Book week, part 3/Friday food

Cooking Up the Good Life by Jenny Breen and Susan Thurston.

This is the anti-dumbed-down-for-kids cookbook. When you first glance at it, in no way does it scream "Cook with and for kids!" Recipes include Curried Squash Soup, Mediterranean Succotash with Edamame and Lime, Pizza with Arugula, Potatoes, Caramelized Spring Onions, and Gouda or Gorgonzola, and Tempeh (or Chicken) Fajitas. I know my eyebrows went up a bit, having two teenaged boys in the house who are capable of--but not always necessarily willing to--try new foods. Not just that, but a cookbook geared towards family cooking that includes some fairly lengthy ingredient lists and, at times, complex cooking instructions, seems at cross purposes.

But as Breen explains in an essay titled "The Family Kitchen," "If you have kids, the kitchen can become one of the best living classrooms they will ever enter, and everyone has the opportunity to have fun while learning about food chemistry (this is what happens when you add yeast), applied math (two tablespoons is the same as one-eighth of a cup), and even color theory (see how your eye is drawn to the orange of the yam in the greens). Our favorite part of what happens in the family kitchen, though, is the stories, whether folk tales such as that found in the Three Sisters Salad recipe, sharing something that happened during your day as you chop herbs for the sauce, or retelling a family legend about crazy Uncle Billy while spreading cream cheese frosting over carrot cake."

It's an ambitious and persuasive book, divided into traditional cookbook categories like Starters and Salads. But within each of those sections, the recipes are grouped according to season, highlighting what's likely to be available locally, so a spring soup might be the Spring Greens Soup with Caramelized Ramps, while a winter soup would be a Creamy Wild Rice Soup.

Most of the recipes come with "Family Kitchen" tips and tales, which explain and encourage parents to involve their children in the choosing and preparing of meals. But this cookbook, unlike many other kids' cookbooks, actually has food the adults will want to eat too.

Such as this.

A muffin. But--not a treacly sweet store-bought muffin. They're on the edge of savory, with just a touch of sweetness that made them both great for breakfast and served as a dinner accompaniment. Doing my best to honor Breen's local commitment, I used whole wheat flour and cornmeal from the Home Hearth Grains stand at Mill City Farmers Market which I'd show you a picture of, but it's an Amish family and they aren't supposed to pose for photos. But take my word for it, they sell the best grains ever. Also with the "best ever" theme, the recipe calls for 1 cup of "sweetener," which I divided between maple syrup and honey from Sapsucker Farms. Enjoy!

Strawberry Cornmeal Muffins

Make 12 muffins

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup softened butter or oil
2 eggs
1 cup sweetener (honey, maple syrup, fruit jam, applesauce, sugar, or a mixture)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 cups apple juice or milk of your choice
1 cup sliced strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin.

Place the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl and stir with a fork or whisk to combine. In another bowl, stir together the butter, eggs, sweetener, and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir just until blended. Add as much of the apple juice or milk as needed to make the batter creamy, slightly sticky, and wet, but not too thin. Gently stir in the strawberries.

Spoon the batter into the oiled muffin pans and bake for 15-20 minutes.

My thanks to the University of Minnesota Press for both sending me a review copy of this book and for giving me permission to post the recipe.

Comments

[Susant Thurston]

Thank you for the great review! --Susan Thurston

[Miss T]

Once again, you've been caught baking.