I have struggled to get Cap’n Jack Henry to eat veggies.  I struggle almost as much to get him to eat fruit.  It’s not a flavor issue.  It’s a texture issue with him.  He will eat potatoes (including sweet), some corn, peas, bananas, applesauce, and canned mandarin oranges.  That’s it.  And if he’s tired of any of those particular things, which happens often, he’ll refuse those as well.  He likes meat.  He likes dairy.  He likes sugar.

About a month ago, Big D’s parents gave us a Blendtec blender, and it has given me the ability to completely pull a fast one over on ole’ Jack Henry.  Both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law introduced us to the idea of green smoothies.  The thought is to add a combination of greens, other vegetables, and fruits that taste good and kids will consume.  To be honest, I thought it would never happen, but if you view the picture above again, you will notice the concoction he’s drinking is indeed green.

This blend included avocado, spinach, orange juice, banana and strawberry.  He loved it and drank every drop.

I know that recently Jerry Seinfield’s wife wrote a book about  how to add veggies to a bunch of home-cooked dishes like mac and cheese and such in order to trick your kids into eating more healthfully.  But isn’t this easier? And more honest?  Just go ahead…let him eat his sliced turkey and his piece of colby-jack cheese.  He can then wash it all down with a green smoothie!

I’ve been adding some protein powder in varying amounts to our smoothies as well, which makes them more of a meal-replacement for me.  I like Spirutein, but there are many different brands out there.  Just read the labels carefully, especially when adding to your kids’ smoothies.

Now, let’s talk blenders…

Like I said, we have a Blendtec. 

(No, we are not showing this demo to Dirty Harry…)

 And we love it…but they are pricey.  The VitaMix is good as well, but just as pricey.  If you want to invest in one of these top of the line blenders, I would suggest haunting ebay or Craig’s list or even the classifieds of your local paper.  Of the more affordable brands, I believe that Cuisinart has the best reputation.  But I’ll bet that the blender you have on your shelf, no matter the make or model, can make a decent smoothie.  Read the instruction manual carefully and then experiment with small amounts to see what it can handle.  Sometimes it makes a difference with what order you add your ingredients.

I challenge you, if you have the means, whip up a veggie/fruit smoothie today!  Let me know if you come up with some yummy combos.  I’m always trying something new.

Happy blending!

Welcome to this edition of “Kids in the Kitchen” where I demonstrate how to put your kids in the kitchen, bake some yummy goodies with them, and still keep your sanity.  Well, sorta.  The jury is still out on that last point.

Yesterday we made some super-cute Christmas mice to take to our church Christmas program.  They were duly oohed and aahed over and consumed completely in about twelve minutes.  I found the instructions for these on The Pioneer Woman’s  new recipe sharing site, Tasty Kitchen.  Click here to see the original recipe.

To make the mice you will need a jar of maraschino cherries WITH THE STEMS.  Without stems you will have tailless mice, and well, that just won’t do.  You’ll also need some melting chocolate (we used  a whole package…12 squares…of chocolate bark), slivered almonds, Hershey kisses, a package of Oreos and some black gel frosting.

First you will need to melt your chocolate.  You could do this with a double broiler or on low power and stirring often in the microwave, but I just used a regular sauce pan on low heat and stirred it constantly.

The recipe I found on Tasty Kitchen said to use the entire package of chocolate, but I found it was almost double what you need.  I’ll show you another time what we did with the extra.

While I was busy stirring the chocolate, I set the kids to work unwrapping the Hershey kisses, taking the tops off the Oreos and finding good ear-like almond slivers.

You’ll also need to have your cherries drained and rinsed well.

When the chocolate was melted and nice and smooth, we formed an assembly line to produce the mice. 

First,  I would dip a cherry into the chocolate.

(Sorry that picture is blurry.  One of the kids took it, and I forgot to tell them to use the macro button.)

This is probably the trickiest step, only in that you need to be careful to not pull the stem off.  I found placing some chocolate in a large spoon and sort of rolling the cherry in it worked better than trying to dip the cherry.

After the cherry was covered, I would pass it along to Dirty Harry, who would place it firmly in the cream of an open-top Oreo, making sure to let the stem hang off the end of the cookie.   Then he would also put the head (Hershey kiss) in place (Turn the Kiss on its side and press the wide base end gently onto the cherry, on the opposite end from the tail).

Dirty Harry would then pass it to Bonny Annie for ear placement.  She simply took two similarly shaped almond slivers and would gently push them down in between the head and the body. 

We allowed the chocolate to harden for about five minutes or so, and then I used the black gel frosting to make the eyes and nose.

One jar of cherries will yield about twenty-five mice.  We had a few cherries that were too squashed to use, and there were also a couple that had lost their tails.  Er, I mean stems.

And then I dare you to try to eat one.  It’s really hard to get past the cuteness and actually down it.  A lady at church last night was taking hers home, wrapped in a napkin.  “It’s just too cute to eat,” she told me.  I just hope that she doesn’t sit it on a counter somewhere and forget about it because I think that might eventually attract the REAL thing.

Stay tuned for some more “Kids in the Kitchen” fun over the next couple of days!  My kids have been in the kitchen A LOT this week, so we have more ideas to share….