An answer to one of life’s true mysteries: How to get children to eat vegetables?

Find Emily Rosenbaum at the Chappaqua Farmers Market Saturday, July 16
July 15, 2011
by Maggie Christ

When I heard that my friend Emily – a die-hard earthy crunchy locavore – had written a book about the trials of getting picky kids to eat well, I thought it sounded great. When I heard that she was doing readings from the book at farmer’s markets in the Northeast, I thought she needed a slot at the Chappaqua Farmer’s Market. After all, we have lots of kids in town, and lots of parents who shop at the Farmer’s Market, and some of those parents are wondering how to get beets into their picky children. Right?

Hosanna! Emily’s going to be reading from her book this Saturday, July 15 at 11:00 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., and sitting at the market table for most of the rest of the morning. She’ll have copies of her book, “Cooking on the Edge of Insanity,” and some nibbles to share. In the meantime, here’s a sample from her book along with a recipe.

Squashed

My kids love pumpkin muffins, but fresh pumpkin is only available just before Halloween.  In response to my lament about canned pumpkin, Chappaqua’s Maggie Christ ever-so-innocently asked why I can’t substitute fresh squash instead.

Because when I bake fresh squash, I invite Benjamin to stand on our kitchen stepladder and participate in the skinning and pureeing of said vegetable.  He decides he needs to eat some of the squash. He proceeds to eat all but about three tablespoons of the puree, which is more or less useless in baking terms.  So, I offer the rest of the squash to Lilah, who stands on a dining room chair eating it with a spoon from a ramekin.  It is my chair, which gets squash on approximately three-quarters of its surface. 

When Lilah indicates that she is finished, I wipe her down and she heads into the kitchen, where she cackles with delight as she climbs up and down the stepladder in the middle of the kitchen.  I go to remove the ramekin and notice there are about two teaspoonfuls left, which at this point I may as well eat. I walk past Lilah as I take the first of two bites, whereupon she screams at me.  I sigh, put the last spoonful into her mouth, wash out the Cuisinart, put away the stepladder when she gets down to go pull all the little cards out of Candyland, and start to scrub down my dining room chair.

I give up and decide to make garbanzo muffins instead.

Garbanzo Muffins

You’ll notice a similarity between many of my muffin recipes.  I like to use oatmeal because it is less dry and dense than whole wheat flour. If your little person objects to the texture, run it through the food processor.

1 cup white flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oatmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 beaten eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup honey
½ cup oil
2/3 cup garbanzos
1 large apple, raw -  ½ pureed with skin on, ½ grated with skin

1)  Mix together everything up through the cinnamon in one bowl.

2)  In another bowl, lightly beat together the egg, milk and honey.

3)  Puree together the oil, garbanzos and ½ pureed apple, then mix together with the wet and dry ingredients, plus the ½ grated apple.

4)  Put in greased muffin tins, and bake for 25-32 minutes at 350 degrees.

5)  When your child discovers an unmashed garbanzo bean in the muffins and begins to balk, hurriedly explain that it is a little flour you must not have mixed in properly.  And next time, be sure all the beans have been pulverized.