The folks behind the Meatless Monday campaign (HealthyMonday.org) have added a new weekly challenge to their menu: Kids Cook Monday. The newly-launched website contains kid-friendly recipes and videos of parents cooking with their kids. Naturally, FoodieTots is thrilled to support the cause — you can see some of our kid-testedrecipes on the site already. And, in honor of the launch (and our new house!), the Foodie Tot and I made a Strawberry Cream Tart this weekend.
A tart is a fairly fool-proof pastry to make with younger kids. And if you, say, haven’t yet unpacked the food processor, a little child labor comes in handy in combining the flour and butter with a pastry blender. Since the rolling pin was also unaccounted for, I simply pressed the dough into my tart pan. Not as pretty, but it gets the job done.
As the boy notes in the video, the strawberries came from our new neighborhood’s farmers market, the Falls Church market. (He’s still a little confused on whether both Alexandria and Arlington are in Virginia.) It was the first weekend of strawberry season here in Virginia, and they were abundant at the market. And I bought the mascarpone for the tart from Blue Ridge Dairy, and the (multi-colored) eggs from Valentine’s Country Meats & Bakery.
Watch the video! (and pardon my arm in front of the boy’s face … we need to work on our camera set-up in the new kitchen.)
Instructions: In a mixing bowl, combine flour and cold butter until small pea-sized lumps form. Add powdered sugar. In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks with a fork. Add to flour mixture and mix until dough begins to come together (will still look quite crumbly). Press into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap; chill 1 hour before rolling out. Alternately, press crumbs into a butter tart pan. Freeze tart shell for 10 minutes. Prick with a fork and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Shell should look set but not begin to brown. Cool before filling.
Cream Filling
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
Instructions: Stir cheese, sugar and vanilla together until well combined. Chill until ready to use.
Strawberries
1 pint strawberries, hulled and halved
2 tablespoons fruit jam (we used plum), melted in microwave for 10 seconds and thinned with a few drops of water
Assembling the tart: Place the cooled tart on the counter and arrange the cream, berries and jam nearby. Your child can spread the cream in the shell, arrange strawberries over the cream, and use a pastry brush to brush the jam over the berries. Chill for an hour before serving. Enjoy!
If you’d like to join the Kids Cook Monday fun, visit the website or contact Joanna Lee at jlee@mondaycampaigns.org. And please check back the first Monday of each month for the latest Foodie Tot cooks video!
Tomorrow begins the 2010 farmers market season for much of Northern Virginia. And, our Virginia farmers tend to be the first in the area with ripe strawberries, so be on the look-out for them in the next couple weeks!
Alexandria: The West End Market in Ben Brenman Park opens this Sunday, 9am-1pm. Alma from Westmoreland Berry Farms brought fabulous homemade tamales to the market last year, perfect for a post-shopping lunch in the park. And a soup vendor will be joining the market this year, among other new additions. The Upper King Street Market opens Wednesday, in the triangle across from the King Street Metro, and runs weekly from 3pm – 7pm. (Alexandria‘s Del Ray and Old Town markets are year-round.)
Arlington/Falls Church: The Ballston Farmers Market is moving to Thursdays, 3pm-7pm. The Crystal City Farmers Market, now run by FreshFarm Markets, opens Tuesday, May 18, 3pm – 7pm. (The Courthouse, Columbia Pike, and Clarendon markets in Arlington and the Falls Church Farmers Market are year-round.)
Fairfax County: Fairfax County-sponsored markets, in Mount Vernon, Fairfax, Vienna/Oakton, Wakefield, Herndon, Annandale, Kingstowne, Burke, McLean, Reston and Lorton, all open this coming week. The independent SmartMarkets, in Centreville, Fairfax Corner, Herndon, Oakton, Reston and in Maryland at National Harbor, have staggered opening dates over the next couple weeks.
I have a special Earth Week-themed collection of links to share today, but first a few pieces of personal news. I was too wrapped up in bake sale prep last week to share this with you all, but I’m thrilled that FoodieTots was listed on Babble.com’s Top 50 Mom Food Bloggers list! If you haven’t already, check out the full list for more great blogs to follow.
And, I have also been selected as a featured contributor at TheMushroomChannel.com. I’m really excited to share my love for healthy cooking with a great group of fellow fungi-lovers — so stay tuned for my first post over there in a couple weeks.
And now for our regularly scheduled links for your weekend reading. This week marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. For those of us who try to make every day Earth Day, here are five links to help you Grow Green:
Pamela at Red, White & Grew has a registry of gardening bloggers by state, perfect to find local inspiration or someone to call on for advice if you’re a rookie gardener like me.
Putting more green on kids’ lunch plates — through school gardens and a farm-to-school program — is just one goal of the DC Healthy Schools Act, which is headed for a final vote by the full DC City Council on May 4. If you live in the District, read more from the DC Farm to School Network and please contact your council member today. (And forward to anyone else you know in DC!)
I love love love this idea for a “Home for Wayward Weeds” from Laura at Chicken Counting. The foodie tot is so excited about his new gardening tools that he constantly wants to dig, rake and pick — this is perfect to keep him busy and our young seedlings protected!
The DC Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share our Strength, held this past Saturday at Eastern Market, was a great success. We got off to a slow and chilly morning, but business picked up as the crowds grew throughout the morning. I’m pleased to report that we raised $612 to fight child hunger right here in DC — plus a sizable donation of leftover goodies to The Carpenter’s Shelter in Alexandria. And overall, the National Food Blogger Bake Sales raised … over $16,500!
We had about a dozen bakers providing tasty treats that included cookies, cake balls, biscotti, pound cake, whoopie pies, lemon bars, pretzels, cupcakes, granola and even dog biscuits. Here are some of our volunteers as we set up in the morning:
Ken of Indoor Garden(er), Colleen of FoodieTots, Sally of Come to the Table, Cathy of Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen, Martha of A Measured Memory, Amber of Live Love to Bake
My contribution was lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting. I had a hard time finding a simple lemon cupcake recipe, but the Barefoot Contessa came through with a cake recipe that was easily adapted to make yummy, moist, pound cake-like cupcakes. I got too late a start baking to put the Foodie Tot to work in the kitchen, but he contributed his artistry on our signs.
Recipe: Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from Ina Garten/Food Network
Ingredients:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
zest and juice of 1 large lemon (1/4 cup juice)
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare cupcake liners in lightly greased muffin tin. In bowl of mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and lemon zest and mix until combined. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, lemon juice, vanilla and lemon extracts. Gradually add flour and buttermilk mixtures to the mixer bowl, mixing until batter is just combined. Bake 17-20 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in muffin tin for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Cool thoroughly before frosting. Makes 2 dozen.
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (Organic)
Ingredients:
2 8-ounce boxes of organic cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons organic unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions: Cream butter and cream cheese in bowl of mixer until smooth. Add sugar, mixing at medium speed until smooth, then add vanilla and lemon extracts and mix another minute. Add additional sugar if needed to reach desired consistency. Frosting will be soft, so you may want to refrigerate for 30 minutes before frosting cupcakes. Makes enough to frost 2 dozen cupcakes, and then some.
I don’t know how much of it can be attributed to the fact that asparagus is the first fresh new vegetable of the spring, but my love affair with these crisp stalks grows each year. This is my favorite way to enjoy them, and works as the ultimate market-fresh, fast-food meal whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Getting my son to embrace asparagus with the same enthusiasm has been more difficult. One day last spring, after I’d all but given up, he snatched one off my plate declaring, “Ooh, a giant string bean!” — and then proceeded to devour the rest of my serving! Since then it’s still been hit or miss, and I’ll switch between calling them asparagus or “super string beans” just in case the terminology makes a difference. I keep making them the same way I made them that time, though — pan-roasted with butter rather than oven-roasted with olive oil. I think the butter gives a sweeter carmelization, and I prefer it even if he doesn’t always appreciate them.
While I prefer them with poached eggs, the runny yolks serving double-duty as dressing, you can certainly try it with your kid’s favorite style of eggs. Mine is obsessed with hard boiled, lately.
Instructions: Heat a large skillet (I prefer my cast iron) over medium high heat. Melt the butter, then add asparagus and cook, turning just once or twice, until stalks begin to brown in spots, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper. Cover to keep warm while you poach the eggs. Divide asparagus and arrange on dinner plates. Gently place one poached egg on each plate, on top of the asparagus, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve with French bread or whole wheat toast. Makes 4 servings. Enjoy!
Toddler-friendly tip: You can trim the asparagus into shorter pieces and encourage your little one to dip them into the yolk.
