High Maintenance Mom

There was a blog post on the New York Times web page (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/) that really interested me and several of my Mom friends. I was pleased to see that we already eat many of the 11 foods they said people are not eating. I went to work trying all of them on my family. My kids are fairly easy eaters but my 16 month old can still thumb his nose at things so I was not sure how he would handle some of the not so popular things on the list.

Beets- I started with beets but that was easy because I used the Pink Pancakes recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook Deceptively Delicious and they now have them every weekend. A friend also said she roasts the beets in aluminum foil for 1 hour, peels the skin, slices them and adds goat cheese. My husband loved that idea! I will try it this week.

Swiss Chard-Instead of the Swiss Chard we tried Kale which is on many lists of amazing things to eat. This looked impossible to get kids to eat but my Mother In Law helped. She boiled several heads down in a pot of water with three chicken bouillon cubes until tender. The chicken taste was very delicious and the kids ate it all up.

Cinnamon- We put cinnamon in the kids oatmeal every morning.

Pumpkin seeds- They are in the granola we put in their afternoon yogurt snack but you can also add pumpkin puree to a lot of things including spaghetti sauce.

Prunes- My son has prune puree for the obvious reasons but my daughter loves her dried prunes like they are candy.

Blueberries- Easy! Frozen blueberries are best on the wallet this time of year. You can use them in smoothies, on whole wheat pancakes and alone. My kids love them!

Sardines- This one might stump us. Very salty and fishy taste. My three year may be up for it so I will give it a try and let you know.

In addition to the list on the NYT blog, I love Flax Meal and Wheat Germ. They are both so easy to add to our morning oatmeal and wonderful for us. Stay tuned for more fun food we will try!