Hello! Thanks for checking in and for also referring my Blog to other people who might be looking for meal solutions for themselves and their children. I hope your week is rolling along well and that you are enjoying the Autumn Chill in the air. This week we will cover a healthy fast classic combo that involves your family. I named this soup after my daughter. It is a quick Minestrone Soup, yet when we made it together it was always called her soup. Funny how this made her want to cook it more often and how she always ate it.
If your children are younger, consider a walk outside this weekend to collect leaves that are turning colors. Cut an oval shape from a paper grocery bag or a piece of colored construction paper and glue the leaves to the paper to create your own place mat for dinner tonight. You can also add a lesson to the craft by trying to identify the leaves you have. Are they Oak leaves?, maybe Maple?
It's mid October....Want to decorate a mini pumpkin? (Cheaper than a big one and you do not cut a small pumpkin, which is safer for you and the children) Decorate the pumpkin with colored markers. I suggest you buy a box of disposable plastic gloves, so when you cook or decorate using permanent markers, that the ink stays mostly on the gloves and not your child's hands.
Consider taking photos of your craft and cooking time and begin to make an album either online or in print.
Minestrone Soup with an Open faced Sandwich
Serves 4 portions
Can be refrigerated and held 3 days or can be frozen and held for 20 days
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Soup Ingredients
1 - 32 ounces of low sodium vegetable broth
1 - 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 - 14 ounce can white beans (your protein source)
1 - half cup of Pastina style pasta or small pasta stars, like Acini D peppe (small, cooks faster)
1 - medium sweet onion, medium dice (as you learned to do last week)
1 TBSP Olive Oil or Canola Oil
1 - pound bag of mixed vegetables (corn, cut green beans, lima beans, peas, carrots blend is ok)
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground garlic powder
1 TBSP Italian Seasoning
Soup Preparation
Child: In a 4 qt. stock pot, place your TBSP of olive oil and turn heat to medium.
Parent: When you can see small waves in your oil and before it smokes or pops, you add your diced onions.
Parent or Child age 12: Stir onion pieces around with a log handled metal or wooden spoon. Cook until the onion is slightly brown in color.
Parent or Child: Add in the frozen mixed vegetables and stir gently about 5 turns from the bottom up. You stir and gently lift the vegetables up from the bottom to prevent sticking.
Parent: Turn off stove top heat.
Parent or Child: Take turns measuring the seasonings and adding them to your onions.
CAUTION: The pot is hot, so have the child's arms and hands sprinkle the tsp. of each dry seasoning ingredients from high above the soup pot.
Parent: Place your long handled spoon inside of the soup pot with the handle resting against the side, so it does not fall inside. Add the vegetable broth slowly, by pouring it slowly against the lower handle and round part of the spoon head. This reduces splatter from the hot surface of the soup pot.
Child: Stir the broth , seasonings and cooked onions. (This process is called, de-glazing the pan. You are removing the flavored bits of onion and cooked seasonings from the inside of your pan to get the flavors moving around in your broth.)
Child or Parent: Add the can of beans using the same no-splatter spoon technique to reduce splashing
Child or Parent: Add the can of tomatoes using the same technique.
Parent or Child age 12: Turn the stove top heat source under your soup pot to "medium-low" for 20 minutes or until it has a gentle boil. (Dial setting 4 is good) STIRRING 4 stirs, every 4 minutes again from the bottom up, to prevent burning or sticking.
Child: Slowly pour your half cup of uncooked pasta into the boiling soup and stir 4 times.
Parent: Please cover the soup pot and allow to continue to cook on "low" (Dial setting 2) for 10 more minutes.
Parent: Turn heat off under your soup, leaving covered until you serve it with your sandwiches. I encourage you to serve the soup in a bowl and only fill the bowl half to 3/4 full so your child has room to spoon and not have to worry about spilling. Doing so builds confidence, as they will spill less often.
Parent: Who is setting the table tonight? Why should we set the table? Can we eat hot soup with our hands? Will we get burned? Is getting our fingers burned ok? Why not? Oh, so we should probably set the table together. I'll get the spoons. Will you please get the napkins and plates? Thanks! You are such a great helper! I love it when you help out.
WHILE THE PASTA IS COOKING IN YOUR SOUP............
Sandwich Ingredients
4- of your choice of bread, pita , half of a roll, or one tortilla (whatever you have at home or that you know your children will eat)
8- one ounce slices of low salt, low fat turkey slices rolled
2- ounces of bottled marinade or BBQ sauce un-used from last week's meal.
4- one ounce slices of low fat provolone cheese
Sandwich Preparation- 10 minutes
Parent: Turn on your oven and Pre-heat oven to 400*F
Child: Spray a cookie sheet with a non-stick cooking spray
Child: Place 4 pieces of your favorite bread item"half" on the sprayed cookie sheet
Parent: Place about 1 tsp. of the marinade on each slice of bread item half by using a circular motion, smear the marinade to cover as much of the bread as possible.
Child: Place 2 rolls of turkey on each bread item
Child: Place one slice of provolone on top of your turkey rolls
Parent: Place the cookie sheet in the middle rack of your oven and bake open faced sandwiches for 10 minutes.
Parent: Turn oven off and remove cooked sandwiches from the oven. With a spatula, or commonly known as " the hamburger flipper thingy" in some single parent's homes I have visited... and place the sandwiches, one on each plate. Serve with the bowl of soup.
TIP: by serving one sandwich per plate, per person and one bowl of soup per person, you are managing portion control as well as preventing an older child from taking more portions that you want them to have, usually so the younger sibling has no food to eat. (I was the younger sibling...smile)
What we have learned:
1. Adding a craft and learning experience fills your time up with a positive vibe and builds memories and also expresses creativity. Also learning and doing things together allows for casual conversation time. As your children get older, they will come to you for conversation because you've built that behavior up with them now.
2. How to make a healthy and quick soup
3. How to "de-glaze" a pan using a liquid
4. How to re-enforce your dicing skills
5. An open faced sandwich technique, plus.... less bread, less calories
6. A positive teaching method called " The Socratic Method", of asking questions to get agreement and the result you want. (setting the table)
7. A way to use up some marinade you had left over
8. Techniques on soup bowl filling to reduce spills, burns
9. Portion control
10. Pouring technique into a pot to avoid splatter
11. Stirring from the bottom up, prevent sticking and burning
OPTIONS:
Soup: Want to make chicken vegetable or beef vegetable soup instead? Take one pound of cleaned, cut, fresh chicken tenders, like the casserole recipe tenders and add them at the same time you added the onions. Like beef? Buy 1 pound of fresh thawed stew meat, small pre-cut portions of cubed beef. Season with salt and pepper, roll lightly in all purpose flour and add them at the same time you added the onions.
Sandwich: Substitute Turkey slices for chicken breast slices, or lean roast beef or low salt ham slices. You can also drain a can of albacore tuna fish, drain/dry it on a few paper towels and place the tuna on the bread slice half, top with marinade and cheese. Cook time stays the same even if you substitute the proteins above.
Take every recipe, every time together as a family, step by step and relax. Be the best person you can be and you will get through the cooking part and the single parent part. I hope that your time together this weekend as a family is filled with smiles.
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