Kaylee Does Farm to Table

Kaylee came over to play yesterday.  I recently downloaded an electronic cookbook for kids, Monkey Mike's Raw Food Kitchen, an Un-Cookbook for kids.  I printed out one for her house and one to plat with at our house.  It's a cute little cookbook with activities and games. It's good for a nice reading practice book too. I found a couple cute and easy recipes we could try together: Dracula's Carrot Salad with Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing and Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus.  She told me on the way to my house she had asked for gluten free treats at the school Holiday party and the librarian told her she bring some hummus.  Kaylee said she was excited about that because she had never tried hummus.  So, we made some together.  She liked it.  Even though there aren't many spices in it, she did say it was a little too spicy by itself.  Mixed with some crunch celery, carrots, and cucumber, she liked it just fine.  I warmed some pumpkin polenta and 13 bean stew I made in the morning and served it with our salad and hummus.  I was pleased she ate a two servings of the salad and hummus.  She liked the stew and pumpkin polenta, but enjoyed the salad more.  Fine with me, the salad, raw veggies, and hummus make for a complete meal.

One of the best parts of the day was when I reviewed the ingredients and realized I had all except some fresh beets.  I do still have some beets growing out in the garden so we had a little "Farm to Table" exercise.  Out to the garden we went to gather some beets.  There were some more treats out there too.  We came home with some chard, a small red cabbage, and a nice big fennel too.

 She's still a bit too small to use a chef's knife, but not too small to use a food processor.  Kaylee read all the ingredients and instructions aloud to me.  I explained what I was doing and what tools I was using when paring and pealing the vegetables.  She ran the processor and helped toss the salad arrange it all for dinner. 

 

The Dracula salad is a version of a beet and carrot salad I already make regularly in the summer.  I like this recipe, the addition of almonds and raisins makes for a variety of textures.

Dracula's Carrot Salad

1 beet
3 carrots
2 green onions
12 almonds
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves

Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing

Juice of 1 orange
2 tablespoons macadamia nut oil, (we used hazelnut oil)
2 teaspoons almond butter
Teensy pinch Celtic sea salt

Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus

1 ½ cups almonds soaked in 1 ½ cups filtered water for four hours or more
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup water
Big pinch Celtic sea salt