An update after the 10 Day Real Food Challenge

Continuing our efforts from the 10 Day Real Food Challenge, to eat more real food and buy less boxes of crackers – here’s what we’ve been up to as we work to replace some of the beloved kid favorites at our house.

Wondering what I would end up with, I experimented on the fly by baking some of our whole wheat pizza dough on a baking stone with no pizza toppings. What happened was some darn good, basic, homemade crackers. All the girls thought it was great! I thought it went nicely with our Lentil Chard Soup.

I pulled off making the spontaneous Pizza Crust Crackers by rolling out one of our balls of dough like I would for pizza. Then I baked it at 500 degrees for about 5 minutes, flipped it over and did the same – watching to make sure it didn’t burn. I cut it into triangles like a pizza, except they were big wedges of homemade crackers – something I thought would have been WAY too time consuming to ever make myself. But it was so easy! The girls loved dipping them in hummus.

This is a great example of not being afraid to experiment in the kitchen. I rarely ever stick to, or even use, a recipe. Sometimes the things around us can be the best guide.

{I would insert here a photo here of our surprise yummy crackers. But honestly, my kids are getting tired of my camera being attached to me. So on this day in the kitchen, I took zero photos. Sometimes life dictates the things we should not be controlling. So in this post, there are words with not many photos. I hope you understand.}

Smoothies are still a staple here. And now it’s popsicle season, which we make out of smoothies. Which means my freezer is full (but not for long) of colorful rocket and star shaped homemade popsicles. Last week my two big girls had strep throat and many smoothies were made. We did however, come up with a new recipe – new to us at least. With apple sauce, blueberries, bananas, raw spinach, orange juice and vanilla egg white protein power. When the girls have been sick I add a powder form of probiotics to their smoothies as well. Still this week, they are asking to have 2-3 popsicles a day. I say yes of course, with a smile, knowing how good they are for them. For more on our smoothies go here.

Tuesday night I had success making Homemade Fish Sticks that got rave reviews from my patrons at the Mom’s Restaurant. We called this one Fish and Chips night. Making my own fish sticks is something else I NEVER thought I would do. But I was at Earthfare, leisurely shopping one night past bedtime – sans the kids and sipping on a cup of coffee – when I decided to ask the guy behind the fish counter about it. He was helpful, encouraging, and it was SO easy – aside from being a little time consuming in the prep and clean up department. I bought a pound of fresh wild caught cod fish, cut it into nuggets, dipped it in melted butter with a little lemon juice, breaded it with store-bought breadcrumbs and fried it in a pan with minimal amounts of olive oil, flipping it to get both sides.

Some say fried is bad. I say it’s a fine way to get some good fat into my skinny kids. Another kid food tip is using butter, lots of real butter. It’s like ketchup. It makes everything better for kids. Again, good fat can be a good thing – as long they are active and burning it off. And mind are, spending more time outside than in.

I found a sharp cheddar cheese and homemade macaroni combo that met muster with two out of my three macaroni and cheese loving girls. But I still need to do some more work on that, to make it a home run for all of them. Surprisingly, it was my oldest daughter who was the biggest fan of the combo I made.

I’m still looking for a good, practical, substitute for all the expensive boxes of kids cliff bars (and the like) we have conveniently become attached to. I have one more kind of Larabar I want to sample. If I can find one that all three girls like, I’ll see if I can do a copycat recipe and start stockpiling a homemade version. So far, not one flavor has met muster with my oldest child. She’s the one who recently ate Cream of Spinach Soup and proudly declared herself no longer picky. Sweet girl she is, always trying to please mom.

She really doesn’t want to be picky. But oh man she is.

All in all I think we are getting somewhere, in making ourselves less dependent on convenience foods that come in a box. An organic box nonetheless. However sometimes I think it’s just expensive junk food, that we tell ourselves is better – which it is, sort of. Then again it’s all relative, I suppose.

The best news of all is – I found a Homemade Vanilla Yogurt Concoction that has us on our way to saving money, by making our own yogurt versus paying nearly $5 a quart for the Sunnyfield variety at the store. I was struggling because I ran out of my special order yogurt starter by Dairy Connection, and the freeze dried one available in the store produced a flavor that was too sour for our liking. Then one night this week, I stubbled upon Soulemama’s yogurt making tutorial and she uses a 1/4 cup of yogurt as a starter. Duh. How simple! I was able to use the plain store bought kind from the brand my daughter likes, and make it that very night.  I added some agave nectar and vanilla extract to sweeten it, when it was ready to be served. After a few other failed attempts, and many over a longer period of time, this way worked! Hallelujah.

For those of you asking, why not just flavor it with honey or maple syrup? It’s because she doesn’t like those things. But don’t call her picky! Oh if you only knew how far we have come. 

Thankfully, the other two girls are easy peasy and will eat just about anything. And all in all, I’m super proud of my three girls for being great sports when I all the sudden started switching up all their favorite kid foods.

It’s more work for me, all this cooking. And cleaning the kitchen! But they are worth it (having wine in the kitchen, versus whine, helps).

One more thing – in addition to this and all the real food I cooked up this week from our CSA – I made these scrumptious Mexican Black Bean Burgers. They were a lot of work on the front end. But they made eight extra burgers that are now available in my freezer as a quick throw on the panini maker meal. We cooked ours on the grill Sunday. My husband got a new grill over the weekend and I gotta to give it to the man.

He didn’t complain one… single… bit when the first time it got fired up, I loaded it up with bean burgers, beets, potatoes and veggies. He SO deserves a big shout out too, for being a good sport who is always willing to try anything I decide to make. Even on his brand spanking new grill!

After nearly 13 years of marriage and three kids, love most definitely comes in many other forms than we could have imagined on the day we said I do. I think that is a very, very good thing.