FoodieTots.com

One of the wonderful things about the Jewish culture is its rich culinary tradition. Recipes are lovingly passed down from generation to generation, so that every family seemingly has its own variations on the same common themes. Latkes, or fried potato pancakes, are the traditional food of Hanukkah. (Who doesn’t love a holiday dedicated to foods fried in oil? You’re also obligated to eat jelly donuts. Yum!) Now I’m only Jewish-by-marriage, so my basic potato latke recipe actually comes from a little Chanukah book my mom bought at Crate and Barrel one year. But hey, it works! Now I know better than to tinker with classics, and I always make a plain white potato latke. But I like to add sweet potato latkes sometimes too, and these ones are gussied up a bit more with a little carrot and ginger. You could add parsnip or really any other root vegetable you have on hand. Enjoy these for Chanukah or just breakfast this weekend.

Happy Chanukah!

Ingredients:

• 2 large sweet potatoes
• 2 carrots
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup matzo meal (or flour)
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• oil for frying (I use peanut oil)

Instructions: Peel and grate the potatoes and carrots, then place in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a separate bowl, then add to the shredded vegetables. Add matzo meal (or flour), ginger and salt and stir until just combined. Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Drop sweet potato mixture by heaping tablespoon full into the oil. Cook until edges appear crisp, then flip and cook an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Outsides should be golden and crisp. Remove and place on paper-towel lined plate to drain. Serve warm, with homemade applesauce. Enjoy!

Well if you’re reading this, my shameless headline ploy must have worked. In a world of Thanksgiving dinner-in-a-cake, deep-fried turkeys and enough stuffing recipes to fill a thousand (free-range, please) turkeys, I was worried the lowly turnip might be overlooked.

Truthfully, we’re a little fed up with turnips here at the Foodie Tots house. Victims of an apparent turnip glut at our CSA farm, we’ve gotten gobs and gobs of these bland root vegetables week after week. Now, they’re not all bad. They have just one-third the calories of potatoes, and a generous dose of calcium, iron, vitamin C and even folate. (And be sure to eat the greens, too!) They also have that slightly bitter taste that gives them away should you try to pass them off as mashed potatoes. (Though a 75/25 potato/turnip blend might be more palatable.) I’ve found roasting these, with fresh thyme and a hint of honey, to be the best way to sweeten them up a little. Adding bright carrots and earthy mushrooms further helps balance the flavors, while making a simple and attractive side dish for Thanksgiving or just alongside your weekend roast.

Recipe: Honey-Thyme Roasted Turnips, Carrots and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium sized turnips, scrubbed clean
• 4 carrots, peeled
• 1 cup thickly-sliced shitake mushrooms
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• sea salt
• black pepper

Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop turnips and carrots into 1/2-inch pieces. In a large bowl, toss turnip and carrot pieces with 1/4 cup olive oil, making sure to evenly coat vegetables. Season with salt and pepper, and pour into a rimmed baking sheet or shallow roasting pan. Tuck thyme in between the vegetables. Roast for 20 minutes, until bottom sides are beginning to brown. Remove from oven, add honey and balsamic vinegar and stir. Sprinkle mushrooms across top, and drizzle with additional 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add a little more sea salt, return to oven and roast an additional 20-25 minutes. Turnips should be easily pierced with a fork when it’s done. Makes 4-6 servings. Enjoy!

{Round out your meal with green beans almondine (instead of that goopy green bean casserole), homemade cider & maple-syrup sweetened cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie (from a real pumpkin).}

Winter Farmers Markets: Looking for turnips? If your CSA’s not delivering (ours ended this week), you can still find turnips at local farmers markets. Many Northern Virginia markets closed for the season at the end of October, but the West End Alexandria market, in Ben Brenman Park (at Cameron Station), is open this Sunday, Nov. 21, from 9am-1pm. (Papa’s Orchard has a great selection of pears and apples for your Thanksgiving baking!) The Falls Church, Arlington/Courthouse, Columbia Pike, Del Ray and Old Town Alexandria markets are open year-round.

I know I’ve been slacking in sharing new meals with you, meatless and otherwise. Would a cute baby picture make it up to you? I mean, can you fault me for not writing with this cute tot around?

Allow me to gloat briefly: my son’s favorite vegetable is broccoli. When I serve broccoli, he asks for seconds. When I told him the broccoli in our garden needed to grow a little bigger, he said, “But I really wanted to eat it tonight,” in such a sad voice that I snipped it and steamed it just for him.

how do *you* test broccoli for ripeness?

Now before you resent me too much, let me assure you that there are plenty of green vegetables he won’t touch. Including anything leafy. (I blame myself, for telling him not to eat leaves at the playground when he was a toddler.) But as long as he loves broccoli, we’re eating it once or twice a week. And it’s in season right now at our local farmers markets, along with its cousin cauliflower, squash, Brussels sprouts, beets, apples, pears, those pesky leafy greens, and more root vegetables than you could ever find time to roast.

Did you know that broccoli lowers cholesterol, has high levels of vitamins A & K, and contains folic acid (good for pregnant and nursing mamas)? Ninety percent of the time I just steam broccoli and serve it with butter and sea salt. But if you’re looking to mix things up, or if your little ones aren’t quite as enthusiastic about broccoli, here are some other ideas from around the blogs.

Kid-Friendly Broccoli Recipes

• Roasted Broccoli with Soy Sauce and Sesame Seeds (The foodie tot loves sesame seeds, and they’re a simple addition to mix things up every once in a while.)
• Broccoli Crunch Salad with Apples and Nuts
• Broccoli Pancakes
• Potato, Leek and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Crumbs
• Pasta with Broccoli, Shrimp and Cashew

We had a spell of grey, rainy weather when we returned from Florida, which made me want to hunker down in the kitchen and do some serious baking. It was perfect timing to receive a review copy of Baked Explorations, the newest cookbook from famed Brooklyn bakers Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Its gorgeous pictures and simple recipes for classic American treats with a modern spin had the whole family pouring over the pages trying to decide what we wanted to sample first. From black and white cookies to caramel apple cake, there doesn’t appear to be a lackluster recipe in the bunch. (Well, there is one weird one that calls for tomato soup, but we’ll let that one slide.) But the recipe that made my heart flutter was for Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins. The sidebar note extolling the virtues of Vermont raw milk cheddars didn’t hurt, but it was the combination of my two favorite foods, pumpkin and cheese, that led me to believe I’d met my breakfast soulmate.

Indeed, this muffin is a little bit savory, full of pumpkin flavor and the very essence of fall. If, like me, you like pumpkin-flavored fall treats that actually taste like pumpkin, not just overly-sweet cinnamon-spiced concoctions (ahem, Starbucks pumpkin spice latte), you’ll love these muffins. Especially if you use fresh roasted pumpkin puree. I made cinnamon-sugar roasted pumpkin seeds to use on top, and used extra sharp Cabot cheddar (from Vermont).

The only other change I made to the recipe was to use just 1 teaspoon black pepper instead of the 1 1/2 it called for. My pepper mill produces too coarse a grind and I was afraid of biting into a chunk of pepper. The muffins have a slight bite but not so much so that littler taste buds won’t still enjoy them. I did have to tell a little white lie to get the boy to eat them, however. He suddenly declared he didn’t like pumpkin, but asked what flavor the leaf-shaped muffins were. (I baked half the muffins in a pumpkin and leaf muffin pan I have.)  I said they were oak, and he declared, “I love oak! Oak is my favorite flavor!” before digging in. Sometimes food-phobias really can be overcome with a simple change of semantics.

Whatever you call these muffins in your home, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. And take a look at the rest of the book if you’re looking for some new sweet treats to bake with your kids on rainy days.

Recipe: Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins

Source: Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cups (about 4 ounces) grated sharp cheddar
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds, optional

Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly oil a 12-cup muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and sour cream. Add the eggs and butter and whisk until combined.

In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper and brown sugar. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well, and fold until just combined. Fold in three-quarters of the cheese.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Sprinkle the remaining cheddar and the pumpkin sees on top of the muffins. Bake them for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let the muffin pan cool on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out the muffins. Serve them warm. Makes 12 muffins.

Review Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this cookbook. No other compensation was received, and all opinions are strictly those of myself and my family. Read my full review policy here.

So, I’ve read numerous posts and articles on how to deal with the Halloween-induced sugar craze, and haven’t weighed in because I wasn’t sure how I planned to handle it this year. It was so easy the first year, when we took the boy across the street to a neighbor’s house, he got one Reeses, ate it and went to bed. Those were the days. It didn’t take long for him to catch on to trick-or-treating, though, and last year he left no door unknocked in his quest for more candy. And of course, it’s not just one night — this is our second consecutive 3-day weekend of Halloween festivities. (Yes, part of that was our own doing, but I served healthy snacks at that one too!) At first, I was leaning towards trying the “Switch Witch” idea this year, letting the boy select 10 pieces of candy and then leave the rest out for the “Witch” to take and leave a toy. (I called it the Halloween Fairy to make it sound less scary; I’ve since heard it called the “Pumpkin Fairy” too.) He reacted angrily at first, but I kept dropping casual mentions of it. He still seemed unconvinced. And frankly, he’s rather spoiled in the toy department so I wasn’t crazy about escalating Halloween to another gift-demanding day.

While I would prefer he eat nothing but fair-trade (not Nestle) chocolates and Yummy Earth organic lollipops, the thing about Halloween is that you can’t really control what candy comes into the house.* And as I grew up in a sugar-banning household, I want to avoid creating a child who swings to the other extreme when he leaves the house. I don’t want the candy to be some mystical magical thing that he lusts after all year long. I finally started to think the best approach would be to let him eat all the candy he wants this weekend and if he made himself sick, maybe that would cure him of the cravings for a while. We talked about healthy food vs. junk food again Friday afternoon, and how if we’re going to eat sweets we have to have a healthy breakfast first. I stocked up on broccoli (his favorite vegetable — really!) and apples at the market. I don’t know if it’s the best approach, but I don’t want to turn it into yet another subject of whining, bargaining and tantrums. So we’re embracing the sugar for the weekend, and bracing for the sugar crash Monday.

Here’s a preview of what’s in store … and note, this performance is before he’d even eaten the cotton candy. (Click image to watch the video.)

Happy Halloween, y’all — whether yours is artificially sweetened or all natural. 😉

*We’re fortunate that, aside from a little hyperactivity, we don’t have any allergy or other health issues with candies. I feel for those parents who have to be more vigorous in their monitoring of the candy haul.