With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I tested this recipe out on several little ginuea pigs. I made these for a recent “kids dinner party” that my friends and I do every week and I can’t even tell you how hard I laughed when I pulled these sweet potatoes out of the oven and three of the kids simultaneously yelled “cupcakes”! No matter what we said they decided the orange and white “cupcakes” were a holiday treat and scarfed them down. The only “oops” moment came when one the little girls looked at me with a huge hunk of orange peel in her mouth and said, “I don’t like the wrapper”. Whoops!
These heavenly treats only take minutes to prepare, and they made quite a visual and edible impact on the kids and adults alike. I’m a big fan of cooking this dish with evaporated skim milk because it makes the potatoes really fluffy without the added fat of heavy cream. I usually don’t like to use foods that have a ton of sugar, but just a few mini marshmallows
really takes this recipe to the next level for kids and makes it fun for them. After all, it’s the “icing”! They’re not essential to the recipe, so you can easily leave them out.
This recipe is also a time saver when you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner, because the orange pulp that you scoop out goes right into the weelicious cranberry sauce recipe! A green vegetable, some succulent turkey and you have a perfect meal for the entire family with a few leftovers for the next day.
*Check out the Thanksgiving article and pictures on one of my favorite websites, CafeMom:

Sweet Potatoes in Orange Cups (Serves 6 Big Kids)

2 Lbs. Sweet Potatoes (you want to use potatoes that are really orange, also known as yams)
2 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Maple Syrup
1/2 Cup Evaporated Skimmed Milk (you can substitute it with regular milk)
1/2 Tsp Kosher or Sea Salt
3 Navel Oranges
Mini Marshmallows

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Poke the yams several times with a fork or knife to pierce the skin.
2. Place on foil or a sheet tray in the oven and bake for 1 hour.
3. Let yams cool for several minutes, cut in half and scoop out the fluffy insides (I love eating the high fiber skin as a snack).
4. Mash the yams with butter, maple syrup, evaporated milk and salt until creamy and fluffy.
5. Cut the oranges in half and slice a very thin disk from the bottom so they rest flat. The skins are actually going to be the “bowls”.
6. With a pairing knife cut around the inside rim of the orange removing the orange sections and pulp. Place any of the orange juice and pulp in a bowl and discard the white membranes and seeds. Save the juice and pulp for cranberry sauce recipe or just enjoy as a snack.
7. Fill each orange cup with 1/4 cup of puree and top with several mini marshmallows (you can cover and refrigerate these overnight).
8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
9. Place on a sheet tray and bake for 20-25 minutes.
10. Serve.

Whenever I have to cook grains for a dish, I always make more than the recipe calls for and set the extra portion to the side. Keeping cooked rice or quinoa in the refrigerator is a meal-time life saver, especially when you’re trying to prepare a quick and healthy breakfast (or lunch or dinner for that mattter!) for your family.
I make this recipe for Kenya at least once a week and sometimes make enough for two mornings so I can serve it to him the next day. The only trouble this week when I made it was that my husband found Kenya’s second day portion and ate it for his dessert (yes, you could also serve this as a dessert, too!). No matter, it tastes like a sweet risotto and it’s delicious!

Breakfast Grains (make 2 toddler or 1 big kid servings)

1/2 Cup Cooked Grains (rice, quinoa, kamut or wheat berries would be a good choice)
1/4 Cup Milk (vanilla rice, soy or cow’s milk are good choices)
1 Tsp Honey
Pinch Cinnamon
2 Tbsp Berries (I use blueberries)

1. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over low to medium heat until the dish is creamy and most of the liquid has absorbed into the rice.
2. Cool and serve.

These feel like an authentic English or Irish dish to me. Or maybe it’s a 
New England treat. I don’t know where fish pies were born, but I do know they’re gorgeous and delicious. I try to avoid using too much butter whenever possible, but from the time I was a kid, I knew that there was one indisputable culinary fact: if it had a crust, it had to be delicious!
Having pre-made puff pastry in the freezer is a lifesaver for whenever you are making anything with a crust, so I always have some on hand. The golden puff pastry in this dish encloses a warm, creamy mixture of fish and sweet vegetables. It’s so creamy in fact that you would think it’s made with heavy cream, but in fact it’s just an easy mixture of milk and a roux. Yes, moms and dads, you get to be culinary geniuses this week and make a roux, which is SO easy to do! I guarantee this will be a hit for even those little ones that turn their noses up at vegetables. Give it a try.


 Fish Pie’s (Makes 4 Individual Ramekins for Big Kids or 1 Large One)

1 1/2 Cups Milk (I prefer whole milk for this recipe)
1 Cup Broccoli Florets, fresh or frozen
1 Large Carrot, peeled and diced
1 Ear of Corn or 1/2 Cup Frozen
2 Sole Fillets, fresh or frozen (or 1/2 Lb halibut, haddock or cod)
2 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Flour plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 Box Puff Pastry, 1 sheet (I like Dufours or Pepperidge Farms), defrosted
1 Egg, whisked with 1 tsp water (this is known as an egg wash for the crust)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan.
3. Add the broccoli and carrots and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 3 minutes.
4. Add the corn and fish and continue to cook for 4 more minutes or until vegetables are fork tender.
5. Remove the vegetables to a separate bowl. Break the fish into pieces and chop the broccoli into bite size pieces if needed.
6. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. When it’s melted add the flour and whisk making a roux.
7. Add the milk a little at a time until mixture is a thick saucy consistency.
8. Add the sauce to the fish and vegetables and combine.
9. Pour the mixture into individual ramekins.
10. Sprinkle work surface with a bit of flour and roll out puff pastry to remove lines (only if necessary).
11. Cut out 4 individual circles, using a knife, just larger then the top of each ramekin.
12. Divide the fish mixture between the 4 ramekins and cover with puff pastry sheet.
13. Brush each puff pastry ramekin with egg wash.
14. Bake on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes or until pastry is golden.
15. Serve.

When I was 6 months pregnant with Kenya, my husband and I went to Paris for some work as well as some much needed R and R. I had actually lived in Paris for years when I was younger so I was excited to walk all over the city showing him my favorite neighborhoods and old haunts. There’s nothing like being pregnant in the most romantic city in the world and walking by patisseries and bistros all day. It’s an automatic excuse to eat a lot. As a result, we didn’t take one form of public transportation the entire trip, since I didn’t want to miss a single culinary delight and we needed to walk our multiple meals off!
One of my favorite treats are crepes. These heavenly, light, little pancakes are the perfect base for all types of fillings like mashed bananas, almond butter, fruit preserves and, dare I suggest, Nutella (very common in France).
I made these for Kenya and myself for breakfast and he loved them. I covered them with apple butter and rolled them into little cigar-shaped cylinders which he held and ate at his leisure. When the rest of the batch was cool, I just wrapped them up and put them in the fridge so we could still eat them for a few days.

Crepes (Makes 14 Crepes)

2 Eggs
1 Cup Flour
3/4 Milk
1/2 Cup Water
1/2 Tsp Vanilla
2-3 Tbsp Butter, melted

1. Place all the ingredients in a blender and puree.
2. Refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight (this helps the bubbles to settle and the crepes not to tear).
3. Grease a saute pan or crepe pan with butter. Pour in 2 tbsp of batter and swirl to cover the pan.
4. Cook for 1 minutes, flip and continue to cook another 30 seconds or until just starting to become golden.
5. Remove to a plate and continue to make remaining crepes.
6. Spread with apple butter, almond butter, mashed bananas, fruit preserves or any other favorite filling.
7. Roll into a cigar shape.
7. Serve.

I fell in love with The Handstand Cookbook series the first time I saw it. It’s the perfect gift for budding little chefs and parents who want to cook with their kids. There’s a Mexican cookbook kit, an Italian kit and Chinese on the way. The books are even arranged by levels of difficulty for each recipe so you know when you should give a little extra help.
I talked to the founder of the company, Yvette Garfield, about testing one of her recipes, but giving it a weelicious twist. I salivated from the first time I read her recipe for “Lasagna into Chilaquiles”. It reminded me of a dish that my Mexican “mother” made for me when I was an exchange student living in Toluca, Mexico, so I knew had to recreate it.
By adding baked blue corn chips instead of regular fried tortilla chips and adding a little milk to make the eggs even fluffier, it lightened the dish up a bit, but kept all of the intended yummy flavor. I made these for me, Kenya and a friend for breakfast and we all sat as happy as clams devouring our perfect chilaquiles. Ole!


Chilaquiles with a Weelicious Twist (Serves 4)

1 Small Onion, diced
1 Tbsp Oil
4 Cups Baked Blue Corn Chips (I used Guiltless Gourmet)
6 Eggs, beaten
1/4 Cup Milk
1 1/2 Cups Mild Salsa (I used Pace Chunky Salsa)
1 Cup Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded
Sour Cream, optional
Guacamole, optional

1. Heat a large saute pan over low/medium heat. Saute onions until soft and translucent.
2. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a bowl.
3. Add the corn chips to the pan.
3. Pour the egg mixture over the corn chips and stir over low/medium heat for 1 minute.
4. Add the salsa and cheese and cook for 3-4 minutes, continually stirring the mixture until cheese is melted. .
5. Garnish with guacamole and sour cream and serve.

Some moms make their kids sugar cookies, some make them pound cakes. My mom made cheese wafers. I’m not talking about a tins worth, I’m literally talking pounds and pounds!). You would have thought she was starting her own cheese 
wafer business with the amount of cracker barrel cheese kept in our 
refrigerator. I remember standing by her salivating as she made them. 
Really they’re THAT good. She placed a perfect pecan on top of each one and added 
a touch of paprika for a little zip.
For my cheese wafers, I removed the zip and decided to roll and cut them into 
fun shapes for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I don’t know if any kid 
will accept cheese wafers instead of candy, but I know that if you 
offer these over those pre-packaged, oily goldfish snacks, they’ll not only beg for more but they’ll also avoid ingesting all those nasty preservatives, artificial flavors and dyes, too.


Kenya kept popping these in his mouth and crunching away so fast, I 
had to hide them from him. Now the only trouble is that I know where they are and I may eat the entire tin!

Cheese Wafers (Makes 3-4 dozen depending on the size of your cookie cutters)

1/2 Lb Sharp Cheddar Cheese
5 Tbsp Butter
1 Cup Flour plus additional for sprinkling

1. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and combine (dough may be a bit crumbly, but it will stick together).
2. Remove all the dough to a piece of parchment or waxed paper and shape into a thick flat circle. Cover with waxed paper and refrigerate for one hour or overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
4. Open waxed paper and roll out dough on it into a 1/4 inch-thick piece.
5. Take small cookie cutters and cut out into shapes (you could also take an empty plastic medicine bottle to make circle shaped crackers. Just make sure you clean out the bottle thoroughly first.).
6. Place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with a silpat or parchment paper) and bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool on sheet for 2 minutes before removing.
7. Serve.

Sweet, creamy, beautiful, delicious… there are so many words to describe these little edible jewels filled with silky puree. These bites are easy to pick up with your fingers and look gorgeous on a platter. You could even serve these at a fabulous cocktail party and make extras for the kids.
But back to the recipe. Purses?? Huh? Well, I found some gorgeous gala apples at the farmer’s market and was trying to think a fun and original recipe for a birthday party. I had also kept passing wonton wrappers at the market and wanted to play around with them. Apples are full of fiber and vitamin C and sweet potatoes are a powerhouse of nutrition especially given their abundance of beta-carotene and vitamin C and E.
These only took minutes to prepare and you can serve them warm or cool. You could also serve the puree on its own to babies over the age of 8 months.
Of course Kenya ate almost the entire recipe in one sitting (that seems to be the norm with him these days), so I highly recommend making a double batch!

Sweet Potato, Apple, Cheddar Purses (Makes 10 purses)

1/2 Sweet Potato (yams), peeled and cubed
1 Small Apple (about 1/2 Cup), peeled and cubed
2 Tbsp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1/8 Tsp Cinnamon
10 Wonton Wrappers (found in the refrigerator section of your grocery)
*Bowl of water

1. Place the sweet potatoes in a steamer pot over boiling water and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Add the apples and continue to cook another 3 minutes or until fork tender.
3. Place the apples, sweet potato, cheese and cinnamon in a food
processor and puree until smooth.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
5. Place a wonton wrapper on a clean surface. Place a tablespoon of the puree in the middle of the wonton.
6. Take the four corners of the wonton and lift them up around the
puree.
7. Pinch the wonton together in the middle, just over the puree, to seal. Moisten your fingers with a little water and pinch once more to ensure a good seal.
8. Repeat process with remaining wonton wrappers. When all 10 are formed into purses, place 3-5 at a time in the boiling water.
9. Cook for 2 minutes.
10. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate, cool and serve.

Oh. My. Lusciousness! I just tasted my first batch of homemade almond milk minutes ago and it is so delicious I ran to the computer, bumped today’s planned “recipe of the day”, and started writing this. This almond milk is so creamy, frothy and easy to make, you’ll wonder why you ever bothered to buy it in the store. Not only is the milk itself incredible and perfect to add to your own cereal or coffee, but my best little taster just made a case for drinking it all on its own! You should have seen Kenya chowing down on the ground almonds and milky solids which are strained out of the finished milk. He totally made a meal out of it (as did I, stealing bite after bite).
Almonds are rich in the antioxidant vitamin E, which boosts your little one’s immune system. They’re also a good source of calcium which plays a part in healthy bones, teeth and immune function. Don’t feel limited to only almonds, though. You could make this exact recipe with cashews, brazil nuts, walnuts and more. Just pour a touch of this over fresh berries and it’s as good as the taste of fresh cream. Obviously, if your little one has a nut allergy, this recipe isn’t for them.
Again, I do realize that you can buy a box of almond milk at the store to keep handy, but one taste of this recipe and you will understand why it’s worth the MINUTES it takes to make your own.

Almond Milk (Makes 3 1/2 Cups plus 3/4 Almond Puree)

1 Cup Almonds
2 Tbsp Agave
1/2 Tsp Vanilla
4 Cups Water

1. Place all the ingredients in a blender and puree on high for one minute or until almond are in tiny pieces.
2. Place a strainer in a large bowl and cover the top of the strainer with cheesecloth (this step is important because the almonds will be in such small pieces that the cheesecloth and strainer need to stop them from going into the milk).
3. Pour the almond milk through the cheesecloth. You may need to do this in stages so the milk can slowly strain through the cheesecloth. It may help taking a spoon to scrape the bottom of the cheesecloth so the milk can pass.
4. Pour the milk and the almond puree into separate containers and refrigerate.
5. Serve.

Before you all jump down my throat, yes, I do realize that this recipe sounds like it could be on the cover of Gourmet magazine instead of being the “recipe of the day” for weelicious, but when I made these for Kenya, he actually let out one of the bigger “mmm’s” I’ve ever heard him utter when trying one of my new recipes. When I get a big “mmm,” that generally means he really loves something. This particular “mmm” was the biggest I’d heard in a long time, so, trust me, you may have more success with this dish than you think. Kenya’s eyes lit up when he saw me placing the entire fig on his plate and serving a drip of balsamic vinegar for him to dip it in (although this added ingredient isn’t necessary, just fun).
Fresh figs are luscious, chewy, rich and textured, but when they’re roasted they become uber sweet. The best surprise for your little one will be the tiny piece of cheese inside the fig which melts and turns this into such a heavenly treat. I love using gorgonzola cheese, but you could also try other types of blue cheese, taleggio or anything else that sounds good to you.
Also, if you want wanted to give this to a baby under the age of one, you could roast the figs without the cheese in the same way and puree the roast fig. Now that’s really gourmet puree.
Bon Appetite!

Roast Figs with Gorgonzola (Makes 6 Figs)

6 Fresh Figs, make sure they’re soft and ripe (I used mission figs, but most variety will be perfect)
1 Tbsp Gorgonzola Cheese
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tsp Balsamic Vinegar (for dipping if you think your little one would like it)

1. Preheat over to 400 degrees.
2. Using a pairing knife remove a 3/4 inch circle (in the shape of a plug) out of the bottom of each fig. *All you’re doing in this step is removing a small piece out of the bottom of the fig that you will place back in the fig as it bakes so the cheese doesn’t seep out.
3. Polk your little finger in to make space for the cheese.
4. Place 1 teaspoon of cheese in the bottom of the fig and replace the fig “plug”.
5. Brush or rub each fig with olive oil.
6. Place in a lightly oiled baking dish.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Cool, slice in half or serve whole. You can also drizzle them with a little balsamic vinegar.

When I was 18 years old, I did a modeling job in Venice, Italy — one of the world’s most incredible food cities. There’s a famous restaurant there called Harry’s Bar (yes, one of Venice’s best restaurants has an American name), which serves some of the most delectable food I’ve ever tried. The entire Italian film crew ordered heavenly dish after dish for us to share family style. Salads with rich burrata cheese, pizza margherita, pasta pomodoro and the first risotto that I ever tried. I had no idea what risotto was, but I knew that it was the closest thing to heaven I’d ever tasted. I was shocked at how something that appeared so simple could be so complex in flavor.
Risotto is a rice dish made specifically with arborio rice (easy to find at most grocery stores). The arborio rice is the essential ingredient that gives it such a creamy texture. Although most of the dishes on weelicious take minutes to prepare, I personally think the 30 minutes that it takes to continually stir this dish is totally worth it. Especially if your whole family is going to be eating it!

Risotto Milanese (8 Toddler Servings)

4 Cups Chicken Broth (preferably low sodium)
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Onion, minced
1 Cup Arborio Rice
1 Tbsp Butter
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese

1. In a large pot, bring the chicken stock to a simmer (do not bring it to a boil or the liquid will start to evaporate)
2. In a 12-14 ounce skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.
3. Add the onions and lightly saute for 3-4 minutes until translucent.
4. Add the rice. Using a wooden spoon, stir the grains until toasty and opaque.
5. Add 1/2 cup of the hot stock to the rice and cook until it’s absorbed.
6. Continue adding stock 1/2 cup at a time waiting to add more stock until all the liquid is absorbed and the risotto is tender and creamy. This process should take about 20 minutes.
7. When all of the liquid is absorbed add the butter and cheese and continue stirring until combined.
8. Cool to room temperature for little ones and serve (if adults are going to eat it, dig in right away!)