I have a theory that kids like familiar foods best regardless of taste. If there's one food my kids have been convinced they don't like, it's mushrooms. And the truth of it is, I don't cook with mushrooms very often. So...I proposed that we make May the Month of the Mushroom - eat mushrooms several times and see if that didn't help our negative attitudes towards mushrooms.
We have made a late start of it. Last night I made Jamie Oliver's
Sizzling Cheesy Portobello Mushrooms.
I used green pepper instead of red, but the rest was the same. They were good and Annalise - who is not a finicky eater at all - ate two. Caleb was not so convinced, but we chopped up the 3 that did not fit in the dish and added them to a calzone we made tonight and he ate that and liked it.
A note about the calzone - Caleb did all the kneading of the dough! It turned out very nice and I am seeing the potential for more homemade bread in our future!
Last night I also made yuca for the first time ever! They had these vegetable recipe cards at Publix and I picked up the one for yuca. Even at Pollo Tropical I have not been overly impressed with yuca, but the recipe sounded good. Yuca is super cheap, so I gave it a try and it was extremely good!
If you are not familiar with yuca (also called cassava) - it is an ugly brown root vegetable. When you peel off the thick brown skin, there is a pretty purple color just between the brown part and the pale inside. To cook it you cut it into big chunks and then split the chunks and remove the core. You cover it with water and boil it for at least 30 minutes. Once it's very tender, you can get more creative. At Pollo Tropical they serve it both boiled and fried and serve it with a garlic sauce. The fried version looks a lot like a twinkie! Also, dried yuca is the source for tapioca.
