From Yun and Baby Hedgehog in China

My friends:

Every week I always look for your letter.  When I heard from you, I felt very happy, but I'm so sorry that i didn't reply to you on time because of the homework.  you know that in china the students always have too much homework.

I also have some good news to tell you:  I'm keeping a little hedgehog, it's so lovely.  And now I can cook more delicious food for my family.

Write me soon.

Yours,

Yun

This is the photo of the hedgehog, do you like it?

Click to enlarge

Spatulatta replies:

Hello Yun!

We love receiving your emails.  Your education comes first so please do not apologize! :)

Your baby hedgehog is so adorable.  Does he or she have a name?

We are going to post the photo on the Spat Blog.

Stay in touch,

Team Spatulatta

Yucky Lunch at School

Dear Spatulatta,

My best friend is a HUGH fan of your webshows and I just learned about it. I look forward to seeing this very much.

But the reason I am sending you this is because me and my friends are all 13-year old girls and we have a big problem.

At our school we don't have a well balanced diet. Its all greasy pizza and taco salads. Everything that the school says is healthy, no kid wants to eat because its not delectable.

And it's not just our school it's all the schools in our town. Many of our schools have bad lunch menus. So I want to ask you if you would possibly tell us some fun tips to make lunch fun and
healthy.

Thanks!

adrienne, dorie, and val

---------------------------------------

Dear Adrienne, Dorie and Val,

When I read your letter I felt so bad. Greasy pizza day after day for lunch is really depressing.

Bringing your lunch to school is the easiest way to get a healthy, nutritious lunch. You can start by packing a salad or a sandwich on whole wheat bread. Look around our Recipe Box to get some great ideas.

If you want your food to stay cool and you don't have lunch pack with a cooler insert, you can experiment with putting ice in one zipper freezer bag and then putting that bag inside another. That way if the ice melts and the water leaks it, won't get too far. Just don't put the ice directly on top of your lettuce.

If you have a Thermos, you can take soup or stew to school. We like to make soup on Sunday while we're all hanging around the house. Then we freeze small containers for later use. Pop one into the microwave, heat it up and there's lunch. Add an apple, banana or orange.

The great thing about making your own lunch is that you can control how much fat, salt and sugar goes into each meal.

If you young women would want to make sure other kids get a healthy lunch, you might enlist the help of one of your teachers to put a presentation together for your PTA or PTO. Most parents don't ever see the kind of food their children are served in school. It might be an even bigger shock to them to taste it.

Also let your parents know what's going on in your cafeteria. Three families are a good start. If each family can recruit another family you have the beginning of a movement. You could be champions for all the younger kids who hate lunch just as much as you do but don't feel they can speak out about it.

Healthy Schools Campaign and Common Threads are both organizations that are working to help kids eat healthier lunches at schools.

Keep us updated on how your quest for a healthy lunch is going.

Team Spatulatta

Book Review - Picture Yourself Cooking With Your Kids

Reviewed by Gaylon Emerzian


Beth Sheresh's book Picture Yourself Cooking with Your Kids has a hefty title and is jam packed with recipes and real world tips that will definitely help parents take the plunge and involve their children in the kitchen.

The book begins with a chapter that I absolutely loved called "A Cook's Primer." It has so many great tips: like how to determine the age appropriate recipes for your child, how to encourage a picky eater and how to make sure a child, who is vegetarian or vegan, gets proper nutrition.

The part I found the most interesting was a section called "Defensive Shopping." Ms. Sheresh looks at ingredient lists on packages and highlights the many AKAs. She writes, "Sugar by any other name is still sugar."

But the tip that impressed me the most was on page 36 about how to read the code on those tiny, little labels stuck to fresh fruit and vegetables to determining whether food was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically modified. It was an "Ah-ha!" moment for me.

Ms. Sheresh also has a whole section on yeast doughs, something we're just starting experimenting with after 3 years on Spatulatta! In fact, we used her recipe for pizza dough to make our heart-shaped "I Love Pizza" for this year's Valentine's Day episode. It came together in a way that made yeast doughs seem less intimidating.

The cookbook is chocked full of pictures of kids in the kitchen and step-by-step photos of making the recipes. I love the fact that the kids in the snapshots look like real kids. They are multi-ethnic and have a variety of sizes and shapes. The disappointment is that the majority of the photos are all a little dark and moody. Some of the food actually looks unappetizing.

But all in all I think it was a task well done!

You can see more of Beth Sheresh's writing on kitchenMage

Picture Yourself Cooking with Your Kids
Published by: Course Technology
ISBN-13 978-1-59863-588-4

Mariah's Fruity Blend

• 1 cup washed strawberries

• 1/2 cup low-fat milk

• 1/2 cup low-fat yogurt

• 1 banana

Directions:
Add all the ingredients to blender, then enjoy!

Spatulatta says:

Mmmmm, makes us think of Springtime, which is right around the corner!
- Team Spatulatta

Old Bay Rice by Brooke

1 cup rice 
1/2 cup water 
Pinch of old bay seasoning 
 
Use the instant rice. 
Cook the rice in the micro wave for 3 min. After its done add the seasoning.

Spatulatta replies:

Fast, easy, and full of flavor.  Thanks for sharing Brooke!
-Team Spatulatta

Russian Salad from Solange in Argentina

Here's a recipe from Solange in Argentina for Russian Salad. The translation into English follows below.


hola!!! soy solange denuevo!! ustedes me escribieron un mail que decían que querían recetas argentinas!!! (translate this) no quería
escribir en inglés porque recién este año voy a empezar quinto grado, estoy en primaria todavía!!! (no quiero cometer ningún error escribiendo en inglés)

¿conocen la ensalada rusa? a mí me encanta la ensalada rusa,
para hacerla necesitas:papa,mayonesa y zanahoria. primero cortan las papas
en cubitos,segundo cortan la zanahoria en cubitos también y luego ponen la
"mayonesa" se puede comer en cualquier momento, ejemplo: una cena familiar.

los argentinos comemos mucha carne y el "asado" es muy conocido por aquí!!! comemos "milanesa",helado,papas rellenas,empanadas... cuando se trata de una fiesta ejemplo:navidad, algunos cocinan pavo,asado,ensalada rusa y por otro lado comen camarones con salsas, anchoas, y comidas mas difíciles de cocinar... tambien comemos los panchos (hotdogs) y hay muchos panchos: platense (mar del plata,argentina), italiano, etc... comemos sushi, (yo como arroz japonés) etc... si quieren saber mas comidas y palabras en español visiten mi sitio www.todoanimalesylibros.blogspot.com y yo publicaré en una de estas semanas muchas cosas argentinas!!! gracias!!!

y perdonen por darles más trabajo traduciendo esto. fueron muy amables y muchas gracias!!! tengo una pregunta:¿ustedes tienen un programa en televisión de spatulatta? como siempre estan bienvenidos a mi sitio web!!! y si tienen un usuario en www.blogspot.com pueden escribirme en mi blog!!! saludos a todos!

(translation to English)

Solange here, hello again! You wrote me an email saying you wanted Argentine recipes! I don't want to write in English just because this year I will start fifth
Grade--I am still in primary school and do not want to make any mistakes writing in English.

Have you ever had Russian salad? I love
Russian salad. The ingredients are just cooked potatoes, carrots and mayonnaise.

First cut the potatoes into little cubes.
Next cut carrot into cubes also.

Then add the mayonnaise and mix well.

You can serve this at any meal, such as family dinner.

Argentines eat lots of meat and "asado" (roast) is famous here.

We like to eat "Milanesa", ice cream, stuffed potatoes, empanadas …
For a party, Christmas, for example, some people cook turkey, roast beef, Russian salad
And on the side they eat shrimp with other sauces, anchovies and lots of other very difficult to cook things.

We also eat panchos (hotdogs or sausages) and
many kinds of sausages: platense (Mar del Plata, Argentina), Italian, etc ...

We eat sushi (I like Japanese rice) etc ...

If you want to learn about more meals and Spanish words to visit my Website:

www.todoanimalesylibros.blogspot.com

and I will publish one of these weeks a lot of Argentinian things! Thanks!

And pardon me for giving you more work translating all this.

You all are very friendly, thank you very much!

I have a question: do you have a Spatulatta program on TV? You are always welcome to post on my website!

And if you have a user account www.blogspot.com can write me at my blog!

Greetings to everyone!

Go Bars and Eggs Unite!

Amanda says:

Hi Spatulatta crew! 

I just wanted to comment on the breakfast on the go
bars, how did you get yours to stay together? Me and my mom tried twice and both
times it crumbles. Like major crumble. so when we took it out it looked good, and
then we let it cool and then cut it, and then we tried to take it out, and it all
fell apart!  It was like sugary granola with dried cranberries in it, but it was
still yummy! Please if you can help me, please send me and email. Thank you so
much! Oh and I have this really good recipe that my friend Joan gave me and that
she learned it from her camp, im still perfecting it to make it healthier, and their
called haystacks, go figure! 

Thanks again! Bye!

Spatulatta replies:

Dear Amanda,

You're right the Go Bars were a little crumbly for us too but held
together in the bar shape rather than turning into granola. We may have
used an extra large egg. We were trying to keep the fat content down but
maybe we went too far.

Eggs are the glue that holds lots of culinary concoctions together. I'd
suggest trying 2 eggs medium eggs or better yet the equivalent of Egg
Beaters.

Let us know how they came out and we'll update the recipe on the website.

Thanks!
Team Spatulatta