After weeks of offering my 2-year-old different foods, I’ve come to the conclusion he’s a carbohydrate-loving toddler. Give him crackers, toast, noodles, even Singapore Mei Fun, he’ll gobble it up. I try and balance out the starchy food by given him multi whole grain bread and even toasted Weight Watchers pita, which has six grams of fiber. So far he’s lapping it up.

Though he’s fussy, he just loves my home-made oatmeal, a recipe handed down by my grandmother. I thought I’d share it with all of you who are looking for something new to try. It takes about a half hour to make, but it’s worth the trouble. I usually make it as I drink my morning cuppa, so it doesn’t seem that long. Here goes:

Half cup of instant Quaker whole grain oats
2 teaspoons of ghee or clarified butter (you can find it in Indian stores or at Trader Joe’s or at similar stores). If you can’t find it use unsalted butter.
1 cup of warm water
3 cups of whole milk
Sugar, to taste

Heat ghee in a pot. When it melts add the oatmeal. Saute the oatmeal till it become’s golden and aromatic, about five minutes. Add the water and stir till it dries up. Add half the milk and bring it to boil. Let it simmer on low heat. When the milk evaporates/thickens, add the sugar, stir, and add the remaining milk. Simmer till the oatmeal becomes creamy.
If it’s more that your toddler can eat, refrigerate it and it will keep for a couple of days. When you’re ready to serve it again, just mix with more milk and heat.

Let me warn you, though. There may be no leftovers. It’s so yummy that mom may eat all the leftovers. Enjoy!

A few months ago, we embarked on our most ambitious summer project yet.

An organic vegetable garden in our backyard! We planted tomatoes, zucchini, green chilies, basil, cilantro, peppermint, cucumbers and bell peppers.

To our delight, most (R.I.P cucumbers) of the vegetables survived our less-than-perfect tending. And we had our first harvest last week!

The kids enjoyed getting their hands dirty and watching the veggies “being born.” But the best part, they say, was popping the cherry tomatoes into their mouths, soon after harvesting them.

The project allowed the kids to make the farm-to-table connection, and they’ve grown a special fondness for yellow bell peppers. Bonus!

We’ve all done it: Opened the package of cheese, noticed a little whitish substance on it, looked over our shoulder, scraped it off and served it.

But we’ve also wondered if that was the right thing to do. And with little ones in the house, that concern has deepened.

So what’s a mom or dad to do? Should we or shouldn’t we rip the moldy crust off the bread and eat it anyway?

Fortunately, ABC News wondered the same thing and asked the experts. (Though, even cooler, there are sensors that can tell when milk’s gone bad or when other food’s been spoiled by salmonella, e.Coli or other bacteria.

First off:

“It may not taste good, that doesn’t mean it’s going to make you sick,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia in Griffin. … “There’s a big difference between spoilage and what’s going to make you sick,” Doyle said. “Often spoilage bacteria will outgrow the harmful bacteria and protect [the food].”

Check the temp in your fridge: For leftovers, “no more than four days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees centigrade.” Fresh food can be frozen at zero Farenheit and should be good, more or less, forever. And the 40 degrees F is good for three days with raw chicken, ground beef, cuts of beef and lamb.

The slimy film on food or other visual or aural cues can help you realize that the food is starting to get too warm, however.

So wait until the end of your shopping trip to grab the meat/poultry/fish. The less time it has to get warm, the better.

And good news on the mold front, so long as you’re not allergic:

Most mold that grows on bread or fruits isn’t toxic, according to M. A. Cousin, a food microbiology and mold expert at Purdue University.

No one’s looking!

I had long known that frozen grapes make great snacks—practically calorie-free provided you don’t eat bunches and bunches of them—but I didn’t realize that frozen blueberries are just as nice. Although now I come to think of it, that may have been mentioned here before.

My husband and oldest went blueberry picking last weekend and came home with twice the amount they expected. Apparently the fruit is still in season and the bushes they were directed to hadn’t been cleaned by previous pickers.

So I made a blueberry coffee cake that was vastly improved with a drizzle of icing. My oldest made blueberry crisp and a blueberry slurry with dumplings in it, and we still had lots of berries left over.

She popped them in the freezer. The information from the berry farm said not to wash them first because they freeze in clumps that way, but washed they were. We’re a daring family, we are.

Yesterday, she got out the container, stirred the frozen berries around a bit—they’re more like marbles at that point—and put a handful in a cup. Then she wandered around the house eating the frozen berries as a snack.

She said she put them in yogurt and they created little islands of frost around them.

Just a thought for a family looking for a healthy, low-calorie and entertaining snack for the youngsters. And try the grapes, too.

Colleague and foodie extraordinaire Liz Johnson has a great reader-submitted recipe for zucchini pesto on her blog, Small Bites. It looks like a slam dunk for veggie-averse kids — go Montebello mom Daniela Sepulveda! 

I’m going to try it this week and report back. And since we’ve been talking so much about eating cheaply and locally, this could be a hit on both fronts. My local farmer’s market is overflowing with zucchini right now. 

(And I already know the baby will love it—she was the only one to appreciate the fried zucchini “cakes” I made a few weeks ago and devours anything with basil pesto. I guess one out of three isn’t bad!)

(Poughkeepsie Journal file photo)

  

The Wall Street Journal just had a short story about organic frozen kids’ meals. Mixed reviews from their tween and teen testers. Check it out here.  (Personally, I want the whole Jetsons experience of pressing a button on my fridge and making a tasty, nutritious meal for the kids fly right onto the table.) 

The latest in news of the obvious is a recent Federal Trade Commission report is that, in 2006, food and drink companies spent $1.6 billion marketing to children.

The commission studied spending directed at children ages 2-17. Spending on soda marketing came to $492 million, with the vast majority of that spending directed toward adolescents. Restaurants reported spending close to $294 million, which was divided about evenly between children and adolescents. For cereals, companies spent about $237 million with the vast majority of that amount targeted to children under age 12.

I try not to let the little guys watch shows on commercial television. I realized the extreme power of commercials after Rafael had watched a particular episode of Babar a few times. He started insisting to me that we needed a “one-touch jar opener.”

It took me a few minutes to even figure out what he was saying, then I realized I’d seen that commercial once before fast-forwarding through the ads. It was one of those infomercial-type weekend commercials. You know, the ones that have the production quality of the Ronco or Cher full-length infomercials but (blissfully) only last 30 to 60 seconds.

We keep the television watching to a minimum, but when it’s on, it’s usually on PBS Kids or Noggin — no ads. Even so, he so totally wants the pancake puff pan, which he also saw in a commercial.

Which just goes to show that children are extremely susceptible to these ads. Interestingly enough, according to an article in Time magazine, the spending was less than some estimates.

I know I’ve frequently complained about what a fussy eater my (nearly) two-year-old is, but it was really driven home in the last couple of weeks when my sister came to visit from India with her husband and daughter, who is 22-months old.

While Aristu munched on his cheerios and fussed through his fried egg, Tilli began her morning with — get this — sprouted mung mixed with chopped red onions, tomatoes, cilantro and doused with lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Then she would eat her egg white and finish off breakfast with cherries and strawberries. Watching her from his high chair, Aristu would poke his finger through his strawberry and later mush it till it ran like blood through his fingers. I got to clean the mess.

My kid sisteer insists her daughter’s love for fresh, healthy food comes from her husband whose family owns a farm on the foothills of the Himalayas. When my brother-in-law recently accompanied me to our local ShopRite, he balefully glared at the bright red tomatoes and asked me, “That’s GM, right?”

In the end I’ve concluded it isn’t that Aristu is a poor/fussy eater; rather my neice is a rare foodie/health freak who inherited her love of fresh food from her father. For the record, my husband loves steak and potatoes. Poor Aristu has no chance.

So a couple of weeks ago, I came across “Around the World Cookbook: More than 50 International Recipes for Children” at our office book fair, a collection of fun recipes to try with your little ones.

Though I have often summoned my sous chefs for baking cupcakes, I had never really allowed them near the open flame. The kids were so excited by the prospect, they spent an entire evening sifting through the colorful recipes and picking the one (their search was restricted to one each) they wanted to cook.

My daughter’s choice was “Vegetable Fried Rice,” and my son wanted to try, “Caprese Salad.” The next day, we set up our workstation on the kitchen island: two chopping boards, two knives, some assorted tools and me in the center. That was the most strategic decision I made, given the constant, “She got to do that, what about me?”

I discovered my 5-year-old son could hold his hand steady enough to slice a green pepper, and my 7-year-old daughter was an expert carrot grater. Who knew?

Once the prep work was done, they stood on little step stools to reach the large wok on the range. I was surprised by how careful they were while stirring with the ladle, and truly impressed by the quality of the final product.

The fun we had was not lost on my hubby, who picked out two adorable kiddie aprons (pink for Sanjana; red for Krishna) from Williams-Sonoma during our trip to the store last weekend. What are some of the recipes you have tried with your kids?

In the last month or so, Zyla, my 16-month-old, has developed a habit for drinking water or “gwa-gwa” as she puts it (she’s used to hearing agua not water). I usually just fill up her sippy cup and off she goes to quench her thirst. She’s even pretty adept at taking a water bottle and gulping it down with nary a spill.

Her favorite is drinking ice cold water from her mom’s glass. Believe me, it’s no easy feat making sure the ice cubes don’t escape into her tiny throat.

But all this H2O started me thinking about when is enough enough, especially after noticing that her stools are not as firm as they used to be. I’m not sure how much water intake she has per day since I’m not with her for most of it, but it’s definitely more than a cup.

Adults are usually told to drink 8 glasses a day for good health. A quick Internet search said that toddlers should drink 24 to 36 ounces a day.

Anyone have recommendations or some water tales to share?

Photo courtesy of TJN.