I couldn’t resist buying this cereal for my kids. (I have already complained about kids’ breakfast cereal before.) After all, we were on vacation—a time to indulge and splurge.

My son reports it’s called Fruity Pebbles.

On their web site it says “Fruity Pebbles is a wholesome, sweetened rice cereal. It is low in fat, cholesterol free, and provide 10 essential vitamins and minerals.”

The ingredients:

Yum?

Read this article in Los Angeles Times: Back to school blech: Sack lunches too warm, study says

Schools starts in 2 weeks…….. Or has it started already where you live?

I try so hard to make food that everyone will like, especially the kids.

Then one day, out of the blue, I recalled a noodles with cottage cheese dish that my grandma used to make for me when I was little. Out of sheer laziness I cooked that for my kids—I had no better plan for dinner.

My son’s response? “This is The Best pasta in the whole world!!! The best pasta you’ve ever made!”

I was floored.

So I can’t stop thinking, why, why do I try so hard and make things more complex? (It’s just my nature…)

Just cook some pasta in salted water until it’s al dente. Drain, put in a bowl, add some salt, 1-2 tablespoon of butter (The secret ingredient!), and mix.

Add cottage cheese, mix, serve. Bon appetite.

I love mishmashed pasta dishes like this one. With Israeli couscous, bacon, artichokes, corn, mushrooms, fresh herbs, some lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil… What’s not to like?

Or how about this one with kale, toasted pine nuts, a bit of cream, and parmesan? Simple. Clean. (Recipe here)

I love to take my big skillet out and toss some pasta with leftovers like roasted vegetables, sausage, chicken, crème fraiche,  and such. (Recipe here)

Or to make a fresh batch with wild mushrooms, some heavy cream, kale, and tomatoes.(Recipe here)

With only kale and cream, it’s good stuff too!

(We do like kale in this household. Recently, we’ve been eating it raw. Good, good.)

Here we have orzo, tomatoes, feta, black olives, green olives, mint, oregano, pine nuts… (Recipe here)

And here we have corn, cauliflower, kale, pesto, tomatoes, and parmesan.

In this one: farro, garbanzo beans, roasted peppers, steamed cauliflower, Israeli couscous. All good stuff!

But my children… The ones that grew inside my body… The ones who carry my genes… (Well, 50% of them), they like pasta… plain.

They like Mac and cheese too, of course.

There is no punch line to this post.

***

3/15/2009 update: A few days after publishing this post I was contacted by a PR person for the company that makes one of the brands. I’d like to make it clear that my point in the post was not to promote brand A or B but to emphasize the importance of reading labels and the ingredient lists on the products we buy and to remind myself as well as to encourage other people to know more about our food so we can make better choices at the grocery store.

***

This puffed rice and corn treat/snack has become a recent favorite treat for my son. I’m not sure it really qualifies as a snack. Maybe a munch? In any case, I don’t know where he has seen it and/or ate it for the first time, but one day, out of the blue, while we were grocery shopping, he asked for Pirate’s Booty. “Pirate whaaat?”, I asked. “Pirate booty”, he said. “Pirate whhhhat?”, I asked again… I had no idea what it was. We looked for it and found it at the snacks isle. I read the label quickly and thought it wasn’t so bad, and I bought it for him. No need to say how very excited he was.

Yesterday I was terribly busy but had to go grocery shopping. Since I wasn’t sure I’ll have time to go to the usual store where I shop, I stopped for a quick purchase at another one which is smaller and closer to my home to pick up a few things. Both stores claim to have a good selection of organic, free-range, better quality food compared to the other chains, but the smaller store – let’s call it store A – is perceived to be cheaper. (I don’t know if that’s true or not since they mostly carry different brands).

On my way to the cashier I noticed a product similar to the Booty one. It had a different name but it looked the same. Later I opened it in the car and ate a few puffs and thought that it tasted pretty much the same. Back at home, I read the ingredient list (It’s just something that I do from time to time. Am I crazy?) and I got curious about whether it’s the same product or not.

In the afternoon I had a chance to go to the regular store – let’s call it store B – with the kids to complete my shopping. I looked for the pirate booty package as well. I read the label on the back. It was different. Shorter. I knew I had to do some serious research. At home, I had to compare. This is what I found:

Also, I asked my husband to arrange a blind taste testing of the 2 brands. With my eyes closed I could tell from the first bite which one was brand A and which one was brand B. There was a difference. One of them had an artificial and somewhat metallic flavor, and compared to the second one tasted pretty horrible. Guess which one tasted better? (Answer: Pirate B)

And besides, I don’t know about you, but me… As I get older, I like things to be simple. I like short lists of ingredients. I like to know (preferably) all of the words in those lists. Bizarre words in my food scare me. Now all I can think about is should I give Pirate A to my children to eat? Or, should I throw Pirate A into the trash? Am I being too paranoid about the quality of food?

What would you do?

Remember the Naked Chef?

You know, the guy with the cool hair, very energetic, talks fast, cooks even faster, Jamie Oliver? About 10 years ago when he became famous, he was referred to as the Naked Chef. These days he is simply Jamie. I did not understand what the nakedness was all about back then. I tried out as I looked and cooked some of his recipes. They were all good but after a while I thought they were too simple, too minimalistic. Not worth spending my money on his cookbooks because in those days I believed that only cookbooks and recipes with a long list of ingredient that took a long time to make were worthy. After a while I stopped using Jamie’s recipes. Only years after, under the influence of Ina Garten and cooking as a personal chef for nearly 4 years in other peoples’ kitchens (The food had to be fresh, quick and easy to prepare), I finally learned that cooking good food doesn’t necessarily mean using long and elaborated recipes. It’s not about killing myself in the kitchen in order to make good food, to make other people happy.

As I changed my approach to cooking, I realized that I prefer to use good ingredients and only do little to them in the process of cooking. I understood that when I shopped for ingredients of lesser quality (sometimes, but not necessarily, cheaper) I needed to work harder to make them taste good. But still, it was not nearly as good as when I used higher quality products (sometimes, but not necessarily, cheaper/the same price/cost more) which did not require any messing around with. This is how I’ve been cooking in the past 7 years. Naked.

Well, not literally.

I invest more of my attention and time to read the labels on products at the grocery stores so I can make better choices when I buy food. I’m not saying I do a 100 % perfect job but I do my best to buy ingredients that are fresh, local, organic, sustainable, and seasonal. It’s good for me and it’s better for the environment. Another approach to the nakedness “thing” is when I read the labels, I look for those products with the shortest list of ingredients where I know what all/most of the words mean! Then, back in the kitchen, I don’t have to work so hard to make those products taste good because they are already beautiful and their flavor is as it should be.

About two weeks ago, friends invited us for dinner. The guy cooked some recipes from this cookbook,

I love cookbooks, so I had to take a peak.
The book was beautiful and had many recipes I immediately wanted to try out. The photos of the natural, unfussy food were amazing too.
The food our friend cooked was simply delicious.
So, of course, I had to buy the book.
And cook from it.

As for reading recipes… Jamie’s recipes are of the few that I actually enjoy reading. (Most recipes are written in such a boring and technical way…) It feels like he is really talking to me. I can feel myself getting energized just by the way he writes them, as if he is standing in my kitchen only a few feet away (I wish), and the photos only add that extra kick in the butt to make me jump off my seat and get cooking.

See?

Photo by © David Loftus as seen on Jamie’s web site

But these days, there are other ways in which I find Jamie Oliver inspiring. He is not only a very talented chef, business man, and fun to watch and read, but his passion about food exceeds way beyond his home and restaurants’ kitchens. He is passionate about teaching people about good food, how to raise it, and how to cook it.

You know that bad food is making people terribly sick.

Oliver is doing a very important job in schools and cafeterias in England, and wanting to do so in the US as well, teaching parents, children, schools, and the lunch ladies about real, healthy, good food. I don’t want to go into much detail because in this video below Oliver does a great job.

Also, make sure to read “Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children” by Ann Cooper. The book has eye opening information about the food kids eat in the schools’ cafeterias and offers healthy recipes. Ann Cooper works with the legendary Alice Waters.

Now watch this:

For the original whole baked cauliflower with tomato and olive sauce, click here. I made a few changes, here’s my version:

Whole cauliflower in marinara sauce and olives

Adapted from “Cook with Jamie” cookbook

1/2 red onion, peeled and sliced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large head of cauliflower, outer green leaves discarded
olive oil
a handful of black olives, pitted
1 anchovy fillet, sliced
a handful of fresh parsley
20 oz. tomato/marinara sauce, or canned chopped plum tomatoes
a splash of red wine vinegar
salt
ground black pepper

First, find a pot in which the whole cauliflower will fit, leaving an inch around.

To the pot, add the onion, garlic, and a drizzle of oil and slowly sauté for about 10 minutes over medium heat until softened. Add the olives, anchovy and parsley and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the tomato sauce and about 1/2 cup of water, and a splash of red wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper. Stir everything together and bring to the boil.
Gently add the cauliflower to the sauce. Half of the cauliflower should be in the sauce, half above it. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put the lid on and let it cook on low heat for about 30-40 minutes.

NOTE: I think an even easier and faster way to do this is to cut the cauliflower into florets and cooked it totally immersed in the tomato sauce.

Everyone says that spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce is a kid-friendly food. One of the ultimate favorites. Way up there in the top 10, maybe even top 5, on the kids’ food list. Well, at least that’s the theory. But in our household? Not so much.

I always wondered why magazines/restaurants/cookbooks make that claim because every time I made this dish, aiming to make my son happy with this supposedly kid-friendly meal, he refused to eat it. I made spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce numerous times hoping that he will warm up to it. Finally, I came to the conclusion that he is not a tomato sauce fan, even more than he dislikes ground meat in any shape and size, whether a meatloaf, burger, round or flat meatballs (should they be called meatflats in that case?). He is a cheese and/or butter sauce type of guy. Last week, I made it again. Surprisingly, everyone was licking their red sauce covered lips and wiping their faces with napkins.

But my goal is not to cook kid-friendly meals.

My goal is mostly different. It is to create memorable meals. The kind that my children will remember when they grow up. The kind that they will miss when they become adults. The kind that will bring them back home to me after they fly away and leave the nest. I think that this spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce is that kind of dish. Same as stuffed bell peppers.

Now, I’ll tell you a little secret, come close – I used a jarred marinara sauce. Shhh, don’t tell anyone. I know my kids won’t remember the jar, but they will remember having pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce at their parents’ home because I plan to make it again and again and again. When I took the photo of the leftovers the next day, when I warmed it for my lunch, I thought that if I was a kid I would have remembered this dish as a childhood favorite. Slurping the long spaghetti strands, making a mess all over my face, and sinking my teeth into the two-bite-size meatballs covered with a sweet and thick tomato sauce will bring out the child hidden in any grown-up.

One year ago: Walnut cake, Sweet and smoky pork chops, Chocolate-Halva Babka Cake

Spaghetti with beef meatballs

I used fresh bread crumbs flavored with fresh herbs which I make every time I have leftover bread and herbs that are about to go bad. (Click the link for the recipe). It makes one big shortcut when a recipe calls for breadcrumbs and chopped herbs.

Makes 8 servings

For the meatballs:
2 pounds ground (preferably grass-fed) beef
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, plus a few sprigs with leaves for the sauce
1/2 cup grated parmesan or any other hard yellow cheese, plus 1/2 cup more for serving
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
Canola and/or olive oil for frying
1 (25 oz.) jar good marinara sauce
1 package spaghetti

Put the meat, bread crumbs, parsley, Parmesan, salt, pepper, and egg in a bowl. Mix lightly with your hands and form into two-bite-size meatballs.

Pour canola and/or olive oil into a large (12-inch) skillet to a depth of 1/4-inch. Heat the oil over medium heat. In batches, place the meatballs in the oil and brown them well on all sides, turning carefully with a spoon or tongs. Don’t crowd the skillet. This will take about 10 minutes for each batch. Remove the fried meatballs to a plate. Discard the oil and lightly wipe the pan with clean paper towels.

In the same pan, heat the marinara sauce, scraping all the brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Add parsley, salt, and pepper. Return the meatballs to the sauce, cover, and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through.

While the meatballs are cooking in the sauce, cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the package.

Serve the meatballs hot over the cooked spaghetti and top with grated Parmesan.

Sometimes I feel as glamorous as a chicken meatball.

Ehhh, let me explain. Where should I begin?

Maybe from the end. Yes, the end. That’s was when I heard the sweet sound of the word “yummy”. It came out of the mouth of a sweet, but stubborn, and picky, little boy, who mostly likes to eat cheese with carbs. Cheese pizza, pasta with cheese, crackers with cheese, cheese tortillas, cheese panini… and hot dogs.

Yes, that’s a better start. To tell you right away that this story has a good ending. After all, we all love a story with a conflict, problem solving, unconditional love, and a happy ending, no?

Because, you see, lately, I’ve been feeling very unglamorous when it comes to cooking. I’ve got to a point where any of the following can get the creative joyful cooking wind out of me (people with no little kids be warned, there’s poopy involved!):

1. there’s a toddler in my house with a daily afternoon routine of trying-to-poop-for-45-minutes episodes accompanied by crying, whining, screaming, nagging, while trying to hold the poopy in, which makes me want to scream sometime “let it go”.

2. a first grader who turns his nose away from most food that is not of the “cheese & carbs combo”- family as mentioned previously with an occasional smoothie, yogurt stick , and a few types of fruit which makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes

3. an almost daily dinner time with one or both kids whining and/or complaining and/or making constant silly noises and/or keep jumping from their chairs and mainly not leaving my husband and me a chance to complete one sentence or eat peacefully for more then 2 straight minutes which makes me want to poke my eyes out sometimes (Thank god for date nights)

4. and a very rare appearance of re-energizing words like “yummy” or “thank you for dinner” or “dinner was great” or “you’re a wonderful cook, darling”, or even “that cake you made is awesome, mom” and that sort of stuff, you know… which makes me think I’m being taken for granted sometimes

5. before making dinner I need to multi-task like crazy. For example, play chess with my son using the left side of my brain while reading a book to my girl with the right side, or whatever’s left of it, while poopy episodes interrupt in the middle, that basket full of laundry staring at me, and other fun stuff, which makes me dream of a vacation on an isolated island all by myself sometimes

And then, around 6 PM, I get my 20-30 minutes to be a diva in the kitchen and whip up some magic.

Ahhhhhhh, I don’t think so. No can do.

Of course I did not expect to hear “yummy” about something as delicious as the roasted cauliflower with apples and red onion

Not even when I made the chicken and noodles soup my boy has requested. Alas, I missed his emphasis on the “noodles” and i put some veg in there.

Not when I baked Challa bread which everyone loves so much

And not even when I presented the Pumpkin banana cream pie or Apple pie. No “Oooo” or  “Uuu” or “Aaaa” were heard.

I knew it. I had no expectations. Only hopes.

But last night, hallelujah! I finally heard it.

Out of the blue I heard “yummy”. Oh, what a sweet little moment it was. T’was a good thing I was sitting, otherwise I would have fallen off my feet.

I made these meatballs I found on Smitten Kitchens’ blog and my 6 years old liked it and announced it “yummy”.

He only ate one meatball, but that’s different story. Don’t worry, I have leftovers for him for tonight’s dinner, hi hi hi…

Baked Chicken Meatballs

Adapted from Smitten kitchen who had adapted it from Gourmet
Serves 4, or 2 adults + 8 kids, or makes 12-14 meatballs

3 slices white bread, torn into small bits (1 cup)
1/3 cup milk
3 ounces sliced pancetta, finely chopped (or Canadian Bacon)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 large egg
1 pound ground chicken (I used dark meat but next time I’ll try ground breast)
1 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
2 tablespoons ketchup
oil for greasing the pan

Preheat oven to 400°F with a rack in the middle.

In a small bowl, soak the bread in milk until softened.

Meanwhile, preheat a medium skillet over medium heat and start cooking the pancetta. Add the onion, garlic, salt and pepper and cook until the onion is softened, about 6 minutes. Cool slightly.

Squeeze the bread to remove excess milk, then discard milk.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg, then add the chicken, tomato paste, parsley, pancetta mixture, and the bread. Mix well and form 12 meatballs.

Lightly spray or oil a baking sheet (I used a 9×13 Pyrex dish) and place the meatballs in it. Squeeze a little ketchup on top of each meatball and spread with a teaspoon.

Bake until the meatballs are cooked through, about 20 minutes.

By the way, his sister, 20 months old, is entering the picky eating stage now, so it seems.

Oh, boy.

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Today was the first day of the Hunger Action Week. I made a plan ahead of time (see here) – I had to – and a grocery list, I calculated the estimated costs, and went grocery shopping today. More about that in a minute.

We take this challenge as a family so I tried to find recipes that I know the kids will/might love and ones that are not very expensive, and of course, quick to make. One of the meals I picked was chicken liver. Yeah, yeah, I can hear some of you go “Yuck!” with an exclamation mark, but we like it. It’s cheap, it tastes good, it’s healthy, it’s organic. I was afraid that the kids, as kids often do, might have changed their minds about liver and will refuse to eat it and then what will I do? Roasted chicken, for example, is always loved. Chicken liver? Sometimes. One day they like it and another day they don’t. So I thought we’ll have a little chat.

But how to explain the challenge to my kindergartener? Tell him that we’re playing a game? It seemed inappropriate. And what if he wants something from the pantry and I tell him he can’t have it? Or what will happen if we run out of food on the fifth day? I have finally decided that, in this case, more is less. Sort of.

I reminded him the times we have donated food items for food drives in his school and our previous conversations about families who don’t have enough food or enough money to buy food. I told him that this week he needs to eat any food I make and we don’t throw any food away.

So far so good. At dinner time he tried to protest against the chicken liver but he ate it and liked it as we all have. I made it the same way as the previous time, minus the apples for budgetary reasons, and it was wonderful.

What did we eat today?

Breakfast: the usual (see previous post)

Lunch: leftovers from last night’s dinner (was deducted from the groceries budget). I had a slice of onion quiche. Oh, I was starting to get hungry by the time the quiche was ready.

Snack: Yogurt, crackers, fruit

Dinner: Cinnamon chicken liver, Yellow rice, milk. And we have leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

The groceries. What did I buy?

I don’t mean to bore you with details, details, details… but planning for this event really took a lot of my time but it was a must as far as I’m concerned. As a parent I am responsible to provide food for my children. Also, I did not want to find out that I went over budget and ask the cashier to take back food items.

Here are the details, details, details part… But you might find it helpful.

To avoid going over budget I planned the menu, estimated the cost of each dish (I also used to do that as a personal chef, especially when catering for parties. You must know how much things are going to cost). I made a list, stuck to the list, took a calculator with me and used it as I added items to my shopping cart.

I bought most of what I have planned and skipped only a few items like cilantro, bread, and my favorite deli meat.

Fresh herbs are expensive. I knew that before. I didn’t by the cilantro on my list for $2 a bunch or any other fresh herb. This is why it’s a particularly good idea to have a little veggie garden or at least a few pots of herbs in your back/front yard or even by the window.

Bread. We like artisanal fresh bread, not the sliced bread in a plastic bag that was baked who knows when. Those cost $3-$5 a loaf. Since we need two of those for the week, I decided to skip it and bake our own. I had a recipe from a friend for challa bread with simple ingredients – flour, sugar, yeast, salt, a little oil, and water (no eggs, no butter, no milk) – that makes 2 loaves and it is so good!

I went to Trader Joe’s to get a few items that cost less there compared to my favorite Whole Foods store and got 2 organic milk, eggs, Comte cheese, pizza, arugula, Brussels sprouts, 2 types of yogurt, kiwi.

At Whole Foods store I got 5 organic whole chicken legs that were on sale for $2.49/ pound, 1 pound free-range chicken liver, 4 pork chops, gruyere cheese, heavy cream, deli meat, bananas, organic pears, plouts, grapefruit, organic tomatoes, organic onions, cucumber, organic carrots, organic yams, rice, 2 cans organic black beans.

I think I did pretty well although I have a fear that I might have forgotten something and will get stuck without food later on. Oh, I know what I forgot. The pizza toppings!

I did appreciate every bite of food I ate today.

Leave me a comment. What do you think?