learning his letters at preschool, so it was a natural choice. (For extra fun, ask your kids to think of other A-B-C combinations … like avocado, banana and coconut!) It was the boy’s first time using the box grater — grating cheese is my least favorite cooking task, so I think I may need to invest in one of the circular graters Michelle mentions in the book so he can more easily do it on his own. He also peeled the apples and cracked eggs. I made a few adjustments to the recipe, noted below, but it is definitely one we’ll be making again. The boy loves quiche, and frittatas are a little faster to put together (no crust) — also Passover-friendly for those of you observing this week, though of course you’ll want to omit the bacon if you keep kosher.

Read on for the recipe. If you’d like to win your own free copy of The Whole Family Cookbook, comment below with your kids’ favorite way to eat eggs. For an extra entry, “like” FoodieTots on Facebook and leave an additional comment here letting me know you have (or already do). Entries will be accepted until midnight (Eastern time) Thursday, April 21. Update: Congratulations to Miriam, the lucky commenter as per the random number generator. Thanks all for your comments and for joining us on Facebook!

(Can’t wait? Buy The Whole Family Cookbook on Amazon or at your local bookstore.)

Recipe: A-B-C (Apple Bacon Cheddar) Frittata
from The Whole Family Cookbook, reprinted with permission

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites**
• 8 whole eggs**
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
• Salt, to taste
• 3 slices bacon
• Ground Pepper, to taste
• 2 apples, Fuji or Gala
• 1 Tablespoon butter**

Instructions:

Put the rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Crack the eggs, one at a time, over a small bowl. After checking for stray shells, pour each egg into a medium bowl. To separate the egg whites, crack the egg over an egg separator or someone’s clean hands. Carefully let the egg white slip through the fingers into the bowl, with the yolk remaining. Discard the yolk or save for another recipe. Using a whisk, beat the eggs until the yolks and whites are thoroughly combined.

Grate the cheese. Younger children can help you use a rotary cheese grater (which protects their skin). Older children can use a box grater. Add half of the grated cheese to the egg mixture and stir to combine. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, to your liking.

Cook the strips of bacon. You can fry them in a skillet (watch out! They can splatter.) Or, you can bake them in the oven on a cooling rack over a rimmed baking sheet. We like this method because we don’t have to turn the bacon over and the kids stay safe.

Once the bacon cools, crumble the strips with clean hands. Use a vegetable peeler to peel the apple. If you have an apple corer, you may use it. Or, simply cut up the apple, leaving the core behind. Slice the apple pieces very thinly. As you are cutting, be sure to put the flat side of the apple pieces down, so the chunks don’t wobble on your cutting board.

In a medium cast-iron or nonstick ovenproof skillet, heat the butter over medium heat.** Add egg mixture to the skillet. Sprinkle the bacon crumbles evenly over the eggs. Gently arrange the apples on top of the egg mixture, in a circular pattern. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Move the skillet from the stovetop to the upper rack of your oven. Bake until frittata is firm in the center and cheese is browned, about 20 minutes. Use a flexible spatula to loosen the frittata from the pan. Carefully slide it onto a cutting board. Allow to cool for a few minutes before slicing into wedges.

Serves 4.

** FoodieTots notes: I cooked the bacon in my cast iron skillet, and reserved about a tablespoon of bacon drippings in the pan instead of using butter. I didn’t want to have two extra egg yolks leftover, so I used 9 whole eggs. And of course I used cage-free eggs from the farmers market.

One of my favorite natural food websites is the beautiful 101 Cookbooks by Heidi Swanson. Her vegetarian recipes make use of a variety of whole grains — like barley and farro — and are generally simple and straightforward. Perfect for a busy weeknight.

Our St. Patrick’s Day dinner was a little unconventional — split pea soup and Irish soda bread — but easy and particularly enjoyed by the baby. When babies are in the puree phase, soups are a great way to make one meal for the whole family. I pureed all the soup, while Heidi suggests reserving some, pureeing the rest and then combining the two. That probably would have given it more of a soup-like consistency, while mine was a bit thicker. (And tofu-fearing husband notes that he would’ve preferred the soup with bacon…) I added a dollop of whole-milk yogurt to the baby’s helping.

The soda bread was adapted from Jennie’s adaptation of Heidi’s recipe — collaboration at its best. I added raisins (1/2 cup). Yes, I know that’s not traditional, but the only bit of Irish I have is my name, so I’m not worried about offending any ancestors. The dense texture of soda bread is great for teething babies to gnaw on.

Find the recipes here:

• Vegetarian Split Pea Soup
• Oat Soda Bread

(Heidi’s new book, Super Natural Every Day, is out soon and I can’t wait to pick it up.)

Happy April! There’s no worse time to be a locavore, in my opinion, than the month of March. I don’t mind winter, when potatoes and squash are roasted, braised and otherwise dished up along side comforting stews and other hearty meals. But by March, they’ve gotten old. Inevitably here in Washington we’ll have an unexpected warm day that prompts shopping for new spring clothes, and suddenly asparagus and strawberry recipes are popping up on blogs and websites. But you see, asparagus and strawberries aren’t actually in season just yet — no matter how much you try to will them into appearing at the farmers market. In fact, some of our seasonal markets don’t even open till May.

Now I’m not above buying a carton or two of Florida strawberries for my son (oh, how his eyes light up when he sees them at the grocery!), but the first thing that really reassures me that spring will eventually arrive are the cherry blossoms’ arrival. The key to surviving Cherry Blossom season as a local is to get down the the Tidal Basin on a weekday before the official start of the festival — though sometimes visiting relatives don’t always cooperate. I picked the kids up early last Friday and staged a (brief) photo shoot (on Hains Point, for you locals) as it was a brisk 40ish degrees, unfortunately. (That’s the other thing about spring in DC — one week it’s 40 with a chance of snow, and the next it’s sunny and 80 degrees.)

I was excited to find that we can order our own flowering cherry trees from the Arbor Day Foundation, so in future years we can take our annual spring photos right in our own backyard. (A portion of the proceeds benefits the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which in turn is fundraising for Japan relief efforts this year.)

You may know that Washington’s cherry blossom trees were a gift from Japan 99 years ago —  it’s hard to reconcile their ethereal beauty with the images of the devastation in Japan today. I’m pleased to share that I’m a contributor to Peko Peko: A Charity Cookbook for Japan. Visit the website for a sneak peak, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s available for purchase.

April will be Kitchen Garden month here at FoodieTots, so check back to see what we’re planting and share what you plan to grow this year!

Did you know that the E.U. requires warning labels on foods with certain artificial food dyes? And that American brands have adapted their foods for sale in Europe? It doesn’t seem so far-fetched, then, to ask why they aren’t making the same changes to the products sold here, right? Well it turns out some companies are, though the incentive may be less goodwill and more fear of an anticipated crackdown after the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced hearings on the use of artificial dyes in food, taking place next week. Artificial food dyes have been linked to ADHD, cancer and allergies for quite some time, and one can only hope the FDA will fully consider the science behind those concerns.

Not long ago, the husband returned home from Target bearing rainbow-colored goldfish crackers. Before I could, ahem, react, he quickly pointed to the label: “Colors from Natural Ingredients!” I was still skeptical so I turned it over to see — in fact, they use annatto extract, beet juice concentrate, paprika, turmeric, huito juice concentrate and watermelon juice concentrate. And they are just as boldly colored as can be — so clearly, the question of can we replace artificial dyes with natural ones has already been answered.

The trouble with food dyes, as with so many additives, is that they are not just in the obvious junk foods but so many other foods you wouldn’t even expect to see colors. Plain white marshmallows? Artificially white. The potato rolls we buy because they don’t have HFCS? Yellow #5 and #6. (Maybe it’s crazy to ask why can’t potato rolls just be white? Aren’t potatoes white?)

I’m able to avoid some of the grocery store battles by shopping at the organic market as much as possible. But on a recent trip to the regular grocery, the dreaded meltdown occurred in the cereal bar aisle when the boy spotted Nemo, Cars and other full-colored “fruit” snacks conveniently located at his eye-level. Now we sometimes buy Annie’s brand fruit snacks, which I fully realize are still not much more than a dose of sugar, but at least they’re made of natural sugar and colors. Trying to explain to a hungry and tired 4-year-old why some fruit snacks are only special treats he gets at birthday parties was an unpopular argument, to say the least, but I pressed on and later let him choose some of those colored goldfish crackers for his after school snacks.

Before I had kids I didn’t appreciate the power of marketing to young kids, thinking surely parents just needed to learn to say no. I’ve since been educated in the magical powers of branding (thanks, PBS, for making sure my son recognizes McDonald’s golden arches). Sure Annie’s bunnies are cute, but why settle for bunnies if you can get snacks that look just like Dora?! Wouldn’t it be nice to have to say “no” just a little less often? The folks behind the movie “Fresh!” are running an online petition you can sign to urge the FDA to ban artificial dyes in food. Click here to sign the petition today. (Deadline is Wednesday, March 23.)

The Foodie Tot and I did some baking over the weekend, making hamantaschen for Purim. No dyes needed as hamantaschen get their jewel tones from jams — raspberry, blueberry and poppyseed, this time. Here’s a little clip, enjoy!

The Foodie Tot Makes Hamantaschen from Colleen Levine on Vimeo.

(And please see these other great posts on food dyes in children’s food:

• The color of trouble at Spoonfed
• When food dyes color our children’s behavior at Feeding Our Families
• Do food dyes cause hyperactivity in kids? at What’s Cooking
• 100 days of being dye-free at Food with Kid Appeal)