Ever heard of Aebleskivers?

Last week, the Blog Pantry, our Twin Cities women’s blogging group, met at Local D’Lish to make aebleskivers and collect donations for the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery.

Local D’Lish is a neighborhood grocery store featuring many, many local, organic, and sustainable foods, located at 208 N 1st Street in downtown Minneapolis.  Their local spring produce provided a feast for the eyes as well as the palette.  If you live in the Twin Cities, I’d definitely check it out!  They’ve even got an urban farming set up where they use fish in a tank to fertilize small indoor crops of greens.  Your kids will think it’s cool!

Aebleskivers are Danish spherical pancakes and they are a blast to make.  My mom made them when I was a kid, but I hadn’t had one in years.  You use a special pan to cook them and can put a sweet or savory treat in the middle as they brown.  We filled ours with bacon, apples, chocolate, herbs, strawberries-you name it, and dipped some in jam, honey or homemade caramel sauce when we ate them.  (They’re also great with butter and syrup.)  Yum!

Chad from Aunt Else’s Aebleskivers was there to demonstrate how to turn them with a stainless steel chopstick as they cooked and we had a contest to see who could make the best one!

Kids would have a great time making these (with proper supervision, of course.)  I think I’ll buy an aebleskiver pan for my parents’ cabin, where we have time for fun, leisurely breakfasts.

If you’re looking for a pan, or anything else you need to make these Dutch treats, go to Aunt Else’s Aebleskiver‘s website.  They’re a local company that makes organic aebleskiver mix, gluten-free aebleskiver mix & aebleskiver pans.  (Their pans are made at a small, local foundry.) They also make fresh aebleskiverseach Saturday at the Mill City Farmer’s Market, which is a great family destination!

My favorite food find at Local D’Lish was the garlic pepper jelly from Lucille’s Kitchen Garden.   They make delicious savory pepper jams that are friendly to the Minnesota palate and a new line of Little Lucy’s fruit spreads with amazing combinations like Strawberry-Vanilla & Raspberry-Lime.  You can find their preserves at  stores and their booth at the Mill City Farmer’s Market.

Do you have any favorite, fun foods you like to make with your kids?

Creating Health: Simple, Good and Local

 

                                Jon Radle shares his culinary secrets with Trish of OffCamerawithTrish.com

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to attend Simple, Good, and Tasty‘s February local food event at Grand Cafe in Minneapolis with my friend Jennifer of Unplannedcooking.com. As we feasted on cassoulet prepared with locally raised duck from Au Bon Canard and house made sausage by Grand Cafe’s chef Jon Radle, I talked with one of my tablemates about the rooftop and community gardens she’s working hard to create.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  

As a mother, it is important to me to be aware of not only what my children are eating, but where our food comes from.  I try to buy food raised by people who take good care of the land and treat animals humanely.  If possible, I buy food that hasn’t had to travel from too far away, since transporting foods burns lots of fossil fuel, which pollutes the air we all breathe.  I also love supporting local farmers.  My friend Megan from Sprout.mn has started a green/organic/local online directory for the Twin Cities that is an amazing resource- go to http://sprout.mn to check it out! 

Last week, I also attended an event for bloggers at the Cub Foods store in Apple Valley, MN last week.  Most of the questions I asked had to do with where their food came from, how much of it was organic and how they handled their ground beef selection (see my Kitchen Pantry Scientist post to read more about ground beef fillers.)  I was happy to hear that they have a large organic food section and buy produce locally when they can.  They also gave me a delicious dark chocolate almond bar made by Cub Food’s own organic label, Wild Harvest.  

As women and mothers, we are the biggest consumers in the grocery store industry, among others, and this gives us the power to demand that healthy, local food is readily available.  The more local, healthy, organic food we buy, the cheaper it will become and the more farmers will grow it, which will be good for the environment, which will be good for our children…

We have the power.  Let’s use it to make the world a healthier place for everyone!

Yummy Hot Dog Mummies

This was the easiest part of our Halloween feast and the kids devoured them. 

You’ll only need hot dogs (I like to buy preservative-free hot dogs when I can,) and refrigerated breadstick dough.  Pillsbury recommends an 11oz can for 12 hot dogs.  We couldn’t find breadstick dough, so I had the kids cut refrigerated cresent roll dough into strips and it worked pretty well.  You’ll also want to have ketchup and mustard on hand if your kids are dippers.

Just pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F.  Unroll the dough and separate it into strips.  Show your child how to cut each strip in half  lengthwise and then in half  crosswise to create four long strips.  You should end up with around 48 pieces of dough.

Have your child wrap four or so pieces of dough around each hot dog, stretching the dough to look like mummy bandages.  They can make a hole between the bandages at one end where the face might be, if they want to.  Our mummies were far from perfect, but the kids didn’t care.  They had fun cutting and wrapping the dough.

Bake your mummies for 13 to 17 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.  Your kids can use mustard to draw faces on their mummies before they eat them.  My kids also thought it was really funny to call the ketchup “blood.”  Thanks again for the great ideas, Pillsbury!  Bon Appetite!