Plant & Plate

food and garden

  • About
  • SHOP

Less meat, more plants

January 5, 2015 by claire

Share

Today was going to be the start of another 2015 resolution. One far more enjoyable than my stupid, stupid decision to give up sugar for the month of January.

The resolution? To eat a little less meat and a lot more vegetables. Or, to put it into the specific kind of terms that make us more likely to follow through on resolutions:

Try one new plant-based food every week

  • Mostly vegetables, but also fruits, legumes, and whole grains
  • Either try a new item or try making something a different way

My plan was to recruit my little nephews to help choose, shop, prepare, and taste-test. They’ve gotten more picky about food lately, but they always love gardening and cooking. And the more involved kids are in making food, the more likely they are to eat it. Even if they turn up their noses at the final dish — which happens sometimes — they’re usually pretty enthusiastic about tasting things while we’re chopping and cooking.

Also, they’re a lot more photogenic than I am.

When I suggested this, Ev immediately sat down with my edible gardening books to pick out things we should try. We’ll grow as many things as we can in the garden — but while we’re waiting for harvest time, we’ll explore the grocery store and farmers’ market.

Why plant-based foods? Among other things, because cutting down on meat and dairy is one of the most powerful (and easiest) ways to fight climate change, save water and energy, and prevent pollution.

Food safety is another issue when cooking with children — no matter how much we emphasize things like washing your hands and not rubbing spoons in your hair, young kids probably shouldn’t be handling raw meat.

 

My plan was to start by making dinner with the boys tonight, nicely dovetailing with The 52 New Foods Challenge, The Kids Cook Monday, and Meatless Monday. Unfortunately, I was up all night with the latest horrible cold that’s going around, so in a (probably pointless) attempt to avoid spreading the sickness, I’m postponing the whole cooking with the kids adventure until later in the week.

Fortunately, you can try new vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains any time you want, on whatever days of the week are most convenient for you, whether or not you have any small children in your life.

If you’re keen to try this out but don’t have any ideas, I was planning to steer the kids towards that cauliflower “alfredo” sauce that everyone has a version of (Pinch of Yum’s Creamy Cauliflower Sauce, for example). It’s an easy recipe for little hands to help with — breaking up the cauliflower into florets, pushing the buttons to pulse the sauce in the food processor. More importantly, I’m pretty sure they’ll like it, especially if we put it on top of pasta, and maybe sprinkle on some parmesan cheese.

Share

Related posts:

Cooking with the kids: Tamale torte with red chile sauce Cooking with the kids: Mighty Macaroni with Creamy Cauliflower Sauce How not to make crispy fried tofu Snowman cookieConnie’s Christmas Cutout Cookies and Decorating Frosting (Recipes)

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: cooking with kids, meatless monday

Trackbacks

  1. Cooking with the kids: Tamale torte with red chile sauce says:
    January 19, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    […] yes, like everything in this weekly cooking with the kids series, this recipe is meatless. (In fact, as long as you use nondairy milk in the batter, […]

Recent posts

Earthworms and crows

Earthworms and crows

How to store basil

How to store basil

Plant your tomatoes deep

Plant your tomatoes deep

Seed swap this Friday, March 16

Seed swap this Friday, March 16

Official Kids Cook Monday Ambassador

About the affiliate links on this site

I encourage you to support your local independent retailers whenever you can. But if you're going to shop at Amazon anyway, please click this link first, and they'll send me a small referral fee. Click here to support Plant & Plate when you shop at Amazon.

Copyright © 2019 · Dynamik Website Builder on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in