Planning the summer family menus has been challenging. With your oldest daughter home from her first year in college you are again limited to the fairly narrow list of things that she is willing to eat. Although she never complains and quietly just gets the extra food items that she wants, you really want to serve meals that your family of four can enjoy.
Your younger daughter, who has just finished her first year in high school, decided six months ago that she was now a pescatarian, a person who eats fish, but no other meats. Add your carnivorous husband into the mix and the meal planning becomes especially challenging. And while you and the girls are happy to eat a simple pasta, without meat, for dinner, your husband would rather fire up the grill for steaks and burgers.
The meals that have received the most amount of enthusiasm are the ones that are a combination of thinks like chicken piccata and healthy sized servings of salads that include everything from kale to organic micro greens. With a little inventive adaptation to create some tilapia piccata for your younger daughter, some of these meals have been a real hit. Filling the stomachs of the whole family while at the same encouraging the girls to linger and chat well beyond the normal hurried meal time of 15 to 20 minutes, the best meals are worth repeating.
Adding Microgreens to Salads Increases Nutrients and Enhances Presentation
Tasty and healthful cooking does not have to be complicated. Even the use of specialty ingredients like organic micro greens and many varieties of edible flowers can be effortlessly worked into meals that are nutritious and delicious. Although organic micro greens and edible flower petals are not easy to grow at home, they are rather easy to find for purchase and often quite affordable.
It is difficult to argue with the younger generation of eaters when they are making healthy choices. Initially, however, the some of the meal items can seem overwhelming. Finding a way to incorporate organic micro greens into your meals, however, can be more manageable by starting slowly. For example, the next time you make a kale salad, consider adding petite microgreens in the mix. Once you begin to discover which microgreen varieties your family likes the most you can create a salad with just those.
Another simple way to start creating meals with healthy microgreens is to consider using some of the preportioned meal delivery serves that are growing in popularity. These services are known for highlighting fresh vegetables that are in season. Once a delivered meal and recipe introduces a variety of microgreens it is easy to them recreate those meals afer buying your own ingredients.
Are You Ready to Experiment with Edible Flowers with Your Next Baking Creation?
While varieties of microgreens are popular for salads and vegetable dishes, several type of edible flowers are used in other kinds of salads and desserts. From sugar flowers for wedding cakes to to colorful petals used on spring salads, incorporating edible flowers is another way to add both variety and beauty to any meal.
Unfortunately, many home cooks fear that the use of edible flowers are is only meant for the professionals. In reality, however, the edible flower trend is a fairly simple way for amateur cooks and bakers to let their creativity show.
Whether you are a new spouse impressing your partner with a unique meal or you are a mother looking to get your children to eat a wider variety of foods, adding color may be the answer. For children, for instance, they prefer six food colors and seven different food components for the plating and presentations. This variety at a young age helps create an adult who eats a greater variety of foods. Adults, on the other hand, tend to prefer a three color/three component limit to their plated meals.
In a time when posting food seems to be a major trend, it should come as no surprise that some Flickr groups like “I Ate This” feature more than 300,000 photos contributed by more than 19,000 members. And while the average fine dining cost a person in America amounts to $28.55, many of these attractive meals can be created at home at a much lower cost.
