Joe’s the professional chef. I work
in public education and have no formal culinary education beyond a knife skills
class wedding present (thanks Jenny and Wilson!), but I consider myself
creative and adventurous in the kitchen. I certainly love the challenge of “what’s
for dinner” on the night that I haven’t planned a thing and have 5 people
arriving in 45 minutes. I am the kind of chef who looks at a recipe for an idea,
but I tend not to follow them to the letter. You’ll also notice, I prefer to
grill when I have the choice.
I have twins. They are coming up on
two and a half years old, and they’re a world of fun. They’re wildly different
eaters, but they both enjoy food more than the average toddler.
1)
Felix is a bit of a human garbage disposal: he’ll eat
just about anything you put in front of him – and with gusto. He’s a bit of a
hobbit with his eating schedule (breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies,
lunch, afternoon tea, supper, and dinner). Side note – we went to a Charlie
Hope concert (children’s singer—seriously, check her out if you have kids), and
she asked for the audience to name their favorite foods. Felix is typically shy
when it comes to strangers and crowds, but this time he knew the answer, and
from his attitude, I think he thought there was only one right answer: “FWENCH
TOAST!”
2)
Lily is clever with her food intake. For a while, I was
convinced she would try to skip meals just to save room for the next time I
offered her pasta. She’s a bit more discerning than Felix, but also eats with fervor
when the time is right. Ask her what she wants for dinner, and there’s a good
shot you’ll hear her request “Parmesan. With pasta.”
On to the power of mush. One of the
few foods of which Felix is not a fan of is avocado. Lily likes it, but doesn’t
exactly seek it out, either. That said, guacamole is a great food to make WITH
your kids. They like foods so much more if they participate in the preparation.
I started by talking to them about each of the ingredients (see below) and
quizzing them on what I’m going to do to those guacamole components. I give
Lily and Felix each a wooden spoon and ask them to “mush” the mixture, and
suddenly—what do you know—Felix does like avocado! And Lily wants to eat it
with a spoon. Try it out—it’s super fun to get them involved, even if they’re
only ready to treat foods like play doh. Just make sure you mush it too, cause
they may not exactly be pros yet.
Chris’ Super Simple Guac
Ingredients:
2 Avocados – ripe
1/2 Large beefsteak tomato, cored
1/2 Sweet yellow onion
2 Small cloves of raw garlic or 1
big one
1 Lime
Kosher salt
Cayenne pepper
Preparation:
1.
Halve the avocados and scoop them into a large bowl.
2.
Dice the half onion. Add to bowl. More on how not to
cry in another post.
3.
Dice the half tomato. Add to bowl. – using a serrated
knife makes this easier.
4.
Crush and dice garlic. Add to bowl.
5.
Add the juice of one full lime.
6.
Add cayenne and salt to taste.
7.
MUSH. With children.
Side note—cayenne pepper is my secret ingredient here. I
usually add it at the end and taste as I go to ensure it has a little something
extra without being too much. My kids don’t like spicy food, but an introduction
to heat with something like avocado to cut it seems to be a nice starting
point. I’m certainly not going for spicy, just flavorful…
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