Sweet Garden Eats

Back to trying some new recipes and sharing what works for me and for my picky eaters.

These recipes I had no trouble getting my family to eat because these are two new recipes I tried that are sweet. One is still a sneaky way to once again get my kids to eat a vegetable they normally wouldn't, while the other is so good, you will want to eat it morning, noon, and night.

Summer Squash Bread

They call this a bread, but I would say it is more like a cake. This is not something I would serve with a meal, but as a dessert. As you can see in the recipe, it has a lot of sugar in it, but also an entire large squash. So perhaps it is far from the healthiest way to serve squash, but it is delicious and my kids were thrilled that I had baked a "cake." There were dances of joy, everyone on their best behavior, and shouts of "Cake! Cake! Mommy is the best!" My oldest even asked if I could make it for his birthday cake.

It IS really pretty darn good, especially with a cup of coffee.

Blueberry Breakfast Bars

So these blueberries did not come from my garden, we went to The Blueberry Ranch in northern Indiana earlier this summer and stocked our freezer with their organic blueberries. 

I spotted this breakfast bar recipe in the latest issue of Parents magazine. I though it would be great to make ahead of time on the weekend and have handy to pull out for breakfast. My oldest, in kindergarten, has a long school day so we need to eat big healthy, hearty breakfasts, but I don't always want to get into too much preparation and cooking in the morning. 

This recipes uses blueberry preserves in addition to the whole blueberries. Preserves are yummy, but also high in sugar. If you want to serve these bars and not have the sugar, there is a fairly easy way. You can find or make no-sugar blueberry jam with only three ingredients: blueberries, honey, and lemon juice. Here is a recipe to make your own Honey Blueberry Jam.  This is the recipe I used. 

These breakfast bars are amazing. A new family favorite of everyone for anytime. These can keep in the fridge or be frozen for later use. Eat them cold or warm them up in the microwave. My kids loved to dip them in milk and my husband and I loved them with our morning coffee. These travel well for an on-the-go snack. I make a large batch on the weekend and we use them for breakfasts and snacks throughout the week. Love, love, love these breakfast bars. 

As always, I love to hear about recipes you have tried that you think I (or my little heathens) might like. 

Have a great day! 

Garden Eats

I like food. A lot.

I have not, however, always enjoyed cooking. Perhaps only because I didn't really do much of it until becoming a mom. Despite my amateur status, I enjoy trying out new recipes and learning to make foods myself that I would have purchased in the past.

When I blog about food, my goal is to share recipes I have tried that did not make me cry in the kitchen and that I could get my entire family to eat.

The last couple of months, I have been able to harvest a variety of fresh, organic produce from my garden. I triumphantly hull a rainbow of vegetables into the house, only to have my kids wrinkle their noses and announce, "Yuck!" I make vegetables anyway, put it on their plates, and then watch them push the vegetables around and make dramatic faces of distaste. Someday one of these vegetables may accidentally get into one of their mouths, but until then, I do want some of these healthy nutrients to get into their bodies. To do so, I play dirty. I look for recipes that disguise the vegetables from the eyes and palates of my little ones in the form of foods they love, such as chips and fries. Then, I laugh a low, evil laugh as they unknowingly gobble up a wide variety of "Yuck!"

Here are some of the recipes I've tried the last few weeks that went over really well.
If you click on the brown name of each dish, it will open the link for the recipe.

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

I have made this easy Martha Stewart recipe several times in the last couple months and my family couldn't get enough. I especially enjoyed adding the spritz of lime in this recipe. It gave the chips a summer evening flair. To get these chips crispy, I would suggest soaking the sliced pieces of potato in water for an hour or a few hours to remove some of the starch. Trust me. It will make them better.

Kale Chips

Kale chips are kind of a thing right now. I keep seeing people posting about them on Facebook and pinning them on Pinterest. There is a reason for this - kale is super healthy for you and kale chips are incredibly delicious. I thought for sure my kids would not fall for these because the chips do come out still green and obviously leaf-like. Lo and behold, my kids fell hard in love with kale chips.

That is once I got them right.

There are many different ways kale chips can be prepared. They can be salty, spicy, cheesy, and more. I glanced at this recipe and went for it: oven 350 degrees, toss kale leaves in olive oil and salt, put them on a baking sheet. How can something so simple be messed up?

If there is a way to mess up a recipe, I will discover it for you. Watch them while they are in the oven. Closely. They need to bake only a few minutes and the difference between the perfect kale chip and a black curled wisp of ash is apparently only seconds. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades....and also kale chips.

I don't even have a picture of kale chips I have made, except for the first-attempt wisps of ash. As soon as I take them out of the oven, my family starts hovering around and eating them off of the baking sheet before I can even get the chips to a bowl or plate. Yes, that good.

Eggplant Fries

I ended up with only two eggplant, but they were huge. I had no idea what to do with them. I went searching for something I thought the kids would like and found this recipe for Eggplant Fries. My oldest was onto me and didn't eat very much, but my 2-year old loved these. They are very messy to make, but come out very tasty and fun to eat.

Baked Zucchini Chips

Zucchini exploded out of my garden this year. I could not keep up. I donated several, made zucchini bread, zucchini pancakes, and zucchini guacamole. I had never tried Zucchini Chips before. My kids ate them, but I think these were the favorite of my husband. He wanted me to make another batch he could snack on at night.

I know it is healthier to make the last two vegetables in their most basic and not breaded form, but these recipes got my kids to eat vegetables they normally wouldn't even allow to touch their plate. I'm hoping this will lead them to someday accept these vegetable when they are able to discern the underlying flavor. For now, I'm just happy zucchini and eggplant entered their bodies. I'll take it.

If you try any of these recipes, or if you have a similar recipe you like even better, I'd love to hear about it.
Feel free to share in the comments.