The new ParentDish: helping raise kids of all ages

Feast Your Eyes: Blueberry apricot crumble

blueberry apricot crumble
Earlier this week, I looked up harvest dates at my favorite u-pick farm in New Jersey, to make sure that I won't miss blueberry season. Last summer, I nearly missed it, and when I finally did get out into the field, it was slim pickings. One of the things I love about picking summer fruit is that it gives you the opportunity to have enough to freeze for the winter and make a batch or two of jam.

In today's featured photo, Lelonopo uses her frozen summer berries in February, to brighten the winter doldrums with a Blueberry Apricot Crumble. Delicious!

Tip of the Day: Pimp your fruit salad

It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Pimp your fruit salad

Summer watermelon ideas

P-tooey! Watermelon would be perfect if not for those pesky seeds.

Luckily, Instructables provides a great tutorial on how to remove most (key word: most) of the seeds from your average watermelon. It's easy and quick, with no fancy tools needed.

Or, if you're feeling ca-razy, you could inject your watermelon with a pre-mixed martini (yes, you'll need a syringe - it's a little creepy, but worth it), let it chill for an hour, and indulge in some alcoholic fruit. Just keep it away from the kids.

Last idea? Make one of those cutesy watermelon basket thingys, if you're into that sort of thing, or a watermelon-feta salad.

Growing tomatoes in sea water leads to healthier, juicier produce

A recent study found that cherry tomatoes grown in salt water can turn out tastier and heartier than ones grown normally, partially because the plants have to fight harder to fight the environmental stress and produce more compounds to help them cope. These compounds contain antioxidants like Vitamins C and E, which have healthy effects on those who consume the fruit.

The solution only contains 20% seawater. Unfortunately, not all genotypes of tomatoes react in the same way to the salt water. Some die because they cannot counteract the free radicals from the solution, so don't try to do this with larger tomatoes; it probably won't work. In the study, the water was constantly circulated and the pH controlled by a computer, so the researchers promise that the tomatoes won't taste salty.

The researchers, based at the University of Pisaone in Italy, are encouraging the growth of tomatoes in brackish water, because it will not only lead to juicier, healthier tomatoes, but will help to preserve our freshwater supplies.

Gifts for the vegetarian (or vegetable-loving) mom

gifts for vegetarian moms
Mom made you eat your veggies for years, so return the love with vegetarian-friendly gifts this Mother's Day. Whether her diet is strictly vegetarian or just veggie-inclined, check out these lovely presents that will surely brighten her kitchen and her day!

Culinary Herb Garden Kit from wishingfish -- The gift that keeps on giving.

Swiss Peelers, Set of 3 from Williams Sonoma -- Simple, colorful, practical.

Subscription to Vegetarian Times magazine -- Great recipes and fun eating ideas from a magazine that your mom will love all year long.

Mother's Day petit fours from Figis -- Who am I kidding? These are for any mom -- vegetarian, meat-loving, herbivorous, sweet-toothed...

Olive and Rosemary Topiary Trees
from Stonewall Kitchen -- A beautiful way to present a practical gift. These will look great anywhere, and come in handy when cooking with fresh herbs.

Organic vegetable box from Mode Organic -- Produce straight to your door.

Bamboo steamer from WokShop -- Great for veggies, and anything else.

Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian from Amazon -- My favorite cookbook. Soon to be your mom's. Bittman offers easy recipes and plenty of suggestions for a well-balanced vegetarian diet.

Vegan body lotion from von Natur -- Organic beauty she'll feel good about.

6-pack Coffee Sampler
from Grounds for Change -- Organic and fair trade.

Kenneth Jay Lane Apple Necklace from Max and Chloe -- Not really a cooking gift, but a bit of bling never hurt anyone.

Membership to the Harry and David Fruit of the Month Club -- Classic!

Soy candles from Welcome-home Candles -- These yummy candles come in great scents, and since they aren't made from beeswax, they'll please even the most conscious vegan.

Vegan baking mixes
from Goodbaker -- Chocolate cake, oatmeal cookies, fudge frosting, multi-grain muffins...

Anyone have more ideas for the vegetarian Mom? Feel free to share!


Tip of the Day: Freezing grapes and sucking chocolate

Want to lose weight but you find yourself snacking all day long? Here are two tips that might help.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Freezing grapes and sucking chocolate

Is this sour-to-sweet fruit really a miracle?

miracle fruit
It sounds to good to be true -- a berry that makes sour things taste sweet!

The berry is very real. It's called "miracle fruit -- that's actually what it's called -- though the scientific name is Synsepalum dulcificum for those of you who want to get technical. And more for the technical folks, a protein in the fruit binds to taste buds and alters the tongue's so-called sweet receptors to activate when sour foods are eaten. Sour things taste sweet for about an hour after the berry is eaten.

It may seem just a novelty or a fun foodie trick to do at parties, but there could be some health and medical uses for the berry once the science people figure it out. I can think of a few now: lose weight by tricking your taste buds into thinking that extremely low calorie foods are actually as sweet as dessert, and any other use in which people need a sugar substitute.

[via: Gimundo]

Mexican food might reduce breast cancer

mexican food
The news couldn't be more timely with Cinco de Mayo right around the corner.

According to the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a native Mexican diet full of soups, legumes, tomato-based sauces, meat and Mexican cheeses seems to help prevent breast cancer. Whether the foods and dished are topped with a chili or two wasn't stated, but Hispanic women believe it's the chili in Mexican food that may prevent breast cancer.

So with Cinco de Mayo coming up and resources featuring Mexican recipes, now might be a great time to add Alondigas Soup, bean-based dishes, and moles (might it be the chocolate?) to your recipe repertoire.

But don't let this be an excuse to gorge on greasy, deep-fried tortilla chips!

SoyJoy Bars: just tell yourself they're something else

soyjoy bar
You know when you are eating your fourth tofu salad of the day for the eighteenth day in a row of this hell we call "diet before bikini season?" And on the salad there is a slab of stupidly healthy tofu that when you bite into it, you close your eyes and tell yourself it's actually a piece of chocolate cake?

Wait, am I the only one who does that?

SoyJoy Bars are something like that.

Continue reading SoyJoy Bars: just tell yourself they're something else

Tip of the Day: Use orange peels for bowls

For me, the presentation of a dish is critically important. Here's a trick for turning orange peels into beautiful serving bowls for almost anything you can create.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Use orange peels for bowls

Crunchy Monkey Peanut Butter Banana Sticks

peanut butterThis is a breakfast, and you can probably guess from the name that it's not the most healthy breakfast you could have. But you know what? It's really not as bad as it sounds. I mean, they have peanut butter, honey, and granola in them.

This recipe for Crunchy Monkey Peanut Butter Banana Sticks is from one of the Rachael Ray shows on Food Network (I know, I know, she's everywhere, but stick with me here). They make for a good breakfast for when you're in a hurry and need something portable, and I think they'd be a great snack for at night when you're watching television.

Continue reading Crunchy Monkey Peanut Butter Banana Sticks

Feast Your Eyes: A vacation breakfast

a breakfast of french toast, fruit and sausage
When pressed to determine which is my favorite meal to prepare and eat, I will always admit that I love breakfast above all the rest. What other meal allows you combine sweet with savory in the same way as that morning meal? This looks like a particularly good breakfast, with french toast, fruit and sausage. Thanks to Superape for adding your image to the Slashfood pool!

Wild Food Foraging - Spring

Our colleague Neil Goldstein works up a powerful hunger while he's trekking through the wilds of Upstate New York. Follow him as he forages for wild edibles.


I don't know how old I was when I started having a fascination with wild foods, but I can point to a few family activities that sparked it. As far back as I remember we used to go pick apples every year at an orchard near Stone Ridge, New York. Always fun, except of course for the inevitable case of poison ivy that followed a few days later. The apples weren't wild, but still the idea of picking something from a tree, and eating it right there got to me.

Another major influence were the wild strawberries and blueberries we picked as kids. The strawberries grew near our home in Woodstock.
There were several places where you could pick a dozen or two small wild strawberries quickly with little effort, but a short bike ride away was a meadow that my older brothers Lee and Paul called Sergeant's Field. You could pick a few quarts of the local delicacy there.

Continue reading Wild Food Foraging - Spring

Charoset, the best-tasting mortar around

charoset with matzo in the background
Yesterday, I asked you guys for some help with a savory matzo kugel (thanks to all who commented and pointed me in the direction of recipes, I do appreciate the help). I want to return the favor by offering one of my very favorite Passover recipes, for charoset. Charoset appears on the Passover menu in order to represent the mortar that the Jews used to build structures during their enslavement.

However dark and unappealing the inspirational source, the resulting dish is delicious. It is a combination of chopped apples, almonds, walnuts, honey, spices and a little wine (or grape juice). You can make a little or a lot, and the leftovers are wonderful with some greek yogurt for breakfast or over a bed of baby greens for lunch. Check out my recipe after the jump, but know that you can adapt it to your own tastes (tossing a handful of raisins in is never a bad idea).

Continue reading Charoset, the best-tasting mortar around

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Tip of the Day

It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!

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