Fun in the Kitchen

Working hard to cut the carrots!

Yesterday was the first (organized) effort to involve Ava in the dinner preparations. We are working hard to encourage the kids to try new foods. The only vegetable she will eat is corn. That's great that she eats it, but it doesn't even have that much nutritional value. So, the first challenge is to get more veggies in the diet!

 This week we made glazed carrots together. I wrote the recipe in large writing and numbered each step. I am going to do this each week. My plan is to combine all our recipes into a kid friendly cookbook! We will put a sticker on the recipes she and Dominic really love! We talked about what we would make and how she would help. With her new apron (thanks great-grandma!) she was ready to go!

 I peeled and cooked the carrots ahead of time. She then had to cut the carrots and add the brown sugar and butter.  She was so excited to be cutting and cooking. It is always funny when you learn what you sound like to your kids when they try and act like you. As she was cutting she says, "Now Mommy, you have never tried this recipe. You can tell me that you have never tried it, but you can't tell me you don't like it. You need to at least take one bite before you say that." She added, "Then if you don't like it, you can spit it out." haha. We don't encourage the spitting out part, but I guess she thought she needed to add that too!

I thought for sure she would be tempted to taste the carrots as she cut them. No such luck. She didn't hesitate tasting the brown sugar though! It wasn't surprising she thought that tasted pretty good. It was so cute to see her excited about everyone tasting something she made!

Everyone had a serving of carrots with their dinner. Ava took a bite and didn't even spit it out. But, her first bite was her last. Dominic...well he just threw them on the floor. Don't worry though, Kyle and I ate all our carrots. I guess you could say the glazed carrots were not a hit with the kids, but I won't say it failed either. At least one bite of carrot was eaten by Ava. Surely there was a tiny bit of something healthy in that one bite! Plus, a child sometimes needs to be introduced to a food up to seven times before they actually eat it. We'll keep the recipe for another time. Can't wait to cook with her again next week!

Glazed Carrot Recipe

1 1/2 pound raw carrots
1/3 cup brown sugar (we just used 2 Tbs and I thought it was still a little much)
2 1/2 Tbs butter (we just used 1 Tbs)

In medium saucepan, cook carrots in a small amount of water until tender.
Drain carrots and cut into strips (Ava did slices, strips, tiny pieces, and big pieces!) In the same saucepan, mix brown sugar and butter. Add carrots. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until carrots are glazed. (about 5 minutes)
Makes 4-6 servings.



Stirring in the brown sugar and butter!