The broccoli of our discontent

I have been very lazy about keeping this blog up-to-date, partly because I’ve had more freelancing to do (great!) and partly because I’ve been writing for Examiner.com (it’s fun to earn ten dollars a month for writing articles about celebrity health issues). Anyway, today I offer two recipes, but neither is my own.

The first recipe is one I meant to make at Hanukkah, but didn’t get around to doing until two nights ago. It is the amazingly delicious potato pancake recipe from … Simon and Garfunkel. Yes. Click through to Gothamist to read it and prepare it. You will thank me later. I substituted quinoa flour for regular wheat flour and added a teaspoon of xanthan gum, but otherwise, I obeyed the recipe, and made enough potato pancakes for dinner plus two lunches for our three-person family.

One reason that I made the latkes on Tuesday evening is that I planned to make broccoli on Wednesday evening. Now, my daughter is pretty good about eating steamed broccoli with butter and sea salt, but that recipe is getting old, and I have been in search of something new. I made a broccoli casserole from the Taste of Home Cookbook a week ago, and that went over pretty well, but it wasn’t the smashing success I’d hoped it would be. (Basically, it involved mixing one raw egg with a pound of chopped broccoli and placing it in a Pyrex dish, then pouring melted butter on top, then sprinkling breadcrumbs on top of that, then baking it at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Nice, but not jazzy enough for a kid to eat more often than every other week.)

Anyway, I joked to my family that the latkes were a gift in preparation for the “broccoli of our discontent,” coming up on the following evening’s menu. I assumed they’d each eat a few bites of whatever I prepared and call it a day.

Then I unearthed my copy of The Autism Cookbook by Susan K. Delaine. This book aims to provide allergen-free, nutrient-dense recipes that kids will actually eat, and it generally succeeds. If you like this recipe, you should consider buying the book, because it has all sorts of fun recipes in the same style as this one:

Whisk together 1/2 cup of sesame oil (substitute olive oil if sesame allergy is a problem in your house), 4 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar, 2 Tbsp of maple syrup, 1 tsp of ground ginger, and 1 tsp of sea salt. Add 1 lb chopped broccoli (I steamed mine first, but Ms. Delaine just washes hers and serves it raw) and mix together. Add 1 cup of dried cranberries and a shake of sesame seeds (omit the sesame seeds if sesame allergy is a problem in your house) and mix together. Finish by adding crumbled, cooked bacon. Yum! My daughter had two helpings, and my husband and I each had three helpings. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli are rich in nutrients and are thought to reduce the risk of cancer. In a recipe like this, though, all you notice is the great taste 🙂

I still think of this recipe as “the broccoli of our discontent,” but fondly, as my predictions proved completely erroneous. Thanks for another great meal, Ms. Delaine!