Farm to Family Veggie Potatoes

I always try to find ways to sneak extra veggies into my family's food. I haven't been on top of this so much lately but I'm trying to do better - especially now that I have so many veggies from Farm to Family that I wouldn't normally buy. F2F has been a big part of helping widen my ingredient base.

Little M literally begged me to buy more vegetables this week. In particular, he asked for red potatoes so we could make mashed potatoes. I set him up at the sink and had him wash the potatoes for me and put the potatoes into a bowl so I could cut them. He was tickled pink! He got to help; he got to participate in cooking; and he got to play in water.

F2F Veggie Potatoes (bold items came from Farm 2 Family)

1 white squash
1 white bell pepper
1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1/4 cup shredded monteray jack cheese
red & new potatoes
milk or yogurt
salt/pepper
butter

Give the squash and pepper a small dice and sautee with salt and garlic in a small pan and a little olive oil. Once it's soft, set aside. Either add as is to the mashed potatoes or puree in the food processor. I had to puree because my kids don't like chunks in their mashed potatoes and would pick these veggies out.

Use enough red and new potatoes to feed your family. Boil and drain as you normally would for mashed potatoes.

Once the potatoes are done, mix in the veggie mix. Blend. Add in your cheeses, salt and pepper to taste, and milk (I used some yogurt I got from F2F). Blend and add more milk and butter until you get the consistency you want.

Butter Bean Burgers

I LOVE lima beans (aka butter beans). My kids, however, aren't very interested in trying new vegetables. I picked up some fresh butter beans today at the Farm to Family market and came home wondering how I could entice my kids to eat them.

A quick Google search on "how to cook butter beans" brought me to a recipe for butter bean burgers.

Interesting. I'm intrigued.

I modified the recipe to better work with my family and they were a huge hit! My son, who can spot a hidden veggie before it even leaves the kitchen, gobbled his burger down and liked it. I'll be making these more often!

Butter Bean Burgers

1 package of lima beans (approx 15 oz)
1/2 onion, diced
1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 t crushed red pepper
salt/pepper to taste
1/2 c grated sharp cheddar
1 c Panko bread crumbs
1 egg

Sautee onion. Once the onion starts to soften, add the fresh lima beans and cook until the beans are tender. Dump them into the food processor and run it until the mix is a thick paste.

In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Add in cheddar, garlic and lima bean paste. Mix. Add whisked egg and mix in.

Form into patties and fry in a little bit of hot oil. Turn over and fry the other side once it's crispy.



Next time, I'm going to add some shredded carrot and diced green pepper into the lima bean mix. Might as well add as many veggies as I can!

Celebies and Veggies

Did you happen to pick up the Carrie Underwood issue of People Magazine? Go grab it and turn to page 96. People wrote an excellent article on Farm to Family, a super cool, mobile farmer's market here in Richmond. We've been patronizing F2F since February and have come to adore Mark and Suzi, the owners.

Then if you happen to glance at the full page photo on page 97.... yep, that's me and my kids!! We're quasi-celebs now!

Back in February, I bought some amazing ground sausage from F2F. It was so delicious, I decided to go back and buy some more to make a sausage and kale soup. The day I happened to make the trip, People Magazine sent a reporter to interview Mark and his customers. I spoke with her for maybe 10 minutes and went on with my shopping. A few weeks later, Suzi left me a message asking if I could bring the kids down the next day for a photo shoot for the article! It was really neat to be involved in the process but issue after issue after issue came out and F2F wasn't in it. I pretty much gave up on seeing the article in print when I got a message from Suzi that it would be in the next issue!

To say that I made a scene in the Walmart when I finally found the new issue would be a bit of an understatement. I had been driving around all day trying to find the new issue when a friend told me she saw it at Walmart.

Farm to Family got some amazing exposure for their eat-local venture. My kids are totally unphased. I'm still pretty tickled by it. I'm really excited for Mark and Suzi and can't wait to see where they go from here.

• Farm to Family website
• Farm to Family on Facebook
• Suzi's Farm to Family Wife blog
• People Magazine preview

Wordless Wednesday

Little Miss Smarty Pants

"Momma, I'm gonna make your computer SPARKLY!"
"Um, no."
"Can I make your purse sparkly?"
"No."
"But girls LIKE sparkly."
"No, sweetie."
"Momma, I'm gonna make your camera sparkly!"
"No!!"
"But MOMMA! I NEEEEEED to make things SPARKLY!"
"Okay. You can make my sewing machine sparkly."
"YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!! I love sparkly."

---

"MOMMA!! WHAT TIME IS IT??"

"I don't know baby. I don't have a clock in the shower with me."

--about 45 seconds later, she comes running back--

"Momma, it's ONE-TWO-TWO-ONE!"

"It's 12: 21."

"No. It's one-two-two-one!"

"Right, that means it's 12:21."

"NO! It's ONE. TWO. TWO. ONE!"

"Okay."

Sad tooth with a cavity

Diagnosis

Since my son was about six months old, we've known that something was "off". The first sign was his inability to make eye contact with the person holding him. Then as he reached nine months and was crawling around, he had very limited interest in the typical toys his peers were playing with. He was very interested in watching how gears and wheels moved.

At eighteen months when his vocabularly should have been 50+ words and two word sentences, he had a vocabulary of about 20 words which included sounds instead of words for certain things like dog, cat and truck.

When he was about two and a half years old, we got him involved in the Virginia Early Intervention program. He started out with speech therapy once a week as well as physical therapy for his toe walking. Once I put him in some high top shoes, he stopped toe walking on his own so we dropped the physical therapy.

That fall, he was enrolled in the PDD (preschool for developmental delays) and attended school there for two years. He made such tremendous progress in this environment and I cannot speak highly enough of his teachers there. He progressed from introverted play and not even acknowledging that other kids were near him playing, to parallel play, to interactive play. He still has miles to go with certain sensory processing issues, communication and empathy.

Over the winter, I started noticing some OCD-like behaviors that had me concerned. Then after an aggressive outburst at a local play area which resulted in him telling me some rather disturbing things, our pediatrician recommend we work with an intensive home therapy group. If he was starting to show signs of OCD, it was crucial that we deal with it immediately. After some time with a therapist, we booked an appointment with a psychologist to get an actual clinical diagnosis for my son.

Turns out that the OCD-like behaviors are part of the autism. Yep. Autism. The doctor labeled it as "high functioning autistic syndrome disorder". As far as the "high functioning" part goes, I'd have to say he's very high functioning with some quirks and delays. I'm not upset with this diagnosis, nor am I surprised by it. I've simply been waiting for someone qualified to finally say the words to me and confirm what I've been trying to prove for years now.

Because he does not have OCD and isn't considered "at risk", he no longer qualifies for services from the intensive home therapy group. He'll continue to receive speech therapy weekly once school starts, but I'm concerned it won't be enough. I met with our county's "community services" organization this morning. Based on the initial interview, they feel he will qualify for therapy with them but it will most likely only be twice a month.

Once again, I'm struggling to find services for my son. Most of the time, I don't even feel qualified to express what I think he needs or the types of therapies that would be beneficial to him. Add to the mix the limited resources available to Medicaid recipients and it's an even smaller pool of options.