Food Fun for All!

The kids and I just had so much fun making some new recipes. Our first attempt together at "Easiest Pizza Crust" was not that delicious so I found a new recipe with sprouted barley. It looks SO much better. The kids had a blast cutting up the veggies and whirling it all around watching as it turned into a dough for crust. Then they shaped the dough into round individual sized crusts but each one got to make one their very own shape. My son turned his into the head of a lamb and is going to call it "bloody lamb" when he puts sauce on it-leave it to a pre-teen boy to come up with that, and my daughter made her's into a heart...awww.

We also made a new cracker from red bell peppers, corn, flax, raisins and almond butter. It's a recipe from my class but I tweaked it a bit to tone down some of the red bell pepper taste. Hopefully it will work. I am looking for something that the kids can easily have at school but offers variety from the flax seed cracker. If this works I might make more another time and cut them into shapes for fun.

Seeing as it's summer and lots of great sales on fruit we keep buying tons of strawberries and making fruit leather. This time both kids got very excited and did it all themselves, I only oversaw the details. They had fun adding different fruits, washing, prepping and then we had to decide on our source of protein for the fruit leather. My son ground up flax seeds, sunflower seeds and hemp heart in the coffee grinder. These should be delicious. They actually smelled like candy. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow when they are all done. The kids have the option to take some of the fruit leather and cut them into designs, too. They can make hearts or stars or all kinds of shapes. I want to pick up some fun scissors at a craft store and let them have at it.

Kids are way more likely to eat something that they make themselves, even if it doesn't taste quite how they might have hoped, they are invested in it and the process is a form of "buy-in". They really have fun doing it, too. I think it is somewhat self esteem building and confidence building to know that they can prepare yummy foods out of basic ingredients. They are not only learning measuring and such that we all know kids benefit from when they help us cook but I think with raw cooking, they are also learning tastes, food combinations and nutrition. Everything they are working with is unprocessed, basic food so to know how almond butter, raisins, red bell peppers and such mix together to make something is pretty fascinating.

Earlier today I wanted to duct tape them to the wall because they were bored, fighting and being destructive, now we all kind of like each other again and they helped me do some work I needed to get done. Talk about win-win!

Obviously in process are red bell pepper crackers, pizza crust, and fruit leathers. Also starting the process for more pesto stuffed mushrooms. For dinner we had zuchini through the spiral with marinara sauce on it. It was lovely and filling. The first couple of bites I missed real pasta and then my mouth was used to it and it was delicious. Oh yeah, need to get that eggplant cut up and soaking in salt water. I'm still feeling a little tired today, did not work out to help balance my fatigue. I tried to eat more but really don't have the appetite I used to so it's hard to remember to eat. Caught my daughter eating some organic crackers we had left over in the cupboard, she said she didn't feel like raw food right then. Weight is slowly melting off of me but never quick enough...I am SO impatient. My son is still ticking and clicking but his energy level seems to be more stable, less ups and downs and big extremes. We RAWK on!