This month we're featuring our cast members trips to various restaurants most of whom are participating in the Healthy Fare for Kids Project in Chicago.  Since Lexie lives in Columbus, Ohio she decided to take a little trip of her own.  

On Christmas Eve we ate at Benihana Japanese Steakhouse.

The ‘table’ was really like a counter around a big stove.  The chef cooked right in front of us. He did lots of cool tricks such as flipping a knife and spatula around (he was never even close to dropping them), he rolled an egg across the cooking table and yelled, “look, an egg roll!”, he made an onion volcano, and he cut off the shrimp tails and flipped them into his pocket!  Some of the other chefs around us played music with their utensils and other cool stuff.

Our chef’s name was Charlie and he was Chinese, not Japanese.  He was very funny, when we could understand him!  He offered to bring the baby a Saki Sampler to drink (I’m not sure what Saki is, but I guess it’s not for babies!)

I tried almost everything and disliked only a few things. I liked the chicken and the beef, the Edamame beans, the sauces (for dipping into), the white rice, and the ice cream we had for dessert.  I was not as fond of the cucumber things or the shrimp (Mom and Dad say it’s OK if I don’t like shrimp…they don’t want to share it with me anyway…). 

For the holidays, I made a pumpkin bread recipe that I picked because I thought of a few ways to make it healthier. I changed it by using whole-wheat flour instead of regular flour.  I also used low-fat yogurt and raisins instead of 3 cups of sugar to sweeten the mixture. When I mixed the ingredients together, it was so very hard to turn the mixture, that it did not mix so well. So, I asked my dad to use the electric mixer. To me, it looked like the electric mixer was a little tired too. We baked the bread at 350 degrees for 40 minutes and had it the next day. It didn’t quite taste as good as it smelled. Some parts were bitter and was not sweet enough, but some parts were sweet that had lots of raisins. So, I may have not mixed the raisins into it well enough. Next time, I am going to especially make sure that I mix the ingredients better so that the raisins are mixed throughout the bread. Here are the ingredients that I used.

1 / 2 Cup Raisins
1 cup low-fat yogurt
3 Cups of whole-wheat flour
2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 Can Pumpkin
3 Tablespoons  Sugar
3 eggs
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
2 Teaspoons ginger
1 / 2 Teaspoon salt
1 / 4 Cup Olive Oil

On Christmas my grandparents come to our house in the morning for breakfast and presents.  We like to have coffee cake and stuff like that, but my grandpa can’t eat a bunch of carbohydrates because he is diabetic.  We make a breakfast casserole with eggs, cheese and ham, but no potatoes, and it has some broccoli and red bell pepper in it to make it look colorful…red and green…you get it!  This way grandpa can pig out too!

I said before I wanted to find tasty recipes with broccoli!

We get to see what Santa left in our stockings before breakfast, but have to wait until after we eat to go down to the playroom and see what other presents we get.  The kids always eat faster than the grown-ups!

This year on Christmas Eve we are going out to dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse…I’ll let you know about that next month!

My Dad and I made almond butter brownies together.  It was fun.  They have no flour so if you are allergic to wheat you can eat them.  They are sweet and also healthy because they are made with almond-butter which is full of protein.  When I tried to crack an egg I did it to  soft.  The next time I did it way too hard so half of the egg was in my hand and the other half went kerplunk into the mixing bowl! Instead of pulling the egg apart I just crushed the shell!  We cleaned it out and started again.

The brownies did come out great and they were delicious.  You should try to make them at home!

Here is the recipe:

1 (16 ounce) jar creamy roasted almond butter

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups agave nectar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

½cup cacao powder

½ teaspoon celtic sea salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup dark chocolate chips

In a large bowl, blend almond butter until smooth with a hand blender 

Blend in eggs, then blend in agave and vanilla

Blend in cacao, salt and baking soda, then fold in chocolate chips

Grease a 9x13 inch Pyrex baking dish

Pour batter into dish

Bake at 325° for 35-40 minutes

Makes about 24 brownies

A holiday recipe that I tested for healthiness was sweet potatoes.  Every Thanksgiving my mom and my Tia (aunt) Celi make sweet potatoes, and even though I don’t like sweet potatoes I tried both of them this year so I could do a taste comparison.  My mom’s sweet potatoes were really sweet and sugary..they’re called candied yams.   My Tia’s were plain.  I found out my mom makes hers with lots of maple syrup, brown sugar, and butter.  Not healthy at all!   All  my Tia Celi did with hers was rub butter on the skin before baking them in the over.  Then you peel the skin before eating them….so pretty healthy.  I still didn’t like ether of them even though one was full of sugar. I would have to  say my Tia’s was definitely the healthy one!