Here’s a peek at one of the recipes in my book Getting to Yum!
This dish has a melt-in-your-mouth flavor that kids tend to accept easily. I serve it warm in little cups as a starter (following our “veggies first” rule that we usually apply at dinner).
The purees in the book are designed to double as delicious blended soups for adults - saving time for busy parents. They freeze easily-so they’re our family’s “go to” fast food — just reheat straight from the freezer.
Bon appétit!
Long Live Squash! My farming relatives had a bumper crop of squash this year, and we’ve been experimenting with squash recipes for weeks. I’m hoping this recipe will appear in my cookbook (out next year) and would love your thoughts!
Equipment: 1 baking dish or roasting pan, grater, blender
Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 to 40 minutes
Servings: 4 adult servings
This is a great dish to make for babies who are transitioning to more solid foods, but who aren’t really ready to chew hard foods or chunks. My younger daughter (who took a long, long time to start chewing solid food) loved this dish, and we still love to make it on winter nights.
The ‘taste training’ element is in the dressing: the sweetness of the maple syrup and the acidity of the orange offsets the hint of sage—which pairs wonderfully with the squash.
As with the recipe for Butternut Squash Puree (above), I’ve calculated adult servings, as I am assuming you will want to enjoy this yummy dish along with your child!
1 large butternut squash
¼ cup water
1 tbsp butter, plus a few extra dabs of butter for the squash once baked
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup orange juice
½ tsp cinnamon
tiny pinch of sage (dried) — just a pinch!
optional: 1 tsp kosher (or sea) salt, sprinkled over squash just before serving
Preheat oven to 350F.
1. Preparing the squash: Halve the squash lengthwise and remove the seeds and strings. Rub the insides with butter (or a vegetable oil, to stop the squash from burning). Place on baking dish (or roasting pan) with ¼ cup water, skin side down. Bake in preheated oven (350 degrees) for 30 to 40 minutes or until tender when pricked with a fork. Remove from oven, sprinkle with salt (optional) and allow to cool. Place additional (optional) dabs of butter inside to melt.
2. Making the dressing: In a small pot, combine maple syrup and orange juice, heating gently (low-medium heat) for about 5 minutes. When warm, add the cinnamon and sage. Reduce heat to low, and cook (stirring occasionally) for about 5 minutes. Bonus: this will make your kitchen smell wonderful!
Serve warm, with warm dressing drizzled over top (kids love to drizzle their own dressing!).
Several readers have written to me asking for this recipe. Enjoy!
Grated carrot salad is a favorite dish for French kids. They eat it regularly for school lunch, and it’s popular at home as well. Even adults enjoy it as a starter. As a testament to its popularity, you can even find grated carrot salad pre-packaged in supermarkets (as one of the few salads which you can buy pre-prepared).
The fresh version is infinitely better, because the secret of this salad is in the texture: finely grated raw carrots that are simultaneously crisp and melt-in-your-mouth. They more finely grated the carrots, the more the natural sweetness of the carrots will dominate the flavor of this dish. For kids who have a hard time with crunchier textures, this might just be the dish that convinces them they love carrots.
8 large carrots
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of one orange
Juice of half a lemon
One bunch flat leaf parsley
Optional: a dash of Dijon mustard
Pinch of salt
Dressing: Mix the orange and lemon juice with the olive oil and the salt. Store separately until just before serving. You may want to add more oil, or lemon, depending on your tastes. But don’t overdress this salad! It should be nicely coated, but not swimming in the dressing.
Carrots: Peel the carrots. This is important, because the skin is often more bitter than the interior! Grate the carrots in fine shreds using a hand grater or machine. (These food mills are popular in France, and make fine, delicate shredded carrot—if you have one, use it!) The finer the strands, the more delicious the salad.
Parsley: Chop a quarter bunch of flat leaf parsley, in fine, small (I mean teeny, tiny) pieces. Make sure you don’t include any of the stems—just the leaves. Note: you don’t want dried parsley, as the fresh parsley offsets the texture of the carrots perfectly, whereas dried parsley tends to taste a bit crunchier and, well, dry.
Combine the carrots, parsley, and dressing just before serving. Best served slightly chilled or at room temperature.
Bon Appétit!
Ps Funny French Fact: Carrots are one of the few vegetables that French people regularly eat raw. For some reason, they tend to prefer most of their vegetables cooked (raw broccoli, even when served with a ‘vegetable dip’ is not something my mother-in-law approves of, for example!). I’ve never found a satisfactory answer to the question of why this is so. If you have an explanation, let me know!
This is one of our family’s favourite recipes (and one of the most popular recipes in French Kids Eat Everything!).
It’s a French kids’ classic, and actually sums up a lot about the French approach to kids’ food: elegant yet edible, beautifully presented, easy and quick to make. Tomates farcies (stuffed tomatoes) are both filling and fun. The tomatoes are hollowed out and stuffed (in this case, with a savory ground beef mixture), and then baked to perfection. The farce peeks out of the tomatoes in acoquettish sort of way, and children love lifting up the tomato “hats” to see what lies underneath. Served with something that can absorb the delicious juices (rice and couscous are our favorites), this is a complete and easy tasty meal.
Tomates Farcies
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 20 minutes (but make sure to preheat that oven!)
Servings: 4 small adult (or older child) servings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1/2 pound ground beef
4 large tomatoes
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Optional: 1 minced red or yellow pepper, 2 teaspoons dried parsley and/or oregano, salt, pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 375 ̊F (200 degrees C).
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over low heat. Add the onion and sauté until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high, quickly add the ground beef (to “seize” the meat), stir vigorously for 1 minute, and lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer the meat until thoroughly cooked, about 6 to 8 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the tomatoes: slice off the tops and set them aside, then hollow out the insides of the tomatoes with a small spoon, removing the flesh and pulp to a bowl. (The result will look like little bowls.) Turn the tomatoes upside down on a plate to allow the juices to drain. Chop the tomato insides and add them to the simmering beef mixture. (Optional: add diced red or yellow pepper along with the tomatoes.)
4. Combine the breadcrumbs, herbs, and spices in a mixing bowl. (I use a little parsley and oregano, salt and pepper, but my sister-in- law uses paprika. Get creative!)
5. Add the breadcrumb mixture to the meat in the skillet and stir thoroughly. Spoon the resulting mixture (the “farce”) into the tomato “bowls.” Sprinkle with Parmesan. Put the tops back on the tomatoes like little “hats.”
6. Place the tomatoes in a baking dish, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they are deliciously melt-in-your-month (fondant). Cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Bon Appétit!
I am very excited, and honored, to be doing this guest post for Karen. Her work is so worthwhile. I am a French mom living in LA, writing my FrenchFoodieBaby blog about my journey in educating my son’s taste buds and teaching him to be a healthy eater.
Here is one of Pablo’s favorite recipes when he was 12 months old. Adults can eat this dish too - it’s that tasty!
Serves 4
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 + 10 minutes
Serving to babies: 12 months and up in small quantities, pureed as appropriate. For babies who are already chewing, the mushrooms make a good finger food.
Note that you can use the sauce with any poultry dish; for toddlers, you could also serve it with a morsels of chicken, or a even a whole roasted chicken.
4 pieces of skinless chicken (either breast or thigh)
1 lb mushrooms, washed and sliced
6 tbsp of butter
4 shallots, peeled and minced
2 heaping tbsp flour
1/2 cup white wine (or white grape juice, or juice from canned mushrooms, if you want to go alcohol-free)
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp of tomato concentrate
1 bouquet garni (in a piece of hollow celery rib, put some thyme, parsley, sage, 1 or 2 bay leaves, cover with another piece of celery rib and tie with kitchen tie.)
Salt & pepper
5-6 sprigs of fresh chervil (if you can find it, I’ve had a hard time finding it in LA), stem removed, minced
5-6 sprigs of fresh tarragon, stem removed, minced
Cut the chicken in strips and set aside.
For the sauce:
In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the mushrooms. Add in the shallots, and cook for a few minutes.
Sprinkle flour, stir and let it get a bit of color.
Stir in the wine and broth. Add the tomato concentrate, bouquet garni, salt & pepper.
Stir and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer over medium low for about 15 minutes.
At this point, you can keep warm, covered, on very low heat, while you cook the chicken.
In a frying pan, heat some olive oil over medium heat. Sauté the chicken strips until cooked. Salt & pepper to taste.
Before serving the sauce, remove the bouquet garni, and incorporate the minced chervil and tarragon.
Pour sauce over the meat and serve immediately!
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