I am a huge advocate of getting my children to try new foods. What I mean to say is, I believe our palates evolve (or so I tell my kids). When I was a kid I wasn’t a big fan of tomatoes and avocados (to name 2 of at least 300), but now I adore them. Does your child eat roasted onions or olives, goat cheese or brussel sprouts? (Okay, be proud if they do, but my point is: don’ t we all like a lot more foods as adults than we did as children)?

My 11 year old likes more foods this year than he did last year (he recently added poached eggs and goat cheese to his repertoire; he disdained both for many years). Your taste buds are growing up, too, I tell him. And if it is a certain right of passage to maturity for your taste buds to develop, well, you have piqued their interest and even more importantly: their palate.

And besides, kids love to have opinions; and they love to share those opinions with adults… Parents in particular.

So why not give them an opportunity to decipher their palate, to navigate through flavors and textures, to think banana and avocado texture are gross, shrimp is chewy and chocolate mousse is really, really chocolatey?

And then they notice when their siblings like things other than them, and proudly discover they prefer Asian pears to other pears and are partial to kalamata olives. Maybe you should start with their favorite flavor of Kettle chips (mine adore the Honey Dijon)? And there are so many foods they still have to try, and retry, since their palates are growing up too.

The other day I was at the market, and discovered these little nubs. At almost any cheese counter, they have little pieces of cheese left over. Not worthy to stand alone, these are mere samplings, wrapped, weighed and marked: $ .57 for an ounce, $2.11 for a large chunk, $1.02 for a good taste of farmhouse white cheddar. Ultimately, for about $5 I came home with 6 different varieties of white cheddar. One was aged, one was from Vermont, others were specifically farmhouse cheddar and at least two came from England.

And I opened them, cut them into bite size pieces, marked their origins on some parchment, threw on some almonds and pears to cut the flavors and we all sat around and tasted cheddar. And shared opinions. Very, very sharp was one. Sweet and mild was another. And a third… what flavor is that? Interesting… it is the only one that says: ‘Aged.’

So we ate, and learned, and payed attention and shared. Those are the moments we live for.

I love these herbs. I mean, really. You know how I love default dinners? Well, if ever there was a pile of herbs at my side, ready to join the ranks of my tomato sauce and creamy soups, roasted vegetables and hand-made meatballs: here they are. The herbs on my hip. I should probably invest in a holster.

I now make them in bulk. Yes, I use them that often.

And I am happy to say, these herbs have recently become my ubiquitous kitchen gift giveaway. I go through phases of kitchen-inspired gifts, trinket-y hand-outs that let people know I have so much time on my hands [cough, cough], that I hand-dipped this spoon just for you in chocolate, drizzled it with caramel, rolled it in nuts and tied it up with cellophane and a bow. It is a bad segue into ’so, what did you do today?’

All I am trying to say is, I like making thoughtful—and useful—hand-made gifts from the kitchen. Sometimes it is homemade granola, around the holidays it is most certainly peppermint bark (and you don’ t need time to make that one, you can do it between sips of coffee in the morning), limoncella (okay, yes, that one takes a substantial amount of time plus about 80 days to marinate…) and now: default herbs.

But, I am not close enough to you to hand you a fancy little jar with a hand-written card (sans calligraphy, in this case I printed out a small recipe for this salad dressing and attached it to the jar). Thus, I am giving you the picture, the idea, the recipe for herbs, some recipes that include these herbs (keep reading) and am humbly asking you to make it yourself and then give it to yourself, from me.

Wow, that saves me a ton of time.

I use default herbs in: Buttermilk Parmesan Chicken, as the Italian herbs in this Baked Omelette, instead of all the ‘other’ herbs in my Roasted Romas, and in this fancy but easy to make Eggplant Parmesan, to name just a few.

Default Herbs
1/8 cup dried rosemary
1/4 cup dried oregano
1/4 cup dried basil
1/2 tsp allspice
2 T dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1 T fresh ground white pepper
2 T fresh ground black pepper

Process rosemary in a food process, mix all ingredients, store in sealed container. 6 months.

To make the pretty jar, I just used a canning jar, cut a circle of fancy paper and screwed it on between the lid and screw top.

I started! School has begun; and what is that? Homework you say? And then some. I conveniently forgot that I would be assigned piles of reading. The good news? It is all about cooking, so I love every word. Just a shift from my usual perusal of cookbooks, cook magazines and food blogs to instructor given, culinary driven textbooks.

The first week was an eye opener, the usual overviews of ‘what you are going to learn, what you are going to do.’ You know, where you jump into class bright eyed and bushy tailed, only to crawl in to bed later, dog tired. But it was a good tired.

The photo above is a biscuit: my first recipe and kitchen experiment at culinary school.

I am tickled to pieces because I am more in my element with cooking, than I am with baking (and lets be frank, more the home cooking than the restaurant cooking where for all practical purposes at this point I would end up in a heap on the floor, buried in flying pans and fancy sauces: boy, do I have a lot to learn!). So I am particularly excited to learn all I can in my Intro to Baking and Pastry class.

Later this week, we will be making muffins and zucchini bread and I believe, rolls of some sort. My favorite part is hearing about the chemistry involved with baking. How you can take flour and sugar and butter and treat them in so many different ways to land on different results. With biscuits you barely, barely mix it and the butter stays in chunks: corn kernel size at a minimum. Just so you know; and that makes two of us.

I could go on. My other class is Culinary Concepts and Theories. Which means, we are learning about the history of cooking, the chefs who brought it to be, the brilliant minds topped with tall, white, pleated hats. So if you hear Boulanger (credited with the first restaurant in France, 1765) Marie-Antoin Careme (sheer brilliance 1783-1833), Escoffier (Grandfather of Cooking), or Alice Waters (American Culinary Revolution 1970’s and 80’s), you will know they are world-renowned chefs. There are of course, many more.

Oh, and since I learned microwaves are ONLY to be used for heating butter (tsk, tsk), I just reheated last night’s steak, onions and black beans over the stove… with a cracked egg on top… and greens under. It was yummy.

And here is a fun tidbit: the height of a chef’s hat denotes their skill and experience, their hierarchical role in the formal kitchen. Which means, my white chef hat looks more like a beret: a floppy little topper with just enough material to get the job done. I am so the peon… I figure when I am at home I should wear a hat so tall I have to duck to walk through doorways, and if I really stretch high, it brushes the ceiling. That should offset the flimsy with a bit of fanfare, don’t you think?

I have been reading the book Omega Diet; it has made quite an impression. And like many other nutrition inspired books, pushes the great and undying virtues of leafy greens. EAT greens. Eat your greens, more greens, pass the greens. I really don’t eat enough greens, which means I have to be deliberate about getting enough greens.

Perhaps you are a more accomplished green eating machine than I am. I hope for your sake, you are.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing if you ‘do something 21 times it becomes a habit.’ Is that true? I have no idea. But it does hint at the need to be purposeful, determined and persevering in the attempt to integrate healthy habits.

And it is Spring after all. Spring cleaning applies to the house and to our health: old habits out, new habits in.

I recently watched a cooking show called Good Eats. Have you seen it? It is a bit cheesy, but interesting because it is full of lots of little tidbits of information, only 30 minutes long and entertaining enough for my kids to watch. I like drilling down and learning about greens or apple pie, and/or the overlooked virtues of squash. It takes one food group or ingredient and essentially demystifies it. I enjoyed watching the one on Greens, because even though I knew much of what was shared, I learned a new way to clean greens and a new way to sauté them. I learned about a wide range of greens, and a little about their history.

And then I deliberately ordered red chard in my Farm Box. And I feel guilty if things go bad, so I knew if it was there looking me in the face I would attempt a new recipe. And I did—by morphing one of the recipes from The Farm—and the chard was great.

My husband seriously said it was the best chard he had ever tasted in his life. Now, lets not assume it was the only chard he has ever tasted in his life. To be honest, he travels a bit for business, where he often enjoys nice meals, so comments like ‘it is the best ever’ usually are compared to fabulous restaurant fare and I adequately glow at the compliment.

In unison then: “More greens, please.”

Red Chard with Shallots & Port*
Large Bunch Red Chard, stems removed and sliced (I did inch slices on the horizontal)
2 T diced shallots
2 T olive oil
1 T butter
2/3 cup chicken or vegetable broth
3 T port

Heat butter and olive oil in sautee pan over medium high heat. Add/sautee shallots for 3 minutes, stirring. Add broth and port; in 1-2 minutes, pile in the chard. Stir and let sautee for 3-4 minutes, then lower to medium and toss on the lid (frisbee style is entertaining: your kids will be impressed). Let chard wilt for another 3-4 minutes. Remove lid, pour out excess liquid (I left 1-2 T worth in pan), stir/sautee chard for another 2 minutes, then serve.

*If you leave the skillet on high instead of reducing to medium or medium/low when you place on the lid, then you will have charred chard, which by the way, is more fun to say than it is to eat. Greens will be greens until they are brown. Then they are just gross.

Easter? Halloween? Christmas? Fourth of July?

Bring it.

Whatever holiday it is, these cookies can waltz right in and be fashionable, readily available, unassumingly appropriate.

All you need to do is buy that bag of holiday colored m ‘n’ ms. Hey, they are cookies. I didn’t say they were good for you. Though I suppose you could sneak in some wheat germ, use wheat flour, add in some flax meal, substitute canola oil for some of the butter, use some applesauce… but I will leave that up to you. Sometimes my version of healthy is less about the ingredients, and more about moderation (I didn’t say always, just sometimes). Consequently, these cookies aren’t made often: they simply show up, in colorful uniform, to stand in as a holiday treat.

I pop these casually dressed cookies into school lunches to usher in some holiday cheer. They don’t require a lot of planning or foresight on my part—I just walk through Target, notice the m ‘n’ m’s and scoop up a bag. And then smile, knowing my kids will hover around the mixing bowl, begging for a taste of the dough. Yes, the dough is unavoidably good. Especially with the big chunks of pecans.

M ‘n’ M Cookies
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups m n ms
3/4 cup roughly chopped pecans

Oven to 350. Cream butter and sugars. Add egg, vanilla and mix. Add flour, salt and soda and stir to blend. Mix in M ‘n’ Ms and pecans. Place in spoonfuls on tray and bake 10-13 minutes. Happy Holidays!