Tag: children

In the kitchen with the children … let the magic of Christmas begin! – Italian Cuisine

On holidays we have more time to devote to the kitchen and to the smallest of the family! Here are many ideas to prepare with them

The Christmas it completely changes its flavor when it is there children in family. The magic grows, as well as the expectation and, if the adults often live it as a party entirely consumerist, with the little ones the Christmas spirit is rekindled instead. Among decorations, lights, trees and letters, also because of the temperature that makes you want to stay at home, you have more time to spend together, awaiting the holidays, also in kitchen. Here then some Christmas recipes to prepare with the children.

Christmas cookies

The famous cookies in the form of little men (o Gingerbread Cookies) that the children appreciate so much they prepare with the gingerbread. Together you can prepare the dough and then have fun with the colored royal ice to decorate them! Not only that, by making a simple little hole with a straw at the top of the Christmas cookies you can turn them into decorations to hang on the tree!

The gingerbread house

Always on theme, you can have fun together to decorate the Gingerbread house, creating it from scratch or using kits that already contain the four walls and the roof and adding sweets, chocolates, colored confetti to embellish it.

Chocolate

The snack of party afternoons is hot chocolate. Do you like it with or without cream? To everyone his! And give the children the chance to decorate it with marshmallows and candies. But then … immediately brush your teeth!

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Popcorn

If you have decided to give yourself a nice Christmas movie, you can not miss them pop corn, to be served in small glasses to be colored with children for turn them into snowmen and reindeer.

Pancakes

And speaking of reindeer, Rudolph, the reindeer with red nose that drives Santa's sleigh, comes to life thanks to a simple Pancake! Once prepared, in fact, add blueberries as eyes and a strawberry for the nose and you're done. If the children love more Santa Claus, they can have fun with cream and strawberries to create a nice red hat on their pancakes!

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Preparation for Christmas lunch

The little ones like to be involved: if the preparation of the Christmas lunch is rather complex, they can however participate in some moments. Like the one in which they are cooked ravioli or i tortellini. Give them the dough and the fresh pasta and let them help you with cookie molds to create their customized ravioli.

The ideas for Santa

We know that Christmas night Santa Claus needs to refresh himself! Give the children a moment of magic on the eve by preparing one together snack for Santa. Just cookies with a glass of milk, or caramelized apples or chocolate-covered orange peel.

Browse the tutorial to get inspiration for many ideas that will make the little ones happy!

Game (serious): how many teaspoons of sugar do children consume? – Italian Cuisine

We have already talked about what you need to know about Children & snacks. Let's now talk more about sugars: i children should not consume more than 4-5 teaspoons of sugar per day, word of the World Health Organization. A quick calculation is enough to check if our children exceed the threshold of attention.

For this reason we decided to make a raid among the most popular foods of the daily diet, to calculate how much sugar our children can potentially take in one morning – breakfast + snack (here the suggestions for a good breakfast for fat children).

We offer you a series of ideas based on the simple observation of the labels of the most common foods. Then each, adding the amounts of carbohydrates (and in particular sugars), will be able to evaluate whether to recalibrate the family's food day.

The premise is that i sugars they are essential for the functioning of ours bodybecause they are a quick and direct source of energy; however, everyone now agrees that excess calories will eventually cause obesity.

Naturally not all sources of sugar are the sameFor example, fruit and cereals are also rich in nutrients and fibers, so they are qualitatively more valuable than juices, snacks and sweets.

Another factor on which attention must be paid to judge sugars is that they cause changes in the body's acidity. In the mouthfor example, changes in pH and the proliferation of bacteria caused by sugars damage the enamel and cause caries. At the level intestinal and urinary, moreover, there may be alterations of the bacterial flora, with subsequent inflammation.

Briefly put the due premises that motivate why sugars in the diet should be limited, let's move on to the facts and calculate how many we take in the early hours of the day.

Before starting with the calculations, however, it still needs to be clarified that in this list the values are very little absolute: each of us, to get an accurate idea of how many sugars it consumes, should carefully read the labels and make the due sums. Moreover, even if we do not mention any brand in particular, we specify that the choice fell on the most common brands on the market.

The drinks have not been inserted deliberately, because we assume that they are an exception and not a habit. And we did not dwell on the fact that every time we read corn syrup, fructose or malt on the label it is always sugars and even that they hide in unsuspecting foods like canned vegetables and ketchup …

Without all the necessary premises, let's go straight to the data.

To start, our basic unit of measure is 1 teaspoon of sugar, or about 15 g of sugar and that, to simplify the calculations, we will round up a little.

THE NUMBERS

3 cookies: we consider a total weight of about 30 g (10 g a biscuit) and a total average of 6 g of sugars (the carbohydrates in this case are higher) = 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1 jar of yogurt small: 100 g corresponds to about 15 g of carbohydrates (and in this case the amount of sugar is identical) = 1 Teaspoon
1 apple fresh: about 120 g which corresponds to 12 g of sugar = 1 Teaspoon low
2 tablespoons of dried apples: about 20 g = 18 g of carbohydrates = 1 teaspoonful of sugar
1 tablespoon of dried fruitor about 20 g can correspond to 0.8 g of sugar in the case of pine nuts and 1.6 in the case of pistachios, all the others are placed in the middle = 1 tip of a teaspoon of sugar.
5 dried plums: 40 g, 21 carbohydrates including 12 sugars = 1 small spoon.
1 small cup of milk: 200 g, are about 5 carbohydrates of which sugar 5 g = 1/3 of a teaspoon.
1 Twinkie classical = the weight varies from 25 to 40 g and the amount of sugar can grow from 5 to 20 g = so from 1/3 to 1 whole teaspoon.
2 teaspoons of Spreadable cream chocolate: 30 g contain 18 g of sugars = 1 teaspoon abundant.
2 rusks = 16 g, or 1.2 g of sugars (12 g of carbohydrates) = 1 pin of sugar.
4 tablespoons of cereals of puffed rice = 40 g, are 3.2 g of sugars (34 g of carbohydrates) = 1/4 teaspoon of sugar.
1 chocolate bar and cereals weighing 23 g, corresponds to 11 g of sugars = 1 small spoon.
1 glass of fruit juice, ie 200 ml: depending on the juice corresponds to 15-20-30 g of sugars.

Now that we have a bit 'of numbers we try to make the composition of one Breakfast it's a snack

Breakfast: 1 cup of tea with 2 teaspoons of sugar + 3 biscuits + 1 apple = 3.5 teaspoons of sugar
Snack mid-morning: 1 snack + 1 fruit juice = 2,5 teaspoons of sugar
We have reached a total of 6 teaspoons of sugar, or the hypothetical child has already exceeded the recommended amount.

But if, for example, the breakfast, which continues to be an essential meal, was made up of milk, cereals and a portion of dried fruit, the amount of sugar would be under the spoon. The disadvantage is that for some a sober breakfast would be unattractive.

In addition to the taste factor, playing a fundamental role is also the practicality. To give an example on all: mothers know that fruit juices or dried fruit are more comfortable than fresh fruit that should be peeled, cleaned and often treated with lemon to become dark. And at school you risk dirtying the desk. The price to pay is in terms of carbohydrates and calories.

The invitation is to play with the numbers, to calculate how much sugar we consume every day and maybe change some habits.

By the way, for those who want to do a couple of calculations per se: the recommended amount of sugar per le women is 6 teaspoons and for the men it's 9.

Barbara Roncarolo
September 28th 2015
updated October 2018
from Stella Rita

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When the recipe of the hunter joins grandmother and children

Last week we were in Milan to present Miscusi's burrata solidale. Today we reach the Modena area, to discover a recipe offered by the Alla Mora al Gelso Bianco restaurant. A common denominator between these two goals? Solidarity, fortunately! These are two of the hundreds of Italian clubs that adhere to the international campaign against the Hunger, which supports the projects of the NGO Action Against Hunger to combat child malnutrition in the world.

Choosing the dish proposed in combination to the countryside, 2 euros go to Action against Hunger. The owners of the Alla Mora restaurant the brothers Andrea and Matteo Rinaldi, respectively chef and maître, for Ristoranti contro la Fame they propose the recipe of grandma's cacciatore. And so, choosing the dish of Andrea and Matteo's grandmother will help a child who is hungry.

The location is a Country Resort in Savignano sul Panaro, in province of Modena, the White Mulberry, complete with suites and private spa. His restaurant, Alla Mora, offers a sophisticated and sophisticated cuisine, the pillars of the Emilian tradition respected with love, daring sea dishes and a menu that includes vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes.

"The recipe I propose is a reinterpretation of the tradition of chicken cacciatore – explains chefs Andrea Rinaldi – Usually the rabbit is used, but me I prefer to use chicken leg because you can get a much softer meat and, above all, because every holiday my grandmother used it this way!".

And Matteo enchants us with the story of his family: "I come from a family of butchers and restaurateurs. My grandmother Marisa had a butcher's shop and on weekends he went to work in traditional trattorias doing the cookwhen everyone was not in his house eating together, tables of 20 around the fireplace! He was a serial tortellini producer, he was the best tortellini in the universe! The image I have of my grandmother is col white lysed apron and holding a pot …".

Marisa has launched children and grandchildren in the world of food, so much so that the two brothers were born in restaurants: even the father had one. And so, after 24 years he was already the first chef in a restaurant, Andrea opened his own two and a half years ago, together with his brother: "I started from tradition to look for a taste trip". When in the 2017 have joined the campaign Restaurants against Fame, they had been open for just a year. Matteo recounts: "Honestly, the feedback was so, I thought more… (in addition to the 2 euro flat support, customers are invited to also offer a voluntary contribution, n.d.r). But it's important, a beautiful cause and I'm very happy! It will be a drop but something has come out … I'm glad both to communicate that we do it, and do it. I hope this year in something more, I think it started better, also because it is the second year … ".

The chosen recipe is indeed a tribute to the grandmother's hunter, but in reality there is only the concept of a hunter in the dish: the processing is completely different: "It is a reworking of this idea, innovation with the feet planted in the traditions. Creativity always starts after respect for what was there before".

And here's to you, therefore, the

"Grandson's Hunting "

Ingredients for 4 people:

4 boneless chicken legs 4 round tomatoes salt and pepper Q.B

3 coasts of celery 1 white onion French parsley (for the garnish)

3 carrots extra virgin olive oil twine

Method:

To prepare the sauces for the cacciatora it is necessary to peel carrots, onion and we will clean the celery depriving it of the leaves. Now we're going to diced our vegetables keeping them well separated; put our diced celery, carrot and onion in 3 vacuum bags. Extract the air and seal the bags well, we will cook our vegetables at a low temperature – for those who have a Roner 84 ° for c.a. an hour; if instead you do not have a Roner, you can always use an oven in steam mode: in this case I recommend cooking at 84 ° for an hour and a half. Thanks to this cooking method our vegetables will remain of a beautiful color. Now it's our tomatoes that we're going to blanch. With the help of a small knife, we go to remove the petiole, turn them from the opposite side and practice an X-shaped incision of about 2-3 cm. In a fairly large saucepan we bring the water to a boil: once the temperature is reached, dip our tomatoes for a maximum of 5 minutes. Once cooked, let's move them in a boule of water and ice to quickly stop cooking, leaving the tomatoes a beautiful bright red. Filter to remove the skin and seeds from the tomatoes, then add a tomato sauce with an immersion beater, adding a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil and a tuft of French parsley. Let's put aside, take our chicken thighs and roll it up creating a sort of roulade that we're going to block with kitchen string. We heat a non-stick frying pan and without adding oil we burn our "rolls" over high heat: once well browned on each side, lay the thighs in a plate covered with baking paper, salt, pepper and let's finish cooking in a preheated oven at 180 ° for approx 30 minutes. At this point our vegetables will be ready at low temperature: with the whisk we get 3 creams (celery / carrots / onion) simply adding a pinch of salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. We are ready to serve: free our chicken from the string, take the serving dish and place a large spoonful of our previously heated tomato sauce in the center: gently lay down the thigh, and distribute our 3 sauces on the plate at will, keeping them separated their. We finish garnishing with a few tufts of French parsley and voila: the dish is served, the tradition of grandma is saved, revisited in a more modern key.

Carra Traverso Saibante
November 2018

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