I recently came across a new blog that promotes the virtues of cooking with kids.  I was even more thrilled to find out that the lovely ladies who write there are from the San Francisco Bay Area, like me!  Luckily for me, they offered to share this fantastic post about their experience making dumplings with kids.

Stuck at home on a rainy day with our play date canceled, we decided to occupy ourselves by making some dumplings (or little parcels of love as I like to call them). It seems like a daunting task to take on but these dumplings are low on ingredients, high on child involvement and disappear ridiculously fast. The sweet, salty dipping sauce is a perfect complement except my genius daughter decided to eat hers with ketchup. “Do you have to eat them with ketchup?” “Yes. It’s good for me.” Okay then. I tried half a dumpling with the daughter’s choice condiment and it wasn’t bad!! She may be on to something. As a child, I too was a ketchup fiend. So much so, I used to say that when I grow up, I would marry a guy who owned a ketchup factory. Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. I have graduated to Sriracha – maybe one day Ria will too.

Easy-peasy Dumplings
From A Little Yuminess

Make these super easy dumplings with your little ones or for a kitchen play date instead of the usual cookies or cupcakes. Have the kids help with beating the egg, brushing the egg wash to help seal the dumplings and even folding the dumplings into little triangles.

Makes 15-18 – you decide how many that serves

Ingredients
For dumplings:

½ lb ground pork, chicken or turkey
2 scallions finely sliced
1½ tsp soy sauce
¼ tsp white pepper
½ tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 egg beaten
store bought square wonton wrappers (usually available next to tofu in most grocery stores)

For dipping sauce:
2 tsp soy sauce
¼ tsp sugar
½ tsp rice wine vinegar (optional)

Method

1. Mix the minced meat with the scallions, soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil and half of the beaten egg. Reserve the rest of the egg for sealing the dumplings
2. Combine the ingredients for the dipping sauce
3. Arrange several wonton wrappers with corners facing you and place ½ a tablespoon worth of meat mixture in the center of each wrapper. Use a pastry brush or your fingers to brush the edges with the beaten egg. Fold the wrapper in half and form little triangular parcels. Repeat till meat mixture is used up.
4. Steam for 5-6 minutes (do not forget to grease the steamer basket with cooking oil if using a metal steamer). Alternatively, you can cook the dumplings in boiling water which is easier and takes about 3 minutes.
5. For pot stickers, if you want more calories and crunch, pan fry the cooked dumplings in a little oil, 2-3 minutes on each side. Serve warm with dipping sauce and watch them disappear

For the past 25 years, no mammals (except for bacon – which was a pregnant thing) have crossed these lips.  It all started when I was a kid attending day camp at our local Humane Society and the educational director there brainwashed us.  Seriously.  She showed us videos of veal calves stuck in teensy holding areas and told us about how chickens who are confined have their beaks cut off so they wouldn’t hurt their companions.  And the real kicker was the field trip they took us on to the local feed lot auction, with the pile of deceased animals out back.  While we were there, the tires on all of the camp vehicles were slashed, so we were stranded there for a few extra hours.  Fun.

As I grew up, I continued learning about food, the food industry and land use.  I taught high school environmental science and learned about the inefficiency and horrible pollution caused by farms that feed their cattle grain and do not allow them to graze the land.  I taught my students about land use – and how it is most efficient when land is used to grow food for us, not to grow food for the animals that we hope to eat.  They learned about the excess water that was required for such a food system, and how much waste it produced.  And then, of course, there was the recent movie, Food Inc.

It raised my hackles.  It made me cry.  And then it had an effect on me that I didn’t expect.  It got me to actually consider eating meat again.  I know – it’s the opposite effect than you might expect.  But this film, in combination with Michael Pollan’s books (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in particular) made me realize that some farms, like Prather Ranch,  do it right.  They respect their animals.  They do not confine them – they encourage them to graze and be the herbivores that they were meant to be.  They don’t give them artificial hormones or antibiotics.  And most important of all, they slaughter them humanely.

Prather Ranch

At the IACP conference I attended recently, I was moved by the comments of Ruth Reichl, the former editor of Gourmet Magazine.  She pointed out that if we all refused to support an industry that tortured animals, that industry standard would have to stop.  She is right – and her comments echo what Michael Pollan has been saying for years.  We need to vote with our forks. Vote with our food dollars.  And then feel good about it.

That brings us to cost.  In a time when families are pinching and saving at every opportunity, expensive foods don’t always make it to the top of the grocery list.  I would suggest that instead of buying cheap grocery store meats, that you buy good quality meats…less often.  The cost comes from more than just the financial price.  There is the ethical cost of  how cheap meat is raised and treated, and there is the environmental and physical cost to the planet and to you from meats that are filled with chemicals and pollute the water that we all depend on.  With the price we pay for quality food comes HUGE VALUE in teaching your children about all that is involved with making good food choices.

What are you teaching your children?

Each year that I have been at our school, I have heard about the struggles of those before me who have failed in their attempts to change the food served in our district.  Needless to say, it wasn’t very motivating.  Perhaps our timing was perfect – the buzz surrounding Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver was too great to ignore.  Maybe our team was too persistent to brush off.  Regardless, it is clear that Elena, our food service director, was also ready to improve our program.

Before I tell you about our meeting this week, I have a juicy email from Elena to share.

Hi Michelle, It’s a go.  High Tech Burrito will be once a week.  The day will rotate around the schools so that high tech can produce enough burritos per day.  It is an 8 ounce pinto bean and cheese burrito – and thanks to the slick negotiations of Miguel up in Novato, and the fact that we are buying 2000 a week, our cost is affordable!  Also, High Tech has gone through all the work to make sure the burrito meets the nutritional guidelines for my auditors.  This has got me thinking – maybe we can find a pizza restaurant in the area that can do the same thing??

Yes, we are pretty darned excited.  And if the number of parents and kids stopping me on the street is any indication, they are excited too.  Parents are thrilled that they now have the opportunity to take a break from the tedious task of preparing sack lunches, and can take advantage of burrito day.

Before I talk about this week’s meeting, let’s summarize all that we have accomplished so far:

• We have opened the lines of communication between the school district and the community, both through our regularly scheduled lunch reform meetings and through the articles on this blog.
• We have added additional protein choices in the breakfast program and have eliminated sugar cereals from the menu.  The muffins are now appropriately sized and we have said “farewell” to the honeybun.
• Every school will have a High Tech Burrito Day – that’s 2000 burritos, all prepared fresh at the Miracle Mile location.  (Let’s try to support them – they aren’t making a profit on this, so they deserve some additional business, don’t you think?)
• There are also some discreet discussions going on with another local vendor for another favorite meal – but more on that later!

Many of the parents on our lunch reform committee are involved in the “Green Teams” in their respective schools, and have expressed concern for the amount of waste that gets generated during the lunch period.  The good news is that Marin Sanitary District is going to work with our schools to do a cursory audit of our trash.  Based on these results, we will decide if they should do a full audit at certain sites.  The goal is to increase our recycling efforts and reduce waste management costs.  The district is interested in setting up a compost program to deal with food waste from schools and the central kitchen, and to use the grass clippings from landscape maintenance.  From a fiscal perspective, it would save the district money on their waste management bill, plus they may be able to earn some money from selling the finished compost.  You gotta love a win-win like that!

Among other concerns are the uber-processed snacks that are currently available in the A La Carte Bar at Davidson.  Staff is reporting that many of their students avoid any real food all together, instead opting for several bags of chips for lunch.  We will discuss these issues at our next meeting and will select more suitable items to be offered instead.  In the meantime, we suggested to Elena that she stop placing orders for hot-cheetos and allow the surplus to run dry so that we can start fresh with better choices.

It’s ironic that over 50% of our students are on the free and reduced lunch program, but so many kids choose to purchase junk when they have the chance.  You would think that their bodies would crave better nutrition.  We had two guests at our meeting last week to discuss making fresh produce available at snack time to children who need it.  They work for the San Francisco Food Bank and have successfully set up food pantries at several schools in our community, where parents are encouraged to come and pick up bags of groceries.  But these gentlemen are eager to bring in additional produce to be served to hungry children during the school day.  Unfortunately, the food service staff, who has an upcoming audit in January, responded negatively and expressed concern that this might put them out of compliance.  Clearly, all of us are working towards the goal of feeding children better food.  After some discussion, the district staff said that they would see if they could come up with a way to collaborate with the food bank efforts.  Many of us were unclear about the details of this situation, but I’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

As we strive to make positive change in our school lunches, it seemed only appropriate that we revive the discussion about chocolate milk.  My school, Glenwood, is the only school in the district that still offers chocolate milk on a daily basis.  While the American Academy of Pediatrics remains an advocate of chocolate milk (as a vehicle to increase calcium consumption), we feel that it sends the wrong message to kids.  The extra sugar contributes to the obesity crisis that is plaguing our nation.  If parents feel that the only way to get their kids to drink milk is to add a chocolate elixir, then they can serve it at home.  It has no place in the schools.  (Nor, for that matter, do the gummy-like-candies shaped like Curious George.)  When Elena attempted to remove it from the menu, she was met with resistance from several parents who claimed that they had already paid for their milk for the remainder of the year.  As all parents know, we have to pick our battles – so we have decided that we will let this slide for now.  But in the fall, you can expect to see only white milk on the menu.

What’s next?

• A “No-List” of items that we will no longer tolerate on the menu
• Farm-to-Fork programs that may allow us to procure produce from local farmers
• Changing the items on the A La Carte Bar at Davidson
• Changing the presentation of our menu, so that it clearly explains what the kids are getting and displays nutrition information

I’d love to hear from you – what changes are you most excited about? What other changes would you like to see?  We have another meeting in a few weeks, and I need your feedback.  Please use the comments section below to share your thoughts.

Check out these posts that document our school lunch reform efforts:

• http://whatscookingblog.com/2010/04/14/school-lunch-reform-central-kitchen-renovation/
• http://whatscookingblog.com/2010/03/27/school-lunch-reform-2nd-meeting/
• http://whatscookingblog.com/2010/03/05/san-rafael-school-district-task-force-on-school-lunch-1/
• http://whatscookingblog.com/2010/02/11/changing-school-lunches-its-not-an-option/

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing recipes from our amazing Kids Cook for a Cause workshop at the IACP Conference (International Association of Culinary Professionals) in Portland.   I thought I’d start with the one that was the most intensely hands-on and fun for the kids to make:  Turkey Meatballs!

Turkey Meatballs
Recipe courtesy of Joel Olson, Hemmachef
(& Co-chair of the Kids in the Kitchen section of IACP)

1 pound ground turkey
1 small onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, pasted
1 teaspoon basil
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 egg
½ cup dry breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup chicken or turkey broth

1. Combine all the ingredients except the tablespoon of olive oil and half cup stock, in a bowl.
2. Mix well using clean hands.
3. Form the mixture into 24 even sized balls.
4. Dipping your hands in cool water will help keep the mixture from sticking to your fingers.
5. Heat the olive oil in a skillet.
6. Cook the meatballs in batches allowing them to brown all over.
7. Place all the meatballs in the pan, add the stock, bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to a simmer.
8. Cover and cook about ten minutes to finish.
9. Serve as desired.

Since we planned this event remotely and weren’t sure about the exact ingredients we would have on hand, we had to be flexible and make a few adaptations on the spot.  We didn’t have breadcrumbs, so we smashed up some crackers and added those instead.  And instead of pan frying the meatballs, we prepared them on baking sheets and cooked them in the convection ovens.  You’ll notice from the photos that some of the kids were wearing gloves – that’s a personal preference that some people exercise when handling raw meat.  Personally, I like the feel of the ingredients on my bare skin – but I can understand how some people may think it is more sanitary to wear gloves. The verdict: everyone thought that these turkey meatballs were a delicious and kid-friendly recipe…and some of the children couldn’t wait to cook these at home with their families!

Many thanks to Rose, who works for Saskatoon Turkey Producers in Canada, and generously donated the funds so that we could buy the turkey for our meal.

It’s not very often that I come across dads on Twitter…and even less common are dads talking about child nutrition.  TwinToddlersDad caught my attention because of his dedication for making child nutrition interesting and easy to understand.  Plus, he often writes about cooking with his adorable twins. I was thrilled when he agreed to share his recent quesadilla-making experience with us…

Quesadillas are so easy to make and, lucky for us, our twins like them a lot! Not only that, recently we realized that this way we could also involve them in a cooking project for some fun in the kitchen. They took turns spreading the chicken, shredded cheese and cilantro over a tortilla.Then came the second tortilla on top, next a little olive oil with a brush and then it was ready to go on a hot grille.

Chicken Quesadillas

Flour tortilla, about 12
1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken, fully cooked
Shredded cheese
Chopped cilantro
Olive oil
Salsa and yogurt

Directions:

1. Cook chicken and shred it into bite size pieces.
2. We cook chicken pieces slowly inside a covered saucepan on oven top. You could also bake or grille.
3. Place one flour tortilla on a flat surface like a cutting board and spread a few pieces of chicken, cheese and chopped cilantro.
4. Cover with a second tortilla and brush lightly with olive oil.
5. Place inside a hot grille at 400 ºF and cook until a crispy finish.
6. Serve with salsa and yogurt.

It is easy to get creative with quesadillas. Instead of chicken, you can also use grilled vegetables, rice and beans or even ground beef. The possibilities are limitless!

What is your favorite quesadilla recipe?

Do you have any fun stories and photos to share about cooking with YOUR kids?  I hope to share at least one reader story every week and can’t wait to hear about your adventures in the kitchen with your kids. Here is what you need to do.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the week I spent at the IACP Conference in Portland will be life changing.  I made new friends, met online pals in person, and learned from some of the best in the business.  And I ate.  A lot.

Before the conference started, I visited the Oregon Food Bank, where I did a training about Cooking with Kids for volunteers who work with families in nutrition education programs.  It was wonderful to connect with these women, hear their stories and help them with some of the challenges they face in their classes.   It was the first of many experiences during the week where it became crystal clear that I need to spend more time away from my computer and interacting with people in the community (no offense to you, my online readers, of course).

The following day was filled with adventure, cold Oregon weather, and fresh seafood as we made our way to Newport for a Sustainable Seafood tour and visit to the Rogue Brewery.  We explored the docks, learned about the different types of fishing vessels and their sustainable fishing strategies and ate an amazing meal, prepared by Charlie of Local Ocean.

Newport, Oregon

At the conference I realized that although I have inspired families to make sustainable food choices, I haven’t been nearly as successful at making sure that my business is sustainable.  I desperately needed some motivation and inspiration so that I can take my business to the next level and contribute more to our family’s income.  Thank goodness there were people there like Dianne and Lia, who could inspire us to “stay ahead of the curve” and focus on how to best build and maintain our “brand.”  And of course, with incredible presentations from the likes of Ruth Reichl, there was no shortage of inspiration.  She eloquently reminded us that we can change our food system by voting with our food dollars – which we did as we ate our way through Portland!

Food Carts, Portland

The grand finale for me was the Kids Cook for a Cause workshop that the Kids In the Kitchen committee and I had been planning for the past 8 months.  It felt as if we had been planning a wedding – and during the event, I was an emotional wreck.  Perhaps it was the lack of sleep – or maybe it was that I was overwhelmed by the pure goodness of everyone who joined our efforts.

My new friend Daniel captured it well:  “One of the most rewarding sessions I attended was Michelle Stern’s Cooking with Kids on the last day of the conference. We spent the morning teaching kids to cook and then served the food to those in Portland who needed it most…What better way to thank the host city that welcomed us so opulently than to give back to its most needy residents?”

For more information about our event, you can see the story in Sunday’s edition of  The Oregonian.

Kids Cook for a Cause, IACP Portland

It was wonderful to return home to my family.  I am exhausted but very inspired.  And I can hardly wait for the IACP Conference in Austin next year.

Just curious – what inspires you?
If you attended this conference, was there one experience in particular that left a lasting impression? If you weren’t at this conference but have been motivated by other experiences, I’d love to hear about them.  I think we can all benefit from a little passion and fire every now and then!

Thanks to Cheryl for her thoughts about cooking with her young girls!  I am thrilled that she offered to participate in What’s Cooking with YOUR Kids!  (I love her blog and adore many of the blogs in her blogroll – maybe What’s Cooking will make it there one day!)

Take it away, Cheryl…

I often spend my weekends in the kitchen with my girls. At not quite 2 and 4 it is a favourite activity for all of us. My oldest talks about us being chefs, even asking “What’s next, Chef?” with every new step.

I thought I’d share my recent experience making one of my family’s traditional Ukranian recipes for Babka.    You can find the full post here.

It’s only fitting that I felt compelled to make Babka on the day of the bake sale at my parents’ church. They would have sold Babka by the hundreds there. Not surprising since every single recipe I had seemed to make enough to feed an entire Ukrainian village. 10 eggs! 3 packages of yeast! 10 cups of flour! Oi vey.

So I did what any good Ukrainian would do. I called my mom. Unfortunately, she was at that bakesale, but my dad totally came through for me. He referred me to another cookbook in the family collection, where we found a recipe that could easily be adapted for a normal family size. And he said it looked a lot like the Babka that he was familiar with.

Did I mention that I’ve never made Babka before?

Such beautiful little hands!

Traditionally served at Easter, and part of the required items in the Easter basket to be blessed at church, Babka is a sweet, eggy bread. Our family likes our studded with raisins or currants. A lot of descriptions online call it something between a cake and a bread. Not so in my world. I always think of Babka as a sweet, rich bread, baked tall and best with creamy butter.  Babka is for spring, with a touch of citrus.

So the girls and I gathered our ingredients, put on our aprons, and set about to make a big giant mess. The good thing about making Babka is that it needs a lot of eggs, perfect for little hands. And what gorgeous little hands. I adore watching my girls’ attack dough in their attempts to knead it. The Monster even has the push – turn – fold technique down now. And so long as we can keep Smilosaurus from snitching bits of raw dough we end up with a nice piece set to rise. And rise. And rise again. Be forewarned, from start to finish this is a full day affair.

This recipe starts out quite wet, what with all those eggs, milk, and a juiced orange. You will have to play with the flour, adding as much as necessary.  Just go slow, adding a few tablespoons at a time. Your dough is ready when it is smooth, aside from the raisins, no longer sticky, and relaxes a little, just a little, when you stop kneading.

Babka is traditionally made into a tall, round loaf. You do this by baking it in cleaned out cleaned tin cans. You could bake it in a loaf pan, but that doesn’t seem quite as fun, or traditional. If, like me, you don’t have a lot of cans in your house you can ask a neighbour. Failing that, make plans to make sauce later and use the cans from some tinned tomatoes. Just make sure they are washed well. Then buttered quite well. If you are worried about the bread releasing from the can, line it with a strip of parchment paper, and more butter.

And when you are all done, make sure you call your parents to share your success. Then butter some slices for the next generation and enjoy with tea. Church blessings optional.

You can find the recipe at Cheryl’s blog (plus, you can peek at some more of her great photos!).

Do you have any fun stories and photos to share about cooking with YOUR kids?  I hope to share at least one reader story every week and can’t wait to hear about your adventures in the kitchen with your kids. Here is what you need to do.