I grew up in the apple orchards of western Washington. From the time I was 3 though high school, if I wanted an apple and it was late spring, summer, or fall, I just walked out the back door and picked one. I ate them tart to sweet, but always fresh off the tree. Year around, I had wonderful homemade applesauce.

Once I moved out and had to buy my apples, I soon discovered that the apples in the store were often inferior to those I had grown up with. One of my favorite apples growing up, the golden delicious, is the worst. It is never crisp, and seems to be a shadow of those freshly picked apples of my youth. To a greater or lesser degree, that is true of all the apple varieties. Fortunately, I can still make a good applesauce with them, almost as tasty as my childhood memories.

It doesn’t matter if you live in an apple orchard or the city, you can still make a quick and simple applesauce that tastes wonderful. For me, this applesauce brings me back to my childhood. The guide varies ever so slightly depending on your source of apples. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Simple City Applesauce

• 1 or 2 of each apple variety found in your local store. If there is an apple you know you don’t like, skip it (I skip the golden and red delicious apples). This allows you to get at least a few of the very best apples and ensures your apple sauce is favorable.
• Water to cover
• Cinnamon to taste

1. Peel core, and slice the apples.
2. Place in a pan, and cover with water.
3. Add some cinnamon until you like the smell (skip this step if you do not like cinnamon).
4. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer, stirring regularly.
5. When apples fall apart and cook down to the consistency you like, it is done. This can be as short as a half hour for a small batch to several hours for a large batch.

Homegrown Applesauce

If you happen to have a good source of apples, such as when I get some of my dad’s Pink Lady organic apples, you can make an even better applesauce. Follow the directions above; using just the high quality apples you have instead of a mix of apples. If you are lucky enough have clean apples (not sprayed with stuff you don’t want to eat), you can even up the nutritional value by leaving the skin on the apples. If you do this, you will want to blend it and sift it at the end to break up the apple skin. This applesauce can be canned or frozen for later use.

I hope you enjoy your applesauce, I know I do.

As you know, Samantha took an interest in cooking by the time she turned 1. Now at 18 months, she loves to stir, measure, and place items for cooking (with my help). She wants to help me slice, which presents a problem. I will not hold Samantha when slicing food since I don’t want to hurt her. Yet, not only does she want to be with me, she wants to help. What options do I have?

As it turns out, 18 months is plenty old enough to let her start cutting, as long as I have the right tool. I found a about a 17 month old learning to cut with a wavy cutter.  It seems that the Montessori approach to teaching as built up a large amount of <a href= options to teach children about food, and I stumbled onto one of them.

Excited, I headed over to Amazon to find one of these wavy cutters for myself. This is what I found:

Vegetable Crinkle Cutter and French Fry Slicer

When I got the wavy cutter, I eagerly looked at it. No sharp edge, it is designed to use pressure to cut potatoes. After making some oven baked fries cut with this, I decided to see what else it was good for. Not surprisingly, it just squished the tomatoes, but worked real well with mushrooms. So when Samantha got home from school, I had her cut some mushrooms. She loved it. While she will need to practice her new skill some, she is well on the way to helping me chop fruits and vegetables in the kitchen.

I’ve been doing this blog for six months now, and I absolutely love it. In that time, I have learned so much, and connected with so many wonderful people. I’ve also learned about the balancing act of having a blog, a full time job, and a family.

Most recently, I’ve had to choose between taking care of my daughter’s food needs and writing articles that will help your children through food culture. You see, Samantha is showing signs of a worsening food allergy problem. I have needed to figure out how to keep her on a mostly balanced diet while putting her on an elimination diet. I will share my experience with you to help your children once I have her in a better place. Until then, I have less time to blog, or anything else. As I am sure you can understand, my Samantha comes before everything else in the world for me.

I want to ensure that you get the most possible from my limited time to blog. As such, I am going to become a bit more structured in how I am doing things, so you know exactly what to expect from me and Your Child’s Food.

• I will continue to send out the weekly Challenge emails. We are almost half way through the challenge now. I am excited to be getting close to the halfway theme, in which cooking in with your children is featured.
• I will add one new blog post each week. The topics I have wanted to write about bug have not had time to include dealing with your child’s allergies, what you can do to minimize the drought’s effect on your wallet (assuming you are in the US), and product recommendations in addition to posts about each of the thirteen topics.
• Your Child’s Food has never been just a recipe site. This is because there are so many recipes out there that I wanted to provide more culture support than straight recipes. I feel that each of us has a unique look on recipes as well as unique tastes. I will post a few recipes on my Facebook page each day. Any recipes you would like to share, just post on my Facebook page.
• The book giveaway which ends tomorrow will be the last book giveaway I do. It is just taking too much of my limited time. I will continue to review books as part of the blog, but I don’t want this blog to turn into a book review blog. If you want to enter to win the last book review, please do so today.
• I will be building an Amazon store front around the products I recommend. I hope you find these products as useful as I do. An additional benefit of shopping from my recommendations is it helps to financially support Your Child’s Food. This helps me do more and reach more people. It helps me help you and other families. (You can also support Your Child's Food by starting each Amazon Shopping Trip from the link at the top of the page)

I have enjoyed the beginning of this journey we are taking together. This is only the beginning. Together, we can bring the Kitchen heart back into the forefront of our culture. Together, we can change everything with this one change.

Now that you know where I am at, please let me know where you are at. What has been useful to you so far, and what would you like to see in the future?

Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Claire

Dinner: A Love Story: It all begins at the family table

 Dinner, A Love Story is a book based on the blog by the same name. Jenny, the creator of the blog and author of the book, takes you through her path to get dinner on the table for her daughters, with everything that comes with it.

The book takes you through three stages of her adult life; learning to cook (pre-children), new parenthood (the family dinner vow), and the family dinner (older children). The stories inside are fun to read and insightful. Having a hard time with a picky eater, and not sure how to stop fighting at the dinner table? Jenny has been there, and can give you some insight. Scattered throughout the book are recipes, all very easy to make and follow.

Our family tried Baked Sausage with Apples, Potatoes, and Onions. The recipe, which featured whole new potatoes and sausage, was very easy to make. This list of ingredients was short, and there was very little chopping included. This gave me time to play with Samantha before dinner.

The seasonings included a simple array of fresh thyme, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, and mustard. As I mentioned before, I don’t tend to put salt in most of my cooking, so I probably went a bit light in that area. Additionally, I tend to use more spices and herbs than others. That said my family found the flavor lighter than we desired. I would have preferred to cut the potatoes to allow the cider vinegar to soak in, and probably used twice as much of the fresh thyme and vinegar.

If you would like to try this at home, here is how:

Baked Sausage with Apples, Potatoes, and Onions

Preheat the oven to 425 °F. Combine 3 cups whole small potatoes and 1 onion (chopped in large chunks) in a large baking dish and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, the leaves from 4 springs of fresh thyme, salt, and pepper.

Place 4 sweet Italian pork sausages on top of the vegetables. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, until sausage is brown on top. Using tongs, flip over the sausage and bake for 10 more minutes.

Meanwhile, chop 2 Granny Smith apples (unpeeled) and toss with a little more olive oil, salt, and pepper. Scatter the apples around the sausage, and drizzle 2 tablespoons cider vinegar over the whole dish, and bake for 5 more minutes. Serve with dollops of spicy brown or Dijon mustard.

Twist It Up: More Than 60 Delicious Recipes from an Inspiring Young Chef

What I love about the cookbook Twist It Up by Jack Witherspoon is the story about the accessibility and healing power of food. At the young age of six, Jack had a recurrence of leukemia, which is apparently really bad. The second time being treated was worse than the first. Jack was not able to continue with sports, and had to leave school so he could frequently stay in the hospital for four to five days a week. Talk about taking away a boy’s childhood!

But Jack found one thing he could think about besides being sick – cooking. He stumbled across it will channel surfing, and found that it was something he could do, even though he was very sick, and only six years old. Jack has since decided to become a chef, and has participated in several big cooking related fundraisers to help find a cure for leukemia.

Jack finished his second round of treatment in 2009. It left him with several challenges, but with a love for cooking and a passion to make a difference. Looking at the impact both leukemia and food has had on his life, I can’t help but to be in awe of the healing power this boy saw in food.

My family tried the Chicken Cacciatore recipe from the cookbook. One of the wonderful things about this cookbook is the “twist it up” note for each recipe that helps people make a meal their own. We first tried the recipe as was, and then “twisted it up” in our own way for the second night. This recipe will be making it into our regular rotation.

My husband, who prefers sausage to just about any other meat, thought it was good. Considering this had chicken instead of sausage, this is a win in my book. While I really liked the recipe, I felt it had too much salt in it. This is something you will hear me say quite often, as my family does not like much salt in our food. But the other flavors were wonderful, and really hit the spot.

Samantha loved it the first night, and tried to eat as much of the sauce as she could. The second night, the noodles, chicken, vegetables, and sauce were more evenly mixed up. Simply from being able to handle the food better, she seemed to like the dish as a whole even better.

Try Chicken Cacciatore tonight, and pick up Twist It Up for a wonderful cookbook the whole family can enjoy.

Chicken Cacciatore

Serves 4 to 6

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• One frying chicken, about 3 ½ pounds, cut into serving pieces
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 green bell peppers, seeded, deveined, and chopped
• 8 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
• Two 14 1/2 ounce cans chopped tomatoes
• Two 14 1/2 ounce cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 3 teaspoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 pound linguine pasta
• Freshly grated Parmesan for serving

1. In a large, heavy pot, warm the olive oil over medium-high heat. Generously salt and pepper the chicken pieces, add to the pot and brown on all sides. Using tongs, transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. Add the onion, garlic, green peppers, and mushrooms to the pot, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, broth, brown sugar, oregano, thyme, and parsley and stir well.  Return the browned chicken to the pot. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through and tender.
3. When the chicken and sauce are almost done, cook the linguine in a large pot of salted boiling water for about 9 minutes, or until al dente. Drain. Divide the pasta among the plates and spoon the chicken and its sauce next to the pasta. Serve with fresh Parmesan alongside for sprinkling.

Jack’s Twist It Up

(I did not make any of these changes.)

“To make this sauce richer, add 3/4 cup heavy cream or half-and-half while the chicken is simmering. Stir to be sure the mixture is well combined. This dish is terrific with pasta, but it’s really good with garlic mashed potatoes (page 91), too. If you go the potato route, be sure to have some fresh green beans on the side.”

My Twist

Out of necessity (what I didn’t have on hand), I made a few changes to the recipe: I used boneless chicken breasts and thighs instead of the fryer chicken. I used just under 4 pounds of chicken. I was out of brown sugar, so I used some honey instead. My chopped tomatoes and chicken broth were salt free. I used whole wheat linguine pasta, and did not cook it in salt. I also forgot to add the cheese on top.

The second night, I chopped and incorporated the pasta into the sauce, as well as chopping up the chicken. This was all mixed together well and evenly. I also remembered the cheese for those who could have it.

When I make it again, I plan on keeping these changes, as well as not salting the chicken and replacing the green peppers with yellow or orange peppers (maybe one of each). Additionally, I will taste it before adding the sugar to see if it is needed after the reduction of salt in the recipe.

I hope your family enjoys this dish and this book as much as mine did.

For my fourth cook book giveaway, I am looking at books that bring us to foods we like to eat, and that seem like a more traditional look on food. The first book, Nourishing Traditions, was recommended by a visitor, while the second is one I came across and thought was a wonderful idea. Have a cookbook you want to recommend for my giveaway? Let me know on my Facebook page. 

The books this month are:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

The 150 Healthiest Comfort Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About How to Make Over Your Diet and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Foods You Love and Crave

There will be two ways to enter:

1. Be a Challenge Taker by taking the Your Child's Food One Year Challenge. The Challenge Taker Winner will get their pick of the cookbooks, but will be randomly selected.
2. Actively participant in the Your Child's Food community, either here or on Facebook and commenting below on which book you would like to win and why. The winner is chosen completely randomly/subjectively, and the choice is final.

The giveaway ends 9/16/2012, and the winner will be announced on 10/1/2012. Read the cook book giveaway page for complete rules.

Enjoy.

Hidden Inside Her Pots and Pans

A Love of Cooking Grows

Running Through the Slices of Her Life

Sprouting up the Simplest Path

A Happy and Healthy Toddler at Play

Everything a Mommy Wants

Magic Hidden Inside Her Pots and Pans

Check out my inspiration for this poem: The Ulterior Motive in My Pots and Pans, and My Toddler

I am excited to have a guest post from Anne at Green Eggs & Moms. I hope you enjoy the post as much as I do. (I had no idea she loved vampires like I do.)

Did you know that a grocery store’s layout is based on neuroscience and marketing research?

Your grocer has one goal, and one goal alone:

To get you to buy more.

They spend a lot of money on analyzing a consumer's buying behavior, and implementing techniques that work.

But guess what? The secret is out and you can shop more wisely! What’s even better is that you can educate children on how to resist marketing tactics employed by supermarkets.

But why do you need to increase children’s defenses against these marketing spells?

So they can make better decisions when it comes to buying healthier products, as opposed to dumping sugary snacks into the cart.

Also, being baited by impulse buying means more money is spent. Don’t you want your children to learn how to buy only what they need?

How can you teach children to ward-off marketing spells, then?

1. Make a list together. This acts like a battle plan. Your mission is to go in the store and only buy items on the list. This tactic thwarts impulse buying.

2. Set a time limit. A partnership between Path Intelligence and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the longer people stay in a grocery store, the higher the sales.

So, with the help of #1, you and your child can avoid:

• wandering down the aisles only to be lured into impulse buying, and
• buying more than what is needed

Now that we’re done with the planning stage, it’s time teach children to grab for healthy food.

3. Even if Dora is on the cereal box, it doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Cereals in general are healthy treats, but not if they’re laced with sugar. Unfortunately, with the help of advertising, companies are making it more difficult for children  to resist opting for these snacks, because of the characters displayed on the box.

A study published on the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that characters – well known or not – affect children's taste perception.

The simple act of placing Ronald McDonald, for example, on a snack, wires children to think the treat is delicious. And this is fine if the snack is a healthy one. What if it isn’t?
Teach your child to choose less sugary cereals or snacks by reading the nutrition label. (If your child is too young for this, still go through the motions and explain what you're doing.)

A great way to teach children about nutrition labels is through this online game, so you may want to check it out.

4. “Can I make this at home?”
According to this article from Brain Engineering, stay away from bagged salads, protein or energy bars, pre-formed burger patties and canned tomato sauce, because they can be made at home - which will turn out to be cheaper.

Packaging does cost more so buying these items in the supermarket will cost you extra.

But price is only the secondary goal here. Remember that food items stacked on grocery shelves contain preservatives, to increase their shelf-life. And preservatives are unhealthy.

Getting your child to help prepare a salad at home, for example, not only ensures she ingests less preservatives, but also makes her more invovled and interested in her food.

Note: The “Can I make this at home?” question is designed to help you reflect on whether you have the time to make packaged food items at home or not. The answer is different for everyone. Also, this isn't intended to pressure moms into creating homemade goodies all the time, especially if time is something scarce.

Before you equip your child with these essentials...

Remember that your goal is to teach them to shop wisely. Why? So when they reach adulthood, they can make healthier food choices and save some money along the way.

Do these 4 steps with the kiddo whenever you go to the grocery and you’ll be handing down a valuable life lesson: the ability to ward-off marketing spells.

What do you think of this 4-step system?

About Anne: Anne Mercado is the quirky author behind Green Eggs & Moms, which offers clever parenting articles to keep moms with young kids sane. When she's not hunched over the computer working, you can find her either counting down to ten to get her kiddo to move faster, or reading a horror book. She also loves vampires and zombies.

Photo credit: morgueFile

The Challenge Taker Winner for the month is Julie. Julie and her son (1 old) live Ankeny, Iowa, United States. Julie picked Packing up a Picnic for her book.

Packing up a Picnic: Activities and Recipes for Kids (Acitvities for Kids)

The Visitor Winner for the month is Brenda. Brenda, and her three sons (16, 12 and 98 years old) live in Decorah, Iowa United States. Brenda is the winner of the Simple 1-2-3 Kid’s.

Simple 1-2-3 Kids Recipes

Soup is good for the soul, and for the sick, right? I have always felt that way. But when I got a sinus infection recently that resulted in chicken noodle soup making me sick, I figured I needed to do something else. That something else took the form of two things:

1. A visit to my doctor to say they needed to know what was wrong, not just guess – complete with a sinus scan (very worth doing).
2. A chance link from Sumptuous Spoonfuls on a soup for just my problem: Magic “Feel Better” Soup.
   
   

It is the later item that I would like to share with you. After all, it resulted in a delicious soup that was, in fact, good for the soul and for the sick. The original recipe had some great flavors in it, but called for dairy, something I cannot eat. So I thought I would use some coconut yogurt for the yogurt, and some almonds for the parmesan. Additionally, I wanted ginger to add to the healthy effect.

These changes made me think of some great Thai variations to use with this potato based soup. Potatoes in Thai cooking, unless it is sweet potatoes, do not seem that common to me. But they sounded good to me.

I figured out the changes I wanted to make, and then thought of a variation to give Samantha (I am not about to feed my 14 month old hot sauce – as hot sauce can burn out taste buds). Instead of Sriracha hot sauce, I decided to make hers with sweet chili sauce.

So how did it turn out?

I found the soup to be very good. The potato base and the live cultures in the yogurt helped my stomach from the effects of the medication I am on. The garlic, ginger, and hot sauce helped me breath better during the meal. Additionally, the fresh greens and vegetables are natural sources of nutrients, something I really need right about now.

For Samantha, it was not a slam dunk. As she has recently acquired the skill to eat with a soup by herself, I have not made soup for her before. However, she does get to paint a fair amount. So Samantha saw this bright green soup as a wonderful paint, which just happened to taste good, and spent more time painting than eating. Considering this was her first soup, this is okay. But next time, I think I will make her soup a bit thicker, more like mashed potatoes.

 Want to try this variation of the soup at home? Here is how:

Thai Inspired Magic “Feel Better” Soup

• 2 small potatoes, cut in hunks (about 2 cups)
• 2 small carrots, diced (about 1/2 cup)
• 5 smallish cloves of garlic, smashed but whole
• 1 stalk lemon grass, cut into thirds, and then the top 2/3s cut lengthwise to maximize the flavor (you should have three pieces that you can fish out later)
• 1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1 can chicken broth plus ¼ cup homemade chicken broth (homemade is better, but this is what I had on hand)
• 3/4 cup onion, chopped
• 2 cups fresh rainbow chard, chopped
• 2 cups fresh bok chow, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (including stems)
• 1/2 cup purple basil, chopped
• 1 container So Delicious Greek Style Coconut with live cultures, plain
• Sriracha hot sauce or Sweet Chile Sauce
• Sliced Almonds
• Chives, chopped

1. Put the potato, carrots, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, onion and broth into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer (medium low) and cook for 30 minutes or until the potato is fall-apart tender and the other vegies are soft.
2. Fish out the lemongrass and stir in the chard and bok choy. Cover the pot and cook for 5 minutes or until the greens is cooked. Add the herbs.
3. Pour the soup into a blender (or use an immersion blender), add the coconut yogurt and blend until smooth. Add more broth if you want a thinner soup or reserve some broth if you would like a thicker soup. Serve hot, topped with Sriracha or sweet chili sauce, almonds and chives.