That’s a LOT of greenery! We’ve already had salads galore, but I needed to figure out how to use the cooking greens, too, and in such a way that my family would eat them. Internet research told me that broccoli raab would be good with both pasta and sausage, so I decided to make a simple pasta dish.

I’m also trying out a new techie thing — I added that recipe with the Easy Recipe WordPress plugin, which formats your recipes to work with Google Recipe View. Pretty spiffy, eh?

Knowing how to really cook means that your child will be able to feed himself healthfully and economically, even if he loses his job and has no money.  Or if the power goes out and she has to concoct a meal over a fire or camp stove. It’s both a life skill and a survival skill.

So how do you make this happen? Painter included several suggestions in her article. My favorite is learn together. Painter suggests taking cooking classes together, which is fun if you already know how to cook, but is an excellent idea for those who don’t. Low cost classes are often available through community centers or through the community education department at community colleges.

You could also work your way through a cookbook together. This is a big part of  how I learned to cook. I had two kids’ cookbooks, and my parents (yes, both of them!) helped me make recipes from them. The Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook is great for this (even though it’s not the same one that I used, and still have).

Some books are more parent-oriented. Picture Yourself Cooking With Your Kids by Beth Sheresh, the kitchenmage, has tips and information for parents plus a wealth of recipes for parent and child to cook together. This book includes great step-by-step visual directions.

Hungry Monkey, by Matthew Amster-Burton, is part memoir and part cookbook. Amster-Burton includes advice for really enjoying food together, tips for helping kids start to cook, and recipes that the whole family will enjoy. He makes a point of not sticking to kid food. Recipes includ pad thai, bibimbap, and (my personal favorite) penne with brussels sprouts and bacon.

What’s Cooking With Kids is a website full of information from Michelle Stern, author of the soon-to-be-published Whole Family Cookbook. Michelle’s company  also offers classes and workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As for my family, we cook together sometimes. I’ve usually got at least one kid helping with dinner (the other main way that I learned to cook). But we don’t always make a formal effort to cook together. Perhaps we should do this on a regular basis?

What do you cook with your kids? Or, how did you learn to cook?

Disclosure: Those book titles up there? Those are Amazon affiliate links, so if you click one of those and buy something, I get a little bit of money to help run this site. Thank you!

Pease Porridge Hot, Pease Porridge Cold

I thought I’d throw some split peas, rice, and broth/water into the crock pot in the morning, and season it up for dinner in the evening. Easy, right? But the liquid/solid ratios are different in the crock pot. Usually you need less liquid in the crock pot, because the liquid doesn’t cook off as much. But apparently that doesn’t hold true for rice and/or split peas, so what I found when I got home was a fairly dry mush.

I had to take one kid to a LEGO club meeting, so I decided to wait and fix the meal after dropping her off. I stopped at the store and picked up some more milk (not related to the soup) and some pre-cooked bacon pieces.  I added some extra water to the mush and stirred in the bacon (as well as some sauteéd carrots and onions). It was still mush, not soup (mostly because of the rice), but we ate it. And we ate the leftovers later. But not nine days later.

Pizza and/or Breadsticks

I love pizza, but I’m currently (and successfully) losing weight. I wanted to try making a lower-fat, lower-calorie pizza. My plan was to use some frozen bread dough, homemade tomato sauce, part-skim mozzarella, turkey sausage, and olives. Frozen dough requires thawing and rising, which means the timing can be tricky. I asked my husband to take care of it during his midday break, when he’s normally home. The instructions for a quick thaw say to heat the oven to 200, put a pan of boiling water in the bottom of the oven, put the dough in a pan in the oven, and TURN THE OVEN OFF. Unfortunately, he missed that last step, so the dough thawed and then baked slowly at 200 until we got home.

Fortunately, when I bought the rest of the pizza fixings, I had also bought a large package of English muffins. So we had English muffin pizzas instead. And the bread? It was baked through, although flat, and it actually made a good appetizer, warm and torn apart into breadstick-like pieces.

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 cups dry white rice
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup diced, cooked chicken (and by diced, I just mean cut or torn up into pieces. Don’t stress.)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (I use low-sodium)
• 1-2 green onions (scallions)
• 1-2 cups frozen veggies (peas and carrots work well)
• 2 eggs

Get a LARGE skillet with a tight-fitting lid. I use a chicken fryer. It’s like 14 inches wide and 3 inches deep.  A large electric skillet might work well, too. If you don’t have a LARGE skillet, I suggest halving the recipe.

Pour the sesame oil into the skillet and heat over medium-high heat. I might use a little more than 2 tablespoons. You want enough that all of the rice gets coated. So add the rice, and stir it around until it’s all coated with oil. Then keep pushing it around until it starts to turn brown. You want to get most of the rice starting to brown, but without burning any of it.

At this point, pour in the chicken broth. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to low and put the lid on. Let the rice cook for 20 minutes, without lifting the lid.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the diced chicken with the soy sauce. Slice and/or snip the onion into small pieces and mix with the chicken and soy sauce. Let the mixture sit until the rice is done cooking.

If you’re using frozen vegetables, pour them into a colander and thaw them a bit by running warm water over them. Let them sit, too. If you want to add fresh vegetables, you may want to sauté them a bit while the rice is cooking. I usually use frozen veggies, but this time I also used fresh zucchini. I cut it into quarter-slices (slice in half lengthwise, then halve the half lengthwise and slice) and did not sauté or otherwise pre-cook it.

After 20 minutes, check the rice. If it’s fully cooked, go ahead and add the chicken mixture and mix thoroughly. Add veggies and mix again. Keep the pan on low, and put the lid back on for about five minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat the two eggs with a fork to break the yolks (as for scrambled eggs).

After the five minutes, turn the heat up to medium. Open the pan and push all of the rice mixture to the sides of the pan, leaving an empty space in  the middle. Hit the empty space with a bit of cooking spray, then pour in the eggs. Let the eggs set for a minute or two, and then gently scramble them until moist but mostly set. Don’t worry if some of the rice or veggies gets in there. When the eggs are mostly set, mix them throughout the rice.

Serve hot, with additional soy sauce. Feeds 4-6 people.

After making my strawberry freezer jam, our neighbor (a young, single lady) came over with two more bags of strawberries! She also gave us some strawberry plants, as hers are spreading too far.

I decided to try the Small Batch Strawberry Jam recipe that I’d seen at Cooking Up a Story, and made three jars of jam plus a little extra for the refrigerator. This recipe requires no pectin, which means the jam is a little runny (or may even turn out to be syrup). However, no pectin also means you can make it any time with any amount of berries; you don’t have to worry about measurements.

I did include a few partially green berries, on the advice of another website, because they are supposed to contain a small amount of pectin.

The canning process was totally not scary. I did buy a jar lifter and canning funnel, but I just used a stock pot I already had, with a small round rack (which I also already had) in the bottom. You do want a rack of some kind in the bottom so that boiling water can circulate under the jars. I should have bought the magnetic lid lifter as well. Trust me, you’ll want one.

The jars successfully sealed (POP!), so now I’ve got five half-pints of freezer jam and three half-pint jars!

From what we’ve seen (and there’s only one episode to go), Oliver did a great job developing relationships with people in Huntington and getting them to try cooking and eating his dishes.  He’s gotten both grade school and high school students eating healthy foods at school, although budgeting has been an issue, and one school cook in particular has been resistant to his methods.

The big question remaining is “Will this have a lasting effect?” I’m sure they’ll be addressing this in the last episode — although it’s really only been six months or so, and that’s not much time for creating or measuring lasting change.  This AP article cites a survey which says that children at the Central City school we actually buying fewer lunches after a month on Oliver’s program — they were bringing lunch from home instead.  Hopefully things have gotten better since then. The AP article also reports that the school principal has enthusiastically embraced healthy eating and has lost 20 pounds.

Although I agree that school food should be healthy, I think Oliver could have devoted more time to helping people eat healthy foods at home, too.  If parents aren’t willing and able to support healthy eating, kids aren’t going to be interested either.

Sarah Gilbert, a writer, locavore, and parent of three boys, has written about how families can eat Food Revolution-style on a budget. Her recommendations so far include eating seasonally and getting a handle on snack foods.

I’m also a fan of the Six-O-Clock Scramble, which helps me to cook healthy food with fresh ingredients, even on busy weeknights.

So how can we pass these ideas along to others? I’d love it if you’d share a link to this post (you can use the buttons below to tweet, share on Facebook, etc.), but I’m thinking about non-internet methods, too. What about teaching kitchens, like Jamie’s Kitchen in Huntington? Would people come?

Don’t forget to sign Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Petition! Our collective voice matters.

As a busy mom, what’s a typical day like for you?
I’m really disciplined about my time which helps me be super-productive most of the time.  After I eat breakfast, drink coffee and help kids get off to school by 8:30, I take my dogs for a walk in the woods, often with a friend (this is my prime social and exercise time) for 45 minutes to an hour.  Then I spend most of the day from 9:45 to 3:30 or 4 working while the kids are at school, with breaks for lunch, a shower, and a snack or other sanity break.

After the kids get home I try to stay off the computer and have a little time to engage with them and/or drive them or pick them up from activities (we carpool as much as possible).  I also use the afternoon time to spend at least 30 minutes on home-related stuff like dealing with the mail, cleaning off the counter and conquering items on my to do list.  By 6 or 6:30 I’m making dinner, depending on what we’re having and what the carpool schedule is like, and we usually sit down for dinner at 7:00.

After dinner and after the kids go to bed I often read and respond to personal emails for 20 minutes or so.  I try to go to bed between 10 and 11 depending on what time I need to get up the next morning.  Of course if the kids are sick or I’m travelling or anything else comes up, the schedule gets turned upside down.

How old are your kids now? Do they help with meal preparation?
Solomon turns 13 this month and Celia is 10 (she’ll be 11 in May).  These days they have a fair amount of homework and sports and music practice so they often don’t have time to help with dinner during the week.  They usually take turns setting the table, though, and if either of them is finished with all their responsibilities they like to help with dinner.  Celia likes to make salads and loves to bake, while Solomon loves to peel potatoes and other vegetables, squeeze citrus, and other hands-on tasks.  He’s also my videographer and editor for cooking videos.

Your new book (SOS! The Six-O-Clock Scramble To the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners For Busy Families) focuses on making meals more environmentally friendly. What else would you like to tell us about the book?
I’m really excited about the new book—it comes out next month, just in time for Earth Day.  The book has new recipes (about 300 of them) and some great strategies for growing your own herbs, composting, eating sustainable seafood and more meatless meals, deciding when to buy organic, and other earth-friendly tips and suggestions.  It’s also seasonal to help you shop locally and enjoy the best flavors, and it has a fabulous seasonal fruit and vegetable chart to help you plan your meals and grocery lists.

Do you have any plans for adding breakfast and lunch menus to The Scramble?
Not at this time, but we may be adding a dinner party planning feature and we have a new app coming out soon to help people use their grocery lists and menus on their iphones and other “smart” phones.

Thank you, Aviva! SOS! The Six-O-Clock Scramble To the Rescue comes out April 13, 2010 and is available for pre-order on Amazon.com (affiliate link).  If you’re interested in trying The Scramble meal-planning service, use the promo code GLKAT4852 to get $3 off on a 6 or 12 month subscription. I don’t get anything for recommending it, and I don’t get anything if you sign up. I’m just a satisfied customer.

Here’s how our evenings go: I leave work somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00. I weave through neighborhoods and past traffic on my Xtracycle (rain or shine), and pick up my two older daughters at their after-school program.

I ride home carefully with both girls on the back of the Xtracycle.  We check the mail and park the Xtracycle in the garage.  By this time, it’s probably almost 5:30.  If I’m feeling energetic, I start getting dinner ready; if not, I take a few minutes first.  My husband picks up our youngest at daycare, and arrives home soon after we do.

And yet most of the time, we eat tasty, healthy dinners with fresh fruits and vegetables.

I don’t know if I could do it on my own. I mean, I could, but The Six-o-Clock Scramble is what really keeps me going.

The Scramble is an online meal planning service. For about $5 per month (depending on the length of your subscription), you get five pre-planned dinner menus each week, along with a complete shopping list.

Do I always like the menus provided? Do they always work for me? No! And that’s why The Scramble is really cool.  It’s super-easy to swap out a meal you don’t like for one that you do, and create a custom menu plan. The website will create a custom grocery list based on the recipes you choose (although you do have to choose from the ones on the site; you can’t put in your own).

Sometimes I even skip the whole weekly menu and create my own custom plan. For instance, one week I looked at the calendar and knew that I wouldn’t have time to mess with anything unfamiliar or time-consuming. So I went to my saved recipes (yes, you can save your favorites) and chose five easy, familiar dinners that everyone likes.

You can also search the recipes on the site for specific dishes. You can search for certain ingredients, or for low-fat, low-sodium, meatless, etc.

All of the recipes on the site are designed to be healthy. Goldfarb usually keeps the salt content down (and of course you can leave out salt in most things if you need to). She also includes significant helpings of fruits and vegetables. Most of the main dishes contain 1-2 servings of fruits or vegetables, and she also includes side items, which are usually fruits or vegetables.  I often reach the grocery store checkout line with more produce than anything else, which pleases me.

What are the meals like? Tonight we had maple-soy glazed salmon with rice and stir-fried sesame-soy broccoli. Another family favorite is Italian Sausage Linguini with Grated Carrots, served with a green salad.  Most take 30 minutes or less to prepare.

Could I find good recipes and make my own grocery lists? Sure, but it would take a lot longer, or I’d forget to make a list and end up buying the wrong things.  The price is worth it to me.

Aviva Goldfarb is the founder of  The Six-o-Clock Scramble and the author of a cookbook by the same name. Come back Monday for an interview with Goldfarb, including information about her newest cookbook, to be released 4/13/2010.

Visit The Six-o-Clock Scramble website for more information or to subscribe.  Want to try it? Use the promo code GLKAT4852 for $3 off a 6 or 12-month subscription. I don’t get any compensation for recommending The Scramble, nor do I get anything if you sign up. I just love it, so I’m telling you about it!

Then, this past week I saw a suggestion from the local Master Gardeners’ twitter account:

Cover crop that feeds nitrogen to your soil? Plant fava beans now for spring eats, plant tomatoes when they’re done. Bam! Bam!

That sounded good. I Googled “how to grow fava beans” and found Harvest to Table, which told me that fava beans are a perfect cool-weather crop.  The site also told me how to plant and grow the beans, how many to plant per person in the family, and that they can be eaten fresh or can be frozen, canned or dried. I already knew that fava beans could be used to make both hummus and falafel, which are favorites of mine.

I didn’t, however, click the link for how to prepare and cook broad beans and fava beans. It didn’t worry me. I’ve cooked beans before.  So we planted them on Saturday. But on Sunday, my sister asked me “Have you ever actually cooked fava beans before?”

“Um, no,” I answered. “What?”

“Aren’t those the ones you have to shell twice?” my mother interjected cheerfully.

“Yes,” Wendy answered, explaining that while you’re supposed to be able to just eat them unshelled when they’re young, with mature fava beans “you have to shell them and then cook them and then shell each one individually.”

Uh oh.  We didn’t say any more about fava beans.  I looked it up later on Harvest to Table, and it’s true. Mature fava beans have to be removed from the outer pod, just like shelling peas, but then you have to cook them and “skin” them before eating.

That will be time-consuming. Perhaps we can just pre-cook them all and have a skinning party!

I’m still pleased to be gardening again.  And it’s not just fava beans. We’ve got an 8 X 8 raised bed (it’s the one that had pumpkins last year), and this time I’ve divided it down the middle with a small footpath, and then into squares à la Square Foot Gardening with twine.  My youngest helped me set up the squares; she handed me nails and cut the twine with scissors.

One row of squares is all fava beans, planted four seeds to a square.  There’s also a square each of carrots, lettuce and scallions. We planted these with some old-ish seeds to see if the seeds are still good. If they are, we’ll plant more (and if they’re not, we’ll open a less old-ish packet).  And we planted peas along the wire trellis.

In addition, the daffodils are blooming! I don’t do flowers in a big way, but I do like to have something blooming, and the daffodils are super-easy (as in, I do nothing whatsoever with them except deadheading).

I know some of you probably live in the land of still-frozen ground (I’m in zone 8, by the way), but is anyone else planting or starting seeds now?

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Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodista/ / CC BY 2.0

Later, I looked for a cooking method or recipe for Sunburst Squash. I found out that it’s really just a variant of pattypan squash. This post by Leslie Seaton at three bowls scared me, since she said it was bitter and she really, really didn’t like it. But I figured she could have gotten a bad squash. I did see some other interesting recipes, like this one for baked stuffed pattypan squash, with sausage in it (second recipe down). I only had one squash, though, so in the end I decided to just slice it and stir-fry it with some Italian sausage, peppers and onions.

I tasted one slice of squash raw, and found it had a mild nutty flavor. I tasted another piece half-cooked, and it did taste bitter, like Leslie had described. But once the squash was fully cooked and soft, it tasted fine again, with just a few bitter pieces. It went well with the Italian flavorings, and my family ate it with no complaints. Would I buy it again? You bet! I might even be willing to grow it.