Rice Salad from What We Eat–
What We Eat isn’t primarily a cookbook. There are only about half a dozen recipes. Mostly it is a picture book about nutrition, foods from around the world, where food comes from, how it grows, and how different cultures eat. It’s a good library book, I am not sure it’s worth owning.
The recipe doesn’t give proportions- just a picture and a list of ingredients. In this case:
Cooked rice or pasta
The text also, unfortunately, warns its young readers (this book is aimed at grade school and below) not to “be tempted to drown your healthy salad with dressing that contains a lot of fat.’ Kids seriously should NOT be warned off of fat. It should be ‘good’ fat, certainly (not margarine or corn oil, for instance), but fat is good for them.
What we did instead:
We had cooked brown rice in the fridge. The 14 year old had the 3 year old help her mix that up with a can of mandarin orange slices, some walnuts they smashed with a rolling pin, a couple handfuls of raisins, and some fresh spinach I cut up by rolling the spinach into cigars and then cutting into ribbons across the small end.
We topped it with a nice full-fat Italian dressing.
I thought it needed garlic, ginger, and some grated carrot. Actually, it needed to taste more like this.
The 14 year old thought it was just okay
The 12 year old said he did not like it.
The 6 year old said it was okay.
The 3 year old liked making it but said he doesn’t eat salad.
The Cherub had seconds.
The Equuschick dropped by after lunch and saw the salad sitting out and asked of she could have some. She says it’s delicious.
While cooking we had conversations about why we wash our hands, where walnuts come from, why pop-tarts are not good for us, why taking my library card at the library and hiding it was Not a Good Thing, and why 12 year old boys should not be sneaking marshmallows from my pantry.