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cooking with kids

Cooking with kids Tip #3

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / August 1,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

COOKING WITH KIDS TIP #3
SET KITCHEN GROUND RULES

Third in a 4-part series

By Jamila, Seasonal Roots’ Veggie Fairy Godmother

Kids love to taste things and will often gobble ingredients without considering food safety. Before getting started on any cooking project when you’re cooking with kids, set some kitchen ground rules.

•Discuss ways to keep themselves safe around hot elements and sharp tools.
•Also request that they ask before tasting ingredients.
•Designate a bowl that is specifically for samples and drop something in there from time to time. A “tasting bowl” gives kids an opportunity to explore without worry.

This week’s challenge: Dicing! Use a variety of fresh, local root veggies to make a kid-pleasing dish ...

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cooking with kids

Cooking with kids Tip #2

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 25,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

COOKING WITH KIDS TIP #2
LET THEM DO THE HARD THINGS

Second in a 4-part series

By Jamila, Seasonal Roots’ Veggie Fairy Godmother

Knives are important culinary tools, even when you’re cooking with kids. Instead of limiting your child’s involvement in the kitchen, teach them how to responsibly handle sharps and other tools.

Expectations should be reasonable and based on age, but kids are capable of more than stirring bowls and pushing buttons.

Let them cut vegetables, flip pancakes, and stir sauces. If they are strong and confident enough, let them add and remove things from the oven.

This week’s challenge: Chopping! Use a knife small enough for them to handle safely...

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cooking with kids

Cooking with kids

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 18,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

COOKING WITH KIDS
SCHOOL'S OUT - TIME FOR FUN PROJECTS IN THE KITCHEN
First in a 4-part series
By Jamila, Seasonal Roots’ Veggie Fairy Godmother

Confession: I love to cook. I HATE cooking with my kids. I have four of them, and every adventure that begins in the kitchen ends in a mess. A big one. They eat half of what I’m preparing and poke holes in the rest. Boredom is inevitable, which leads to wandering during tasks, or frustration. It’s borderline terrible, but in my eyes, it’s absolutely necessary.

Learning to cook is an important life skill and will empower kids to make wise food choices. Time in the kitchen is also an opportunity to model practical applications of math, reading, and following instructions. It helps my girls hone fine motor skills, explore food science, and practice the art of patience. Cooking with kids is important, even if it drives me crazy...

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potato nutrition facts

Amazing potato nutrition facts

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 11,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

AMAZING POTATO NUTRITION FACTS
Behold the mighty potato!

Fresh potatoes like the ones grown by the McKenney family at Sion House Farm in Farnham, Va., above, may look like pretty dull company. But beneath every potato’s mild-mannered exterior lies a super-tasty, super-nutritional SuperSpud! Or they are when you eat potatoes fresh like these– not processed into store-bought fries, tater tots, hashbrowns, or potato chips.

The healthiest way to cook a fresh potato is to...

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boost flavor with local food newsletter

11 Tasty tips to boost flavor

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / July 5,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

11 TASTY TIPS TO BOOST FLAVOR
The Flavor Fairy tells all!

Take it from me, the Flavor Fairy: You have the power to boost flavor, and you don’t need a magic fairy wand to do it. Here’s how.
1. Start with fresh, local produce and artisan fare. The fresher food is, the more flavor it has.
2. Prep garlic, onions at the last minute. Once cut, with time their flavor can get too strong.
3. Keep all those tomato seeds and goopy stuff, too. That’s where the flavor is. Who...

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local farmers markets

How to find your local farmers markets … and why

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 27,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

HOW TO FIND YOUR LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS … AND WHY.
'Tis the season for a field trip to explore local food!

Here at the Seasonal Roots online farmers market, we love in-person farmers markets – they’re our inspiration! If you love them, too, check out our Veggie Fairy Blog series on in-person markets before you get out and explore. We’ve got helpful info on markets in Richmond, Fredericksburg, Northern Virginia, and the Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach area. View links to each area on the Veggie Fairy blog.

In-person or online, farmers markets bring communities together around local food. Both have benefits. At in-person markets, you can enjoy face-to-face interactions with the folks who produce your food. The online market’s convenient online ordering and home delivery save valuable time ...

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This farm family’s local produce tastes better. Here’s why.

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 20,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

THIS FARM FAMILY'S LOCAL PRODUCE TASTES BETTER. HERE'S WHY.
Supermarkets sell you a lie. Local farmers deliver the truth.

Local produce tastes better than supermarket produce. For local farmers like the Flores family in Hauge, Va., three facts add up to one huge advantage when it comes to flavor:

1. Local produce travels a short distance in a short amount of time — within 150 miles of where we deliver, going from Dirt to Doorstep® within just a couple days.

2. On its way to you, our local produce passes through just a few hands...

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grilling tricks Father's Day

5 Simple grilling tricks

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 13,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

5 SIMPLE GRILLING TRICKS
The Do's and Don'ts ... in honor of Father's Day

Though fatherhood has nothing to do with a person's ability to captain a grill, Father's Day does roll around just as grilling season gets underway. So whether you're an alpha-griller dad or a guy who likes to kick back and watch someone else do the sweating in all those clouds of smoke, we veggie fairies salute you with these tricks for grilling fresh, local food!

Anything you can cook inside in your oven or on your stovetop, you can cook outside on your grill -- that includes fresh local fruits and veggies in season, as well as grassfed meats.

TRICK #1: DON’T use lighter fluid if you have a charcoal ...

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vegetable storage

A vegetable storage cheat sheet

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / June 6,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

A VEGETABLE STORAGE CHEAT SHEET
PART THREE in a 3-part series on making fresh taste and nutrition last!

The following list covers this week’s harvest. For an all-season cheat sheet that you can download, print out, and post on your fridge, visit the Veggie Fairy Blog.

When the storage advice calls for plastic bags, you can always substitute plastic or glass storage containers for plastic bags. Store everything unwashed, uncut, and unpeeled. Wash and prep just before using.

BEETS: Remove greens, store separately in vegetable crisper, store greens like other greens.
BERRIS: store in single...

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crisper drawers

The mystery of the crisper drawers!

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / May 30,2018

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

THE MYSTERY OF THE CRISPER DRAWERS!
PART TWO in a 3-part series on making fresh taste and nutrition last!

The typical crisper drawer is nothing more than a partition inside your refrigerator that offers a more humid environment than the rest of the fridge. In general, vegetables last longer in a more humid environment, while fruits prefer a slightly less humid environment.
Some crispers have a sliding humidity control setting that ranges from low to high. If there are two drawers, they may be labeled for “vegetables” (high humidity) and “fruit” (lower than veggies but still higher than the rest of the fridge). If the drawer has no humidity control, it’s sometimes labeled for “meat”. But you can still use it as a crisper to separate your produce.
The simple, low-tech humidity control slider just opens or closes a little vent in the drawer, so moisture and ethylene gas can escape. Beware the ethylene gas...

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