Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 16, 2012 0 Comments
Sizzle, sizzle, pop!
A comforting aroma filled our kitchen as we fried the pancetta for our new food
of the week: Brussels Sprouts. If I plan to advocate for my kids to try new
foods, I figured I had better set a good example by trying something new
myself!
Setting a Good Example
For me, Pancetta goes hand in hand with comfort food. My
grandmother used it in every one of my favorite family dishes. Reasoning that I
liked most everything that I had tried with Pancetta, I thought the addition of
this deliciously crispy complement would make Brussels Sprouts palate pleasing
for my whole family (me included!).
Feature Recipe: Pan-Seared
Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Pancetta
Dawn Viola is masterful at creating delightfully easy
recipes that showcase the beauty of bringing together a few simple ingredients.
Using what are staples in most kitchens – lemon, garlic, olive oil, and
pancetta (or bacon) – her recipe for pan-seared Brussels
Sprouts with Lemon and Pancetta was a delicious addition to our meal and made
our weekday dinner feel like a special occasion.
Crunch a Color Kids
Vote: 2 Thumbs Up! We'd make it again.
What we liked: This
dish required minimal prep work (yeah!), was easy enough for my 5 year old to make, and made a ho-hum weeknight dinner feel festive.I always try to get three colors on our
plate with healthy sides, but I tend to lean heavily on the basic (and sometimes
boring) lightly steamed version of fresh veggies. Dawn’s recipe provided an
easy and tasty way for me to dress up our dinner! While they are still in season, we’ll
keep Brussels Sprouts on our weekly shopping list.
Healthy Eating: Week
3, Mandarin Oranges
With Chinese New Year fast approaching, my mind has turned
to the special treats we love to indulge in at this time of year. Mandarin oranges,
with their bright personalities both in taste and appearance, are an important
part of this celebration. Ambassadors of prosperity and good luck, these mini bursts of citrus delight always make my little food
adventurers smile. So I thought I’d try a new twist on an old favorite. Our
feature recipe for week 3 of #52NewFoods comes from Natalie Perry at Perry’s
Plate: Avocado and orange salad with hazelnuts. I’ll swap mandarin oranges for the regular orange
slices called for in this dish. I hope you’ll try it with me.
Do you celebrate Chinese New Year? What are some of your
favorite dishes to bring in a New Year filled with prosperity and good health?
Craving more new recipes to try? Catch up on last week’s
Beef Vegetable Soup.
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a
mom of two children and the creator of Crunch a Color™
-- the award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy
eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie Oliver’s Food
Revolution, FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch her picky
eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters playing the
game. Follow @crunchacolor
and #52newfoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure and
Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 09, 2012 0 Comments
The allure of bonus points
for trying a new food wasn’t even enough to get my picky eater to try onions.
She would pick them out of her dishes with the precision of a well-trained
surgeon. For our healthy eating adventure, I decided to start with a real
challenge: get my daughter to try onions!
Warm Up: Green Onion Pancakes
We started the week with a heart-warming, staple of Chinese
menus: green
onion pancakes. This simple dish is easy enough for a 5 year old to make,
and the delicate taste of green onions tucked in a warm blanket of lightly
pan-fried dough is irresistible. I put my young chefs in charge of preparing
this tasty treat, using Grape Seed oil as a healthier substitute, and my strategy worked. The entire batch was devoured before I could
clean the pans!
Feature Recipe:
Vegetable Beef Soup
With a strong start out of the gate, we ventured to try our
feature recipe of the week: Out of
the Box Food’s Vegetable Beef Soup. Kim’s recipe is a healthy spin on
Progresso’s Beef Barley Vegetable Soup. I used Cippolini onions for the base of
this hearty soup, reasoning that their milder taste would be more appealing to
my daughter’s picky palate. I also swapped pasta for the beans.
Crunch a Color Kids
Vote: 2 Thumbs Up! We'd make it again.
What we liked:
This recipe was easy enough for my kids to make, quick to prepare, and provided
two delicious meals. We loaded the ingredients into the slow
cooker, turned it on low for several hours and were rewarded with a tasty soup
that was reminiscent of my husband’s tasty short rib recipe.
Healthy Eating: Week
2, Brussels Sprouts
A visit to a local farm stand in Half Moon Bay resulted in
our new food choice for this week: Brussels Sprouts. According to MyPlate’s Food-A-Pedia,
a comprehensive guide to nutritional information, these little powerhouses of
the cabbage clan are packed with Vitamin C.I have to confess, I'm not really a fan of these tiny green jewels, but Dawn
Viola’s Pan-Seared Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Pancetta may win me
over.Do you have a favorite
Brussels Sprouts recipe? Share your ideas and we’ll give them a try. You may be
featured in our favorites next week!
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a mom of two
children and the creator of Crunch a Color™
-- the award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy
eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,
FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch her picky
eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters
playing the game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52newfoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 04, 2012 0 Comments
Healthy
Eating will top countless New Year’s resolution lists this year. The Crunch a
Color kids decided to take on this challenge in a new way: 52 weeks, 52 new foods (#52NewFoods). I
hope you and your picky eaters will join us on this yearlong adventure of
eating healthy and trying new, kid-friendly, easy recipes. Jamie Oliver will
feature our culinary journey -- it’s a New Year’s food revolution!
Crisp air and sunlight sparkling on the Golden Gate Bridge
served as a perfect backdrop to our family outing. The fresh market was buzzing
with curious customers sampling and savoring delicious treats from local
artisans and farmers. It was New Year’s Day and a visit to the farmer’s market
in San Francisco was top on my list for starting 2012 on the right track. The
goal: Try a new healthy food every week. 52 weeks, 52 new foods. A healthy
eating adventure for my whole family.
Eating healthy will top many lists of New Year’s resolutions
this year, my family included. Instead of focusing on what we can’t have, I am
challenging my family to find and try healthy new foods to expand our
repertoire of favorites. Putting the children in charge of this culinary adventure
is the key to success: when they choose, they are more likely to enjoy. Each
week I will write about a new food that my family will try. Whether it’s an
entirely new healthy food, like the Jujube’s we sampled at the market that
sunny Sunday in San Francisco, or old favorites prepared in a new way, my
family and I will try a healthy food and recipe from aspiring Jamie Oliver Food
Revolution chefs each week.
Week #1: Onion You may be thinking, “Onion, is that really
new to you?” Well, it’s certainly not new to me but my picky eater runs a fast
mile when she spots them on her plate. My jaw dropped when I spotted her gobbling
up a delicately pan-fried onion pancake at the market. She even ventured to try
a belly-warming, homemade organic fennel and cipollini onion soup. Maybe it was
the new twist on a familiar food that got her past her picky palate? Or maybe
it was because she got to choose what she would try from a magnificent array of
artisanal creations? Whatever the reason, this staple of healthy eating will be
our starting point this year.
Featured Recipe: Out of the Box Food's Vegetable Beef Soup With loads of leftovers from bountiful holiday celebrations,
I decided Out of the Box Food’s healthy take on Vegetable Beef Soupwould be the perfect place to start, where onions form the
foundation of this hearty dish. Kim Gerber does an outstanding job turning some
of America’s favorite dishes into healthy, easy recipes that your whole family
will enjoy. I hope you’ll join me this week in trying Kim’s recipe. Scout out an
unusual onion (or two) to feature in your creation and be sure to share your
stories and favorite recipes. Let me know if you've got a great recipe that you'd like me to try. I’ll report back on our experiment next week!
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a mom of two
children and the creator of Crunch a Color™
-- the award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy
eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,
FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch her picky
eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters
playing the game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52newfoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on December 28, 2011 2 Comments
Crunch a Color™ was featured this week on CTV's Morning Live. Parent Tested, Parent Approved's Sharon Vinderine featured a lineup of products that parents (and kids!) have put to the test and voted top on their list. Picky eaters, you've met your match!
Posted by Jennifer Lee on November 27, 2011 0 Comments
Spread joy and love this season by giving gifts that give back to support a good cause. Give knowing that your gift is helping others, which is the best gift of all.
For me, Pancetta goes hand in hand with comfort food. My
grandmother used it in every one of my favorite family dishes. Reasoning that I
liked most everything that I had tried with Pancetta, I thought the addition of
this deliciously crispy complement would make Brussels Sprouts palate pleasing
for my whole family (me included!). 
Dawn Viola is masterful at creating delightfully easy
recipes that showcase the beauty of bringing together a few simple ingredients.
Using what are staples in most kitchens – lemon, garlic, olive oil, and
pancetta (or bacon) – her recipe for pan-seared 
With Chinese New Year fast approaching, my mind has turned
to the special treats we love to indulge in at this time of year. Mandarin oranges,
with their bright personalities both in taste and appearance, are an important
part of this celebration. Ambassadors of prosperity and good luck, these mini bursts of citrus delight always make my little food
adventurers smile. So I thought I’d try a new twist on an old favorite. Our
feature recipe for week 3 of #52NewFoods comes from Natalie Perry at Perry’s
Plate: 
We started the week with a heart-warming, staple of Chinese
menus: green
onion pancakes. This simple dish is easy enough for a 5 year old to make,
and the delicate taste of green onions tucked in a warm blanket of lightly
pan-fried dough is irresistible. I put my young chefs in charge of preparing
this tasty treat, using Grape Seed oil as a healthier substitute, and my strategy worked. The entire batch was devoured before I could
clean the pans!
With a strong start out of the gate, we ventured to try our
feature recipe of the week: Out of
the Box Food’s Vegetable Beef Soup. Kim’s recipe is a healthy spin on
Progresso’s Beef Barley Vegetable Soup. I used Cippolini onions for the base of
this hearty soup, reasoning that their milder taste would be more appealing to
my daughter’s picky palate. I also swapped pasta for the beans. 
A visit to a local farm stand in Half Moon Bay resulted in
our new food choice for this week: Brussels Sprouts. According to MyPlate’s Food-A-Pedia,
a comprehensive guide to nutritional information, these little powerhouses of
the cabbage clan are packed with Vitamin C. I have to confess, I'm not really a fan of these tiny green jewels, but Dawn
Viola’s Pan-Seared Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Pancetta may win me
over. Do you have a favorite
Brussels Sprouts recipe? Share your ideas and we’ll give them a try. You may be
featured in our favorites next week! 
Crisp air and sunlight sparkling on the Golden Gate Bridge
served as a perfect backdrop to our family outing. The fresh market was buzzing
with curious customers sampling and savoring delicious treats from local
artisans and farmers. It was New Year’s Day and a visit to the farmer’s market
in San Francisco was top on my list for starting 2012 on the right track. The
goal: Try a new healthy food every week. 52 weeks, 52 new foods. A healthy
eating adventure for my whole family.
