Granola Bars

Granola Bars

This recipe is long overdue.  One of my gym buddies has been asking me ever since I started this blog if I had a good recipe for granola bars.  I have made granola in the past and have a couple of good trail mix bar recipes, but hadn't yet put the two together.  The problem I find with homemade granola bars is that without adding excessive amounts of sugar, it is hard to get the bars to stick together well, especially when you want to mix in healthy additions like dried fruits and nuts.  Oats alone, when soaked in some combination of oil and syrup, hold together well, so if that is what you are looking for, feel free to replace all or some of the nuts, seeds and fruit in this bar with more oats.  You might get bars that hold their shape a bit better.  That being said, these granola bars are ridiculously delicious, full of high fiber and high protein ingredients and are sure to please both kids and adults.  My daughter wasn't happy that most of the chocolate chips in them melted when I mixed the ingredients together and at first refused to take a bite, but once I convinced her to just taste it, she was won over.  I promised her that the next time I make them I will put a few chocolate chips on the top before I bake them so they retain their shape and are visible.  These bars are so yummy and so simple to throw together that I am certain I will be making many variations in the future and promise to post my most successful creations.

How I got my daughter to eat dinner

my daughter's plate

My five year old daughter is pickier than most picky eaters.  She could subsist on crackers, cheerios, cheese and milk alone if I let her.  But now that she is getting older, I am trying to figure out ways to get her to eat a bit healthier without it turning into what at times has seemed like an inevitable battle at every meal.  My steadfast rule has always been that as long as I get her to eat a small amount of produce first, she can have whatever she wants within healthy limits (cereal, crackers, yogurt, cheese, etc...). But this is drastically limiting her palate.  When we go out to eat anywhere all she ever orders is a plain cheese sandwich (not grilled!) and it is getting a bit embarrassing.

I have heard all the different tips about getting kids to eat healthfully: model good behavior (always), incorporate the produce into a main meal so they don't notice it as readily (doesn't often work with main meals, although it seems to work when I also include chocolate, as in a muffin with zucchini and chocolate)... I know food should never be a battle and that dinnertime should be a peaceful time for the family to gather and share, but when she comes to the table and sees anything other than crackers, cheese, a carrot stick or cherry tomato or two, or a bowl of yogurt, she screams.  I mean screams.  She is willful, smart, and knows what she likes, but I know that meal times have become frustrating for her as well.

Knowing I was frustrated, my mom sent me an article a few weeks ago that mentioned having your picky eater try "one teaspoon" of every food offered at the meal and once they have eaten that, they can have more of any of the foods that they happen to like.  The trick is to make sure that at least one of those foods is something you know they do like (obviously).  I thought I had tried this method before, but perhaps not so precisely and considering I have gotten into the habit of making more elaborate, spicy, exotic meals for my husband and I which my son will usually at least try, I had almost given up on trying to get my daughter to eat even "normal" dinner foods.

To my great joy, my daughter has also turned into a very aware vegetarian.  Her being picky, and me not serving or eating very much meat myself, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times she has consumed even a morsel of chicken or beef in her whole life.  Now that she is older and I am making my family more aware all the time of what they are eating, she has gotten into the habit of asking whether something she has been served or something that I am eating was at one time an animal.  She has told me outright that she never wants to eat animals because she "likes them to be happy and alive."  I can't argue with that and I have promised her that I will never ask her or trick her into eating an animal, ever.  So tonight when she picked up her tiny piece of vegetarian Italian sausage, she looked at me and asked "is this dead?"  Poor thing.  I assured her it wasn't and she reluctantly took a bite.

So on her plate, which I pictured above, I literally placed one bite of every food I was offering, plus a few of her favorites.  I had told her earlier in the day that we were going to "try something new at dinner" and have her take a bite of a few new foods before she got to eat anything else.  She had agreed earlier, but I was unsure what her reaction would be once dinner time actually came around.  To my delight, she did not yell or scream or even complain.  She looked at her plate, contemplated what to eat first, and picked up a pretzel.  I guess it is typical to eat what you know first to feel "safe".  But after the two pretzels and the one cracker were gone, she tried the veggie sausage, then the avocado, then the rice and then the broccoli (which she has eaten before).  She was not a fan of the sausage, said the rice was "ok", and actually asked for a second piece of avocado and broccoli before eating the tomato, carrot and then more pretzels, a stick of cheese and a granola bar.  She also ate about four more cherry tomatoes and some dried fruit.  So all in all, I have to say it was a success. And I can say is that if this worked with my daughter, it is at least worth a shot with other picky eaters as well.  I plan to try this again at most meals and hope that she finds a few new foods that she can add to her safe list.  Slowly but surely I am determined to create another healthy, adventurous eater.

Taco Salad with Crispy Polenta

Taco Salad
with crispy polenta

This meal was a creative way to use left overs from Taco Night. Instead of just eating tacos again, (which my kids did since we had tons of left over veggie meat, cheese, tortillas and taco shells), my husband and I opted for something a little more inventive.  I had bought a roll of organic polenta at the store earlier in the week thinking I was going to serve it with some left over chili out of the freezer, but decided to use it with the left over taco fixings instead.  I hadn't cooked polenta in a really long time and was hoping to find a way to cook it in the oven so I could get it all done at once and not make a big mess on the stove top. The solution?  Broil it!

I sliced up the polenta into 1/2 inch slices, coated both sides with organic canola oil and broiled them for about 20 - 25 minutes (4 inches from the broiler, with the oven door open). I never turned them over, just rotated the pan once in the oven about halfway through and they were perfectly crispy and delicious.  I even had enough for left overs again and the polenta was just as good cold as it was straight from the oven.