Strawberry Syrup for Milk

             Have you ever just gone to the supermarket, pulled something off the shelf that you haven't had in a while, something that you loved as a kid, brought it home, read the label and then yelled at yourself for not reading the label, and how dare you bring that home and put that in your kids' bellies?  Sorry for the run on sentence.

             I bought strawberry syrup for the purpose of getting a child of mine to drink milk.  Who doesn't like strawberry milk?  I remember the first time I ever drank a big food conglomerates strawberry milk.  I will honestly admit that it was so darn good.  I know some people who take the syrup with them on vacation overseas to keep their kids happy.

Broccoli Pesto

                    I've been finding myself with a lot of broccoli in the fridge lately.  I love roasted broccoli, but I figured it was time to find something else to do with broccoli.  I found a recipe for red pepper soup with broccoli pest trees on Food Network.  Broccoli pesto intrigued me.  I loved that it was a vegetable pesto that I had never thought of.  It automatically adds a vegetable to whatever you are using it with, whether it be a sandwich, a pasta dish, or a vegetable dish.  I also like that if you don't have that much basil on hand, which I don't since it's the winter and the garden is frozen over, you can supplement the basil by adding broccoli.

                    I didn't follow the recipe but if you want to take a look at it here it is.

Tortillas

                     Back when I posted my mango lime chicken fajita recipe, I made homemade tortillas with it.  It was my first time ever making homemade tortillas.  Although they tasted ok, the recipe I used created a disaster of me and my kitchen.  Flour was everywhere, my hands were a gooey mess with dough stuck to them.  I said I would post a tortilla recipe once I was able to succeed, which for me includes besides tasting good, not being a mess to make. 

                     I didn't go about trying a new recipe right away.  I needed to take a pause from the tortilla endeavor considering what my kitchen counters looked like after my original trial.  Now, the leftover tortillas I had that day, I stuck in the freezer.  I needed a really quick dinner one day when I was not in the mood to cook.  I had pizza sauce on hand.  I really didn't feel like preparing pizza dough.  I realized that I could just make a tortilla pizza.  It was successful in that my kids ate it all, even my picky kid.

                    Due to that success I knew it was imperative to find a great and easy and not messy tortilla recipe.  I found it and tinkered with it.  Best of all, you should have all ingredients on hand. 

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

                All the veggie dishes have made me realize that some sweets were in order.  I decided to make chocolate chocolate chip cookies for my chocoholic kids and myself.  Sometimes a chocolate chip cookie is not enough.  You need that extra kick of chocolate.  I did feel compelled to use some whole wheat flour though.   That just seemed to make me feel less guilty if I took two.

Pizza Sauce

                   Every family has a kid that is picky.  I realized a long time ago not to fight it, but just be sneaky on how you serve vegetables.  Then when they finish the food you say, "hey did you enjoy the zucchini?", or whatever vegetable you're hiding, they realize that it isn't so bad.

                   I created this pizza sauce with my dear boy in mind.  One of his favorite things to eat is pizza.  He also loves dunking bread sticks in pizza sauce.  I decided to throw loads of veggies into a sauce and see how it would go over.  There was no flinching when eating, no wrinkling of the nose, and so 3 slices later I realized I had a winner.

                    I would like to share this recipe to help those of you with a picky eater.  You can even add other veggies if you like, like carrots or summer squash.  I am sure they would go great.

Spanakopita Pizza

                  Greece was our country of study recently, so I wanted to make a dish to honor it.  I chose to make my own version of Greece's famous snack, Spanakopita.  Spanakopita, for a long time was the only way anyone could get me to eat spinach.  I remember eating it for the first time when I was young and still living with my parents.  We would go to a local diner, which was owned by a Greek family.  Every dish would come accompanied by a piece of Spanakopita.

                   Spanakopita is a spinach pie, in the odd chance you don't already know.  Now, I had never seen spinach served that way.  I only ever associated Popeye with spinach.  My mom never cooked it at home, that I recall.  So my vision of it was of Popeye popping a can of spinach and scarfing it down.  No matter how much I admired his cartoon strength, no way would I ever eat spinach.  So now this little pie is placed on a dish in front of me.  It is wrapped in phyllo, which I loved and associated with dessert.  I decided to try it because how bad could it be if it is wrapped in a flaky pastry.  I am so glad I did because that was when I learned to eat spinach, even though it was partially hidden with other flavors.  But if that was a way I learned to appreciate a new vegetable, there was nothing wrong with that.  Today of course I will put it in pizza and quiches.  No, can't eat it raw though. (A personal preference).

Roasted Broccoli

                     Here is a yummy way to eat broccoli and get some great health benefits as well.  You can read this article to learn some of the benefits of broccoli.

                     Roasting broccoli brings out a nuttiness in it.  It also retains a great dark green color that can get lost when boiled or steamed.  Roasting it for a proper length of time will prevent it from becoming mushy and help keep its health benefits.  Like cauliflower and cabbage, it also has anti carcinogenic properties.  So let's eat our veggies!