Don’t you just love that look on your kid’s face when, after they take a skeptical, teeeeeensy bite of something, they realize that the bite actually tasted good?  And then they go back for a second ever so slightly bigger bite, still not really believing that they might enjoy this food.  It takes a third normal size bite before they shrug their shoulders and eat the rest.  This happened tonight with the butternut squash puree.  The apples do a nice job of sweetening the dish, particularly when you choose a sweet variety such as Gala, McIntosh, or Macoun.

Tonight’s menu:

Salmon topped with cranberry mustard and then grilled

Steamed broccoli

Butternut Squash and Apple Puree

Popcorn

The kids hit “play” on the remote and simultaneously started  the 1956 short film, The Red Balloon, and, my 30 minute window to get dinner started.  As crucial minutes ticked away, I ran through dinner ideas in my head.   Glancing up at the TV screen, I caught the scene where the little boy runs down the street clutching the big red balloon.   Bam.  Tomato soup for dinner.

Homemade tomato soup  (heat 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1/4 cup flour, and 3 tbsp tomato paste on medium-low for 1 minute.  add 7 cups canned tomatoes (or 2 x 28 oz. cans), 3 1/2  cups broth, 2 sprigs of thyme and cook ~30 minutes.  Puree and serve)

Grilled cheese

Green salad of spinach, carrots, and sunflower seeds

Cubed mango over a scoop of vanilla ice cream

Tonight was my seven-year-old’s pick for dinner.  Not surprisingly, she chose grilled cheese with pesto.  The child loves pesto.  Every year when I harvest all the remaining basil from the garden for my pesto-making rampage, I find her sneaking spoonful after spoonful out of the bowl.  I’m not talking teaspoonfuls either – big honking serving spoon scoops. Picture streams of green pesto dripping down the sides of her mouth as she looks up at me with one of those wide-eyed “What?” looks.   And then she always begs to lick the bowl afterwards as if it were cookie dough I were making.  That’s love, man.

*As freakish as I may find her love for pesto, I will admit that it has proved useful for expanding her food repertoire with food chaining. Those of you unaware of food chainings, let me  know – its a great technique for picky eaters

Here was tonight’s menu:

Grilled cheese with pesto, tomatoes, capers, and mozzarella

Roasted sweet potatoes and parsnips

Steamed broccoli

Sliced pears and apples

Some days its just hard to leave the playground.

Here’s the “20 minutes” to dinner menu:

Hominy Chili served with shredded cheese and plain Greek yogurt

Tortilla Crisps (cut soft tortillas into wedges, spray with olive oil and bake on cookie sheet at 425 degrees until crisp)

Steamed cauliflower

Sliced apples and pears

I grew up in a “you-can’t-leave-the-table-until-you-eat-your-vegetables” household.  This wasn’t often a problem for me – unless beets were being served.  To me, that was the vegetable, the worse tasting, most gag-worthy vegetable ever.  I used to hide the beets in a glass of milk to avoid eating them.   Anyone who has ever eaten beets should quickly realizes the error of my thinking.  White milk does not make a good hiding place for bright red juicy beets.  What ultimately happened was that my parents outsmarted me, making me drink the milk (now warm after sitting out for so long while I argued with my parents about the disappearance of my beets) and then eat the beet chunks that miraculously appeared at the bottom of the glass. The beets tasted even worse by this point after soaking in the milk.  That was me.  Conniving -yes.  Sharpest tool in the shed – no.

The first time I ever enjoyed the taste of beets was at The Fireplace, a restaurant in Boston.  A beet reduction sauce had been artfully swirled below some sauteed greens and salmon filet and to my surprise,  it was fantastic.  Let me say that again – fantastic.  That dish was what prompted me to plant beets in the garden this year and now has me swimming in beets  (see Sept 18th “What’s Amy eating?”).   Kinda like the little beet-cubes that used to be swimming around in my glass of milk.

In an attempt to recreate that fantastic meal for some equally fantastic friends, I made this for dinner tonight:

Grilled Salmon topped with fresh golden and red beet salad and served with a beet reduction sauce (to make sauce:  simmer 1/3 cup beet juice, 3 tbsp red wine vinegar, and 3 tbsp red wine until thickened to a glaze, around 10-15 minutes) (to make salad: thinly slice 1 golden and 1 red beet; toss with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and tarragon)

Swiss Chard sauteed with garlic in olive oil

Mashed Potatoes

Apple and Raspberry Crisp with oat topping

So, apparently, my raised beds make quite the happy little home for beets because I have beets out the wazoo.  Beets out the wazoo but not beet recipes out the wazoo, which leads me to ask – does anyone have any good recipes for beets?

Here was the menu for tonight:

Sauteed tofu cubes

Steamed broccoli

Wheat berry salad with raisins, beets and citrus vinaigrette

My five year old launched into her typical tirade when she saw me making these lasagna rolls, moaning “I don’t like spinach…I don’t like mushrooms….yada yada yada” while rolling around on the floor.  She may not often provide encouragement while I am making dinner, but she does provide entertainment.    One of these days, she’ll remember that she actually does like these lasagna rolls before taking the first bite.

Spinach and mushroom lasagna rolls

Sauteed green and yellow beans

Ground turkey meatballs

Ice cream

Corn and smoked mozzarella frittata

Sauteed zucchini with cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs

Whole wheat bread

Sliced peaches

When faced with an overwhelming number of eggs in the fridge, I tend to resort to homemade pudding or a frittata.  Guess which one my kids vote for?  Unfortunately for them, they were outvoted tonight.

Frittata with sauteed mushrooms, red bell peppers, carmelized onions and feta (*a frittata is basically a healthier version of a quiche because it doesn’t have the buttery crust of a quiche)

Green salad with cucumbers, yellow bell peppers and tomatoes

Sourdough bread

Watermelon, peach, and blueberry fruit salad

Ginger cookie

Gotta love this time of year – stocking up at local farms and then a quick trip out of our garden make dinner easier and tastier.   Last night’s dinner used up the last of the blueberries we had picked from Pelkey’s farm and the last of the peaches from Sam Mazza’s.  Time to head back out for more picking!

Grilled salmon (smeared with a wee bit of honey and mustard on top prior to grilling) (Ok, this was a grocery store purchase but such is life you’ve got a hankering for seafood and omega-3s and you live in Vermont.   Pooh pooh away if you want, diehard localvores.)

Grilled corn on the cob

Sauteed zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes (heat some olive oil in a skillet, toss in a couple smashed garlic cloves and the chopped up veggies and saute 6 minutes or so)

Blueberries and sliced peaches