Here in Highland Park, New Jersey

I used to make noodle kugel with a stick of margarine. A WHOLE STICK. After I learned about the evils of margarine, for a long time I did not make noodle kugel. At some point recently, after craving a good noodle kugel, I put together this easy recipe. At the end I include options that might make the kugel more interesting, tasty or healthy. However, the “plain” version is the one my kids eat. And it tastes good to me, too.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. thin egg noodles
• 4 eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Enough canola oil to grease the bottom of the pan

Boil water and prepare the noodles. Preheat oven to 350°. Strain the noodles, and mix with the eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste. Grease the bottom of the pan with oil (I use pyrex; sometimes I make two pans of kugels, one for Friday night and one for Shabbat lunch). Preheat the pan(s) so the kugel will be a little crispier. Add the kugel mixture, and bake for about 30 minutes or until the kugel starts to get crispy.

Options: chopped spinach (frozen is easiest), chopped onion, bits of hamburger meat (I’ve never made it this way, just tasted others, but it’s delicious)

A while back, Lion of Zion posted this about how one might lessen stress on a Friday afternoon. My response to his suggestion of eliminating some of the side dishes was “But those are the healthy dishes!”

Here’s a post of quick, healthy side dishes and not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort side dishes. And some kid-friendly ideas, too. If there’s no link to a recipe, maybe some day I’ll write up a recipe.

Quick Side Dishes

• Sweet potato: Put in a baking dish and bake along with other foods. Takes about 1.5 hours to bake, but if you are baking other things at the same time, it’s only 5 minutes of your time.
• Avocado: Buy an avocado or two on Tuesday or Wednesday. By Shabbat, it should be ripe. Mash and mix in salt, garlic (optional, and we have cubes in the freezer so as not use garlic press on Shabbat), lemon juice (again, we have lemon juice in bottle so as not to squeeze lemon on Shabbat), possibly some hot sauce.
• Beets: If you are in the kitchen anyway, boil some fresh beets. They take 1.5 hours to cook (quicker with a pressure cooker), but most of your work time is spent cutting the ends of the beets off before cooking and peeling after cooking (10 minutes). You can mix them with cucumbers, olive oil and dill right before serving.
• Steamed cauliflower or brussel sprouts: both taste good cold or room-temperature the next day.
• Garlic Spread
• Spinach : use frozen spinach–don’t cook it but take it out and put in a baking dish. Then put it on warming tray before Shabbat for Friday night dinner.

Quick Sides for Kids

My kids don’t like salads. So here are some ideas of what you can put on the table in front of the kids while you are enjoying your salads:

• Carrot sticks
• Strawberries
• Cut up melon pieces

Healthy Sides (not-quite-as-quick-but-worth-the-effort)

• Ratatouille
• Eggplant Salad
• Potato Salad
• Red Cabbage and Green Apple Salad
• Cabbage with Mustard Garlic Dressing
• Fruit Salad
• Vegetable Salad (one could do a whole post on possible ingredients)
• Tabouli
• Orange, Radish and Mint Salad
• Carrot Salad
• Marinated Mushrooms

Years ago, I took a course on Environmental Economics, in which I learned that the poorer a country, the less it can afford to spend on the environment. It seems that is also true with health; if one is busy making money to pay for tuition and groceries and whatever else is in the budget, it is harder to take the time to cook lengthier dishes. At the same time, some people just don’t like cooking. And then there are those who would rather be cooking than working. Personally, I’d rather write a blog post about cooking than work or cook. Because I get an excuse to draw those little veggies at top right with my kids’ markers.

Another day of cleaning for Passover coming up. One little nifty trick I want to share, and it seems that I am not alone in doing this, is we don’t allow chametz (crackers, bread, pretzels) upstairs all year round. I sometimes sit in the living room and watch kids try to travel upstairs with snack or another. “Uh, uh, uh”, I announce from the comfort of the couch. No food upstairs, please.

I amended this rule from all food banned upstairs to some exceptions this year. My daughter wanted to eat upstairs. So I bargained with her. “OK if it’s an apple,” I said. Then I discovered she would ask often for an apple! Because she knew she could eat it upstairs. Wow, parental breakthrough. An incentive for my daughter to eat apples.

Here’s a previous post on trying to get kids to eat healthy:
Broccoli for Dessert

Dixie Yid reminds us not to overdue the pesach cleaning and not confuse it with spring cleaning, but if we don’t do the spring cleaning now, then when?

Finally, thank you to Prof. K for her vinegar suggestion. I’ve been using white vinegar and baking soda on my refrigerator shelves. It may not work as easily as the strong chemicals, but then, I don’t really want Comet or Joe’s Super Strength Cleaner next to my food.

Update today: my daughter got a kick out of the baking soda and vinegar! I spread baking soda on a kitchen cabinet, and then I asked her to guess what would happen when I poured on a little vinegar. She loved the bubbles! And she shared with her abba the fun of making bubbles while cleaning.

Sometimes my husband likes to tease my kids when they ask: “What’s for dessert?” and he replies, broccoli. Now, my kids just groan, or say, no, really, but other people’s kids sometimes fall for it. They have these pained looks on their faces, like are we really getting broccoli? For dessert?

Which brings me to the topic of kids and food. You know, you can preach all you want, you can teach all you want, but they have their own little minds, these kids. For example, I taught my eldest son to read nutrition tags on cereal boxes at a young age. So what did he do? Look around for boxes of cereal with higher sugar content. ‘Cuz the higher the sugar content, the better it tastes, right? Hmmm.

What works best for me is fresh, steamed broccoli. I own three strainers (the kind you insert into a pot), so I don’t have to go searching for one, and I often cut up the broccoli an hour or two before supper and leave it to soak. So at dinner time I can put fresh, steamed broccoli on the table. Which my kids eat. Though they don’t eat it the next day, when it’s a leftover. But that’s OK, because I eat it leftover. For breakfast or lunch.

Now, here’s another topic: we all live in a community of some sort. My family and I are part of the Orthodox Jewish community, which has some wonderful benefits, such as being able to give (shaloch manot on Purim, Bikur Holim–visiting the sick, paying shiva calls, cooking for families with new babies) and receive (similar list). However, providing healthy food for young children is not one the stronger points of the Orthodox Jewish community. I don’t remember the amount of candy that my kids get in school or shul being so abundant when I was a child. And did her teacher really need to send home the chocolate fudge cake when my daughter was sick last year and needed good nutrition to recover? I gave the cake to my boys. Then there was the kiddush for a simcha in a more right wing community than ours…I remember seeing bright red on the table, and thinking, great, fruit! No, my eyes were playing tricks on me. That was just food coloring on the cake. And I’m not even bringing the bug issue (for those who don’t know about kashrut and bugs…that would be a whole ‘nother post).

I hate when Nutrition Nerd becomes Nutrition Nag. But I feel like a nag when I bring up the topic of healthy food for children.