Yet another challenge: kids generally hate broccoli, but how can we parents prepare broccoli for our kids to make it taste good?

zumbagoodness.com

 
Broccoli belongs to the cabbage family. It is a fast-growing, upright, branched, annual plant and it bears dense green clusters of edible flower buds. Broccoli thrives in moderate to cool climates. Its flavor resembles that of cabbage but is milder.

But what is so beneficial about broccoli?

www.thekitchn.com

Broccoli can provide you with some cholesterol-lowering benefits if you steam it and it has a positive impact on your body’s detoxification system. It may also help you solve a vitamin D deficiency epidemic.

Moreover, broccoli has a strong combination of both vitamin A and vitamin K. For people faced with the need to rebuild vitamin D stores through vitamin D supplements, broccoli may be an ideal vegetable to include in the diet.

Did you know broccoli contains more vitamin C than an orange? Vitamin C is great for your hair, skin, teeth, fighting infections and keeping red blood cells healthy.

How to choose your broccoli ?

When buying broccoli, choose vegetables that have a uniform green color without any brown or yellowing spots. The broccoli stem should feel firm and the crown should be tight; soft stems or limp florets are a sign of old broccoli. Store broccoli in the crisper drawer in the fridge where it may keep well for a few days.

Fresh broccoli heads are available the whole year in the stores. Whenever possible, go for organic farm products to get maximum health benefits.

Once at home, rinse the flower heads by dipping them upside down in salt water for up to 30 minutes and clean afterwards in running cold water before use, in order to remove pesticide and dust. Try to eat broccoli while they are fresh.

Recipe from “The Barefoot Contessa”  

channelingcontessa.com

 
Ingredients

2 large bunches of broccoli
6,5 tbs olive oil
1 lemon
3 tbs toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 garlic cloves
Salt &  pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 220 degree Celsius.

Take two large bunches of broccoli and cut into florets (but relatively big ones). If you wash them, make sure you dry them thoroughly. Put the broccoli on a cookie sheet. Toss with olive oil (5 tbs), salt and pepper. Now add 4 garlic cloves that are peeled and sliced and toss them in too.

Roast in the oven 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp-tender and the tips of some of the florets are browned.

When it’s done, take it out of the oven and zest a lemon over the broccoli, squeeze the lemon juice over the broccoli, add 1,5 tbs more olive oil, 3 tbs toasted pine nuts and 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Enjoy, it simply is delicious!

Give us your thoughts about this “green” recipe….

The time when parents used to frown and growl: “Don’t eat with your fingers” is definitely over. With “finger food”, eating without cutlery has become an art which appeals to children and adults for its playful and convivial sides. Even chefs from starred restaurants succumbed to this trend.

It is true that finger food is similar to nibbling and that is part of its appeal. But this kind of nibbling is chic and glamorous. Sweet or salted. Sushi’s, wraps, chocolate bars, there is something for all tastes and desires. Moreover, it is convenient, convivial, playful and trendy. Top it off with the pleasure of nibbling vegetable, meat or fish pieces… comfortably sitting and zapping on the couch while it is windy and cold outside. A dream, to experience as couple, with your family or with friends! As for the children, they are delighted about the idea.

taste.com.au

Finger food, a real social phenomenon

With finger food, dinner gets a new life and can even be elegant, refined, organic, vegetarian, light or full of vitamins. Of course, you eat with your fingers – and with some picks if needed – whenever you want, but not anything and everything. It is why it is so popular when you have guests: nicely presented, in small cups, verrines, very small casseroles, tubes, etc., the canapés and small bites make a great impression. Ideal for celebrations! Apparently happy to have the possibility to create in complete freedom, many chefs of starred restaurants began to serve finger food.

The “no fork and no knife” also invades the supermarket shelves, to make your gourmet evenings more fun: small picnic boxes, small sticks to crunch and dip in a sauce, small stuffed salmon, small sausages… You can find many grab and go snacks and everything you need to cook homemade recipes like small vegetable kebabs, foie gras slices, Roquefort bites, small carrot cakes, salmon tartare verrines or pancakes stuffed with cheese and roquette.

blogs.babble.com

Nibble without feeling guilty!

Nothing is easier than preparing a healthy and complete finger food meal: raw fruits and vegetables cut into pieces with guacamole sauce for example, cheese cubes, a hardboiled egg, almonds, nuts or dried fruits make a healthy and delicious meal you can eat without complexes. Bring a new life to the basics of cocktail parties or recreate your favorite recipes in a dinner buffet version served as hors d’oeuvres… And most of all, nibble as much as you want without feeling guilty and enjoy! 

cairodining.com

To get you started, below you will find 2 vegan finger food recipes.

Hatch Green Chile Hummus

Ingredients
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup cashews
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can of chickpeas, drained and washed
2 roasted green chiles
juice of one lime
1 teaspoon smoked salt
1/2 teaspoon of fresh sage

Directions
Process the garlic, then add the cashews and process a minute or two. Add the remaining ingredients and dilute with water until desired texture is achieved. Enjoy!

Socca – the French pancake that’s gluten-free and vegan

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups room temperature water
1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (plus more as needed)

Directions
To make the batter, pour the water into a mixing bowl and sift the chickpea flour into it using a fine-mesh sieve or a sifter. Add the salt, black pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Whisk the mixture together, cover the bowl with a towel, and let the batter sit on the counter for at least 5 minutes and up to 12 hours.

For smaller pancakes, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Pour 2-inch circles of batter into the pan and cook until small bubbles appear on the top of the pancakes and the bottoms are browned (1-2 minutes). Flip the pancakes and cook until the other side is browned (about a minute). Serve hot.

This article was initially published in Delhaize Belgium’s Delhaize Magazine of January 2013.
Extracts of the article were used for this posting.

Pangasius has it all: its flesh is firm with a delicate taste, it absorbs cooking aromas, it doesn’t disintegrate while cooking and it is boneless. Moreover, it can be reared in a sustainable way. This source of proteins is thus eco-friendly.

in.all.biz

An alternative to overfishing in the Mekong delta

Pangasius is a farmed fish. That means consuming it doesn’t have any impact on the precious stock of wild fish. It grows quickly and is a genuine source of proteins. Once fertilized, its eggs are placed in a pond that reproduces the natural living conditions of the fish (temperature, oxygen level). A few weeks later, when the fish has reached a height of 4 inches, it is moved to closed ponds in the Mekong river. The water can be renewed thanks to a system of pipes, locks and filters linking these to the river. A lab is responsible for regularly checking the quality of the water. As this fish is herbivorous, it has no impact on global fishing, unlike other farmed fish.

A farming that takes care of fish, man and the environment

Once fully grown, the fish is removed from the pond in a traditional way: farmers place a net at one end of the pond and remove all the water using buckets. In the end, all the fish is guided to a boat anchoring a little bit further in the Mekong. The absence of mechanical tools contributes to creating thousands of jobs in Vietnam. This sector provides livelihoods for about one million people out of the 90 million inhabitants in this country.

A top quality transport to ensure freshness in the stores

To ensure the freshness of pangasius in the stores, Delhaize Belgium’s preferred supplier solely works with farmers located 2 hours away from Ho Chi Minh airport. Once in Belgium, after undergoing the necessary controls, the fish is directly transported to Delhaize Belgium’s distribution center.

Did you ever try pangasius?
Let us know what you think of this recipe.

Creamy Pangasius Fillets

affish.nl

Ingredients (for 2 persons)
2 Pangasius fillets (King)
1 small red onion or shallot
1 clove of garlic
3 tablespoons creme fraiche
1/2 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
a bit of grated cheese
pepper if desired

Directions

• put baking paper on the baking sheet of the oven
• place the fillets on the paper-lined oven plate
• make the topping of creme fraiche, mustard and pepper
• preheat the oven to 200 degrees C°
• cut the red onion or shallot in rings, cut the clove of garlic in slices
• sauté the onion with butter in a frying pan, then add the garlic and gently fry the whole
• when the onion is light colored you can add the creme fraiche topping, mix with the onion and garlic and heat this half a minute
• then take this mix from the pan and apportion nicely over fillets, finish it off with some grated cheese (modest quantity) and coarse ground black pepper
• slide the baking sheet with the fillets in the middle of the oven
• in about 25 minutes you can feast!

http://www.affish.nl/en/recepten/romige-pangasius-filets

This article was initially published in Delhaize Belgium’s Delhaize Magazine of January 2013.

Oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, mandarins, clementines … Citrus fruits are particularly appreciated in the winter, because of their slightly acid flavor, their tasteful juice and their richness in Vitamin C, which helps us make it through the winter smoothly!

Pomelos

Pomelo is similar to grapefruit. The peel of this large fruit is smooth and thick. The pomelo can be pale yellow or pink-red on the inside and yellow-green on the outside. It is rich in water and doesn’t need any addition of sugar to be tasteful. Its juicy pulp makes it a very thirst-quenching fruit. Besides, its sour and slightly bitter taste stimulates the digestive secretions. Pomelo should be more present in our diet because of its taste qualities as well as its nutritional value (it is particularly rich in vitamins B1, P and C (37 mg/100g). Moreover its energy content is quite moderate: 42 Kcal/100 g. From fall to spring, pomelos are mainly imported from the USA. In the summertime, they are shipped from South Africa or Argentina.

sheknows.ca

Clementines

Clementine is a relatively recent fruit. It appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in Algeria and is a cross between mandarin and bitter orange. Clementines have more than one asset to seduce the consumer: first of all, their juice is charmingly sweet and they are almost always seedless. It is most appreciated for its fine and perfumed flesh as well as for its low energy content (46 Kcal/100 g), which means you can eat 2 clementines for only 50 Kcal. Another advantage is its pulp, rich in minerals, micro-nutrients and mainly vitamins C (41 mg/100 g). In a nutshell: this is an ideal winter fruit! In stores, you will find it displayed on tables (non refrigerated) but in order to keep them longer and to stop them from drying, it is better to keep them refrigerated, for instance in the vegetable compartment of a fridge. This fruit peels easily and can be enjoyed out of hand. You can also toss slices in a fruit salad or drink the tasteful juice of this sweet fruit. At Delhaize, we select special varieties that are seedless, juicy and sweet. Those varieties are: Clemenrubi, Oronules and Clémenules.

examiner.com

Oranges

There are different varieties of oranges. The two major ones are the blood orange and the Navel orange. The flesh of blood oranges is wine-colored and their peel can sometimes be red. The most common ‘oranges to eat’ are Navelina, Navel (easy to spot thanks to the protuberance appearing opposite the stem end), Navel Late and Powell. The different sorts of blood oranges are Tarooco (=‘oranges to eat’), Moro and Sanguinello (= ‘orange to squeeze’). It is true that most of the oranges can be eaten one way or another but still, ‘oranges to squeeze’ have a more fibrous flesh which makes them less pleasant to eat. The varieties of ‘oranges to squeeze’ are Solustiara, Valencia and Valencia Late. The real orange season begins mid-November with fruits coming from Spain but they can be consumed all year long thanks to importations from Israel, South Africa, Chili and Argentina.

pittmandavis.com

Lemons

If you ever enjoyed a freshly squeezed lemon juice with water and sugar, you know how refreshing and thirst-quenching it is. Most of all, it benefits the organism with 30 kcal/100 g and its high concentration in vitamin C that allows the juice of just one lemon to cover one third of our daily needs. Be careful, though: if you cut a lemon in slices, it will lose its vitamin C in no time. How to choose a lemon? Take a fruit. Is it heavy and firm? Does it have a bright and fairly shiny yellow peel? This is a good sign. Once you are back at home, keep it up to one week in the fruit bowl or two weeks and more in the fridge. Lemon is ideal for plenty of recipes and dishes – soup, sauces, fish, vegetables, cakes and sorbets – and for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. But one of its main assets in cooking is its capacity to prevent oxidation in certain vegetables and fruits like avocados, apples, peers, etc.

speedyremedies.com

How many citrus fruits do you eat in a normal winter day?

This article was initially published in Delhaize Belgium’s Delhaize Magazine of January 2013