Winter Citrus

We have been getting some fantastic citrus out of California lately. Here's a sampling. 

Valencia Oranges - Bursting with sweet almost "orange drink" like juice.

Blood Oranges - Sweet with hint of cranberry

A smaller variety of Blood Oranges - Tasted like a delicious vinaigrette.

Rio Star Grapefruit (actually from Texas) - Just sweet and tart enough. One of my favorite fruits, ever.

Minneolas - A hybrid of grapefruit and tangerines. You could smell these a mile away.

TED Talks about Food.

The TED Conference was last week. TED is a foundation that organizes events where people they chose talk for eighteen minutes about "ideas worth spreading". This time around two of my favorites foodies were invited. After watching the talks I knew that the families of ChildRoots would find these of interest.

This is Jamie Oliver's talk about children and the modern American diet. I've alway been a fan of Jamie Oliver's approach to food. His food is simple, clean and fresh. This talk is centers on a television show that Jamie currently filming, so it comes off a little like a commercial, the message still very relevant.

The next respectable foodie is Mark Bittman, I'm sure a familiar name amongst CR parents. A cookbook author and food writer for the New York Times, his perspective on the state of food today is sensible and sustainable.

This other talk was suggested because of the other two. Ann Cooper (the renegade lunchlady) is the head of nutrition for the Berkeley, CA schools. She has proven that using organic, locally sourced food in schools can work. 


There is a food revolution coming, ChildRoots is proud to be a part of it.

Fresh Roasted Sunflower Seeds.

Sunflower Seeds have been a staple of ChildRoots afternoon snacks since the beginning. A handful of them will provide excellent quantities of vitamin E, B vitamins, and gobs of nutrients. We were using a roasted unsalted variety from our vendor, a couple of months ago I started to get them raw. Not only is it cheaper, but I can control the (type and amount of) oil and the salt level. I've never been a big fan of sunflower seed, I don't think that I've ever had fresh roasted sunflower seeds before. I can't believe the difference in flavor, I am now a friend of the sunflower seed. Here's my method. 

Take a sheet pan an pour four cups of raw sunflower seeds. Spinkle with and acceptable amount of salt and drizzle with olive oil. I can't recommend keeping some oil in a squeezie bottle enough. They go into a 400 degree oven for about 8 minutes.

This is the deliciousness that comes out of the oven, and not to mention the smell.

 

Immediately and carefully slide them in to a bowl, preferably one that isn't plastic. Stir them for a minute or two, this will help the salt coat evenly.

 

These are so much better than the ones that come from the package. Hopefully in the fall we'll be able to try this with seeds from the giant sunflowers in front of ChildRoots. We tried to harvest them last year, sadly we did not dry them properly and they got moldy. We will learn from our mistakes. 

How to cut...Apples

I'm fairly certain that everyone is familiar with Apples, and they're a huge part of the menu at ChildRoots. Thanks to Christina's friends at Kiyokawa Family Orchard we have had a wide variety. These are the Granny Smiths and I'll be using them to demonstrate the cuts at CR. During this discovered that my camera does not like taking pictures of peeled Apples. 

Start by rinsing and drying. 

 

Lets start with the cuts for the real little friends. For them the apple and peeled and stood stem side down. (sorry blurry)

 

Using a sharp knife cut around the core. More about core and peels at the end of the post.

  

Stand a piece on a side and slice it thin. (sorry blurry)

  

Roll the piece to another side and slice into long sticks.

  

Pinch the sticks together and chop into a tiny dice.

  

The next step is small batons the friends can pick up and bite. Start by slicing a piece of the apple.

  

Turn the apple and slice down into the small batons.

  

Once the friends get the hang of biting they move onto peeled and extremely thin.

  

Now once the peel gets introduced, again stand the apple stem end down.

  

Cut around the core.

  

Depending on the age of the kids in the room the thickness of the slices varies.

  

Upstairs in the Pre-School they're ready for hand held. Yet again, stand the apple stem down.

  

Cut apple in half, rotate and cut again. How many cuts you can do depends on the size of the fruit.

  

 As for the cores and peels, they can be saved in a bag in a freezer. I've put apple cores into stocks, they add sweetness and a floral accent.  They can be stuffed into chicken or turkey with herbs, garlic and onions.Or they can simply be composted. 

B-Line

Some of you may have noticed that our produce is now coming via B-Line. B-line, founded by Kathryn and Franklin Racine-Jones, is a delivery service that wants "to make our community more livable by providing sustainable urban delivery solutions to businesses and organizations." Our new produce distributor, Organically Grown Company, has teamed up with B-Line in an effort to conserve gas and cut down on city congestion. We at ChildRoots really couldn't be happier to be working with B-Line. Here's Judy, one of the "peddlers", making their first delivery to CR.