Wednesday, August 28, 2023

Vegan Recipes Your Kids Will Love

Vegan Recipes for Kids

Vegan Recipes for Kids

Vegan Recipes Your Kids Will Love

Kids are known for their picky eating habits. From chicken fingers to pizza, many of the kid-friendly foods out there don’t square with a parent’s desire to feed their family healthy, natural foods. With a little creativity, though, kid-friendly fare can be reinvented to make both you and your little one happy!

 

 

Build a Better Snack

Carrots and celery sticks can make a great and healthy snack for your kids. With the addition of some almond or peanut butter, they can also become engineering tools! Cut up various crispy veggies (try green beans and summer squash for additional flavor and textures) into “logs” and build your own vegetable houses, using the nut butter as mortar. Again, grapes, tomatoes, and other small fruits and veggies can be used to accent the snack. Try a slice of apple as a window on the house! Raisins can be used as rocks for the foundation! When the snack house is done, your kid’s imagination can run wild! What monster can resist eating a house in the woods?

 

 

Tofu Fingers

Do your kids need protein from healthier sources? Try replacing those chicken fingers with tofu fingers! Tofu absorbs many flavors, which makes it a great substitute for meat in recipes, or by itself with some flavors added! Buy a block of extra firm tofu, and drain the water. Slice the tofu into thirds through the sides (so you have three blocks that are not as tall) and sandwich them between layers of paper towels to drain the liquid. When the paper towels are wet, replace them with another set of towels – repeat two or three times for best results. Once your tofu is pressed and dried, slice it lengthwise into “chicken fingers,” then toss in a bowl of garlic powder, onion powder, panko crumbs, and maybe a bit of bbq seasoning. Bake on a cookie sheet, and serve with fries and ketchup!

 

 

Personal Pizzas

Kids love pizza, and kids love having a food they can make their own. Personal pizza night gets the kids involved in the preparation – meaning they will also be more likely to eat their dinner. While pizza from a shop can be bad, making your own can be a great way to ensure your family is eating healthy. A good quality dough recipe, included below, is a great start. After rolling out the dough into personal pizza sized rounds, let the kids add their own toppings, bake, then eat! You might consider some fresh grape tomatoes (little, like the kids!), or slicing up pearl onions to make tiny toppings. A slice of roasted eggplant can add some heft to a simple pizza, or you can even use the eggplant in place of a crust: just roll it in cornmeal, sear it in olive oil, then bake in the oven topped with tomato sauce and one of the many delicious vegan cheese products now available.

 

 

Recipe for Pizza Dough

¾ cup + 3 Tablespoons warm water
½ teaspoon active dry yeast
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Directions

Mix the warm water and yeast, and let it activate. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and sugar, then stir in the olive oil and active yeast with the water. Knead the dough by hand and let it rise, covered, in a warm environment. Roll out the dough, and place on a pizza stone sprinkled with cornmeal or semolina flour. Preheat your oven to 500, and prepare your pizza toppings! Bake and enjoy!

 

 

This is a guest post by Mark Lynch. Mark recommends reading more about vegan recipes on Chefs.edu.

Friday, August 02, 2023

Don’t Be Afraid to Let Your Taste Buds Tingle

 

Wine

astonlovell.com is a fine wine investment company


 

Tips for the Wine Lover

 

Summer is one of the main seasons that most of us in the UK look forward to  planning our vacation. With the children out of school for a while, and companies allowing time off to enjoy a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday business activity, it provides a perfect opportunity for everyone to make a break for it. People tend to head off into the direction of their choice and pursue the interests that most appeal to them. For some, this could mean a few weeks at a beach somewhere, for others a cruise to some exotic destination and for others, a chance to indulge in one of their favourite relaxations: wine tasting.

 

Looking for the Perfect Cork

As most aficionados know, the Northern Hemisphere offers a wide variety of choices for wine-related vacations. Arguably, some of the best wines in the world are produced north of the Equator. Undoubtedly, folks in Australia, Chile and even perhaps Argentina would protest this particularly harsh qualification. It is true that the Southern Hemisphere does produce some excellent wines of its own. But it is hard to argue with the choices that are offered by California, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Germany. As a result, folks in the UK tend to travel close to home, preferring European sites which offer a wide variety of choices, rather than trips which will take them halfway around the world. But there are those that are adventurous enough to journey to places like California or even Australia in search of the perfect bouquet.

 

Make a List, Check It Twice

For wine lovers in the UK, it appears that, according to a recent poll, some of the favourite vineyards and locations are within just a few hours plane ride, at most. Among the most popular are:

 

Catalonia, Spain. There are many vineyards to choose from and almost all of them sit on steep and rocky slopes which create a striking visual impact, besides some extremely delicious wines.

 

Douro Valley, Portugal. Nestled on the slopes of a river which winds its way from the Atlantic into the northwest part of the country, the region provides tranquil and pleasant accommodations and a leisurely pace which is often perfect for a relaxing vacation.

Sonoma County, California. Sometimes overshadowed by its larger cousin, Napa Valley this adjacent county provides much the same soil and terrain but with less of a sense of commercialism. It is almost as if a good part of the region was still run by aging hippies, more interested in quality and keeping it real than profit.

 

Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is

Few investments provide investors with as much pleasure as fine wine. Stocks and bonds are great, mind you, but they have no intrinsic appeal of their own. Fine wine however, is an investment that can be made purely to produce a profit, or it can be an investment with a long-term expectation of enjoying uncorking the investment itself. It really is up to the individual to decide what to do with their holdings. It is good to remember that astonlovell.com are a fine wine investment company. They can provide advice to those just starting out in this exciting world, or provide experts with their unique trading platform that makes investments quite simple and rewarding.