Trying out new recipes

I feel like I have a little more freedom with trying new and different recipes, since it is just the kids and I eating here. Jason is great with my attempts to branch out and try new meals; he always eats at least some of what I make and never complains, but there is a lot less pressure to get it right when I know I can just whip up a couple of sandwiches or scrambled eggs if my cooking experiments turn into disasters, and my kids would never know. There is no one to witness my failures :)

So, last night I made a strawberry salad. I tweaked a recipe I found on allrecipes.com to include ingredients that I already had in my refrigerator. It was DELICIOUS! Here is the recipe I made:

Dressing:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3/8 cup white sugar This is a guesstimate. More than 1/4 cup, less than 1/2 cup :)

1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1 Tb. minced onion.

Mix all that up, refrigerate at least an hour. Then toss lettuce (I used mixed greens, but spinach is what the actual recipe calls for) and strawberries, pour enough dressing over to make it yummy. I only used half of the dressing for a huge salad. For a little crunch, you can sprinkle on poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or slivered almonds.

Then tonight, I made this veggie cereal recipe from here. Yes, it sounds gross. But it intrigued me, because I dislike eating veggies, and so do my kids. So I figured it was worth a shot to find a way to get them in our diet.

Veggie Cereal

3 T raw pecans

3 peeled baby carrots

1/2 cup cauliflower

1/2 cup broccoli

1 large peeled, cored apple

Chop the pecans and carrots in a food processor. Pulse until all they are chopped into small pieces. Add the cauliflower, broccoli and apple and pulse again until all ingredients are about the size of couscous. Scoop a generous serving in a cereal bowl, add cinnamon and almond milk.

I thought this was okay. I made a huge bowl of it and served it for dinner. Ellie said, "Eww, yucky!" (we are still working on politely refusing foods). But I told her it was rainbow cereal, and that got a couple bites out of her. She didn't really like it, but at least she ate some. If she knew what was in it, she wouldn't have taken even one bite! Rowan didn't really eat any, but he usually doesn't eat dinner anyway; he snacks too much. I ate my whole bowl and the kids' portions and saved the rest for breakfast the next couple mornings. Even if it's not exceptional, I'd much rather eat my veggies this way :) The kids ended up eating carrots and whole-wheat pita bread dipped in hummus, which is pretty healthy anyway.

And here is a bonus picture of Rowan eating blueberries for his bedtime snack. Isn't he sweet?