March 24 // Yogurt Bark, Makaroni, Chocolate-Dipped Apricots and More!

also Couscous with Apricots, Red Wine Chicken and Vegetables, and Green Pancakes

We’ve got some fun meal ideas for you this week! Your kids will really enjoy decorating yogurt bark, swirling Makaroni noodles, and dipping dried apricots.

Breakfast: Yogurt Bark
Lunch: Couscous with Apricots
Dinners: Instant Pot Red Wine Chicken and Vegetables, Makaroni, Green Pancakes
Treat: Chocolate-Dipped Apricots
Exercise: 30-Minute Toning and 10 Minute Full Body Flow

Breakfast

Yogurt Bark

This one is fantastic for kids to make on their own (even at 4 years old.) Simply line a container with parchment paper or plastic wrap and pour yogurt into it, about 1/2” thick. Top with berries, nuts, a drizzle of honey, etc. and freeze. When you take the yogurt slab out of the freezer, you can break it apart and eat it on the go. (Bring napkins.) It’s a huge hit.

Lunch

Couscous with Apricots

Have you made couscous before? It’s delightful to munch on and tastes good served cold and mixed with other things. This recipe adapted from Melissa Clark is simple and satisfying. It’s a gentle way to introduce kids to some new flavors!

1. Sauté the couscous in a pan with olive oil until it’s lightly browned.

2. Add enough water to cover it and stir. You can add more water if needed. It cooks quickly.

3. Add salt, pepper, cumin, chopped dried apricots, torn mint leaves, red wine vinegar and fresh dill. (Kids might prefer to skip the vinegar and dill.)

4. Add fresh lemon juice and lemon zest.

5. You can add other things if you want to, obviously, like cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. to make this more of a real salad. Enjoy!

Dinner

Instant Pot Red Wine Chicken and Tomatoes

This recipe adapted from Simple and Savory is super easy and nutritious and has a really rich flavor. Also, I’ve been adding farro to so many of my stews lately because it’s really nutritious and cooks wonderfully in the Instant Pot.

1. Using the Sauté setting, brown chicken breasts in olive oil. Remove from instant pot and set them aside.

2. Sauté vegetables such as carrots, onions, garlic, celery, etc. with salt and herbes de Provence until they’re soft. We used frozen carrots to make it easier. Also add a can of diced tomatoes.

3. Pour in about 1/2 cup of red wine (or chicken broth with some balsamic vinegar, which is what we used in this batch) and maybe some farro.

4. Put your chicken breasts back in the pot, on top of the vegetables. Drizzle with a little more balsamic.

5. Close the lid and cook at high pressure for 10 minutes.

6. Once the timer goes off and the pressure releases (manually or naturally), enjoy!

Makaroni

This Persian spaghetti dish was a big hit in our family, even on my very failed first attempt (photo at bottom of post.) You can make a vegan version with this recipe, but we adapted this one by The Caspian Chef.

This is a bit of a slow-paced meal that takes a little bit of time and love to make. It’s great for kids to help you with the spaghetti-twirling.

I highly recommend you watch Omid’s cooking video. The way he describes the elbowing of children to be the first to eat the “tahdig” (the crunchy part) is a nice little glimpse into his culture. The delicacy of scorched rice is a whole thing in many cultures; this NYT article about it is quite interesting. But I digress.

1. Boil water, make it salty, and cook spaghetti.

2. Sauté ground beef with salt and pepper, onions, and garlic.

3. Stir in a can of tomato paste, one cup of water, and juice from one lemon, as well as “Advieh” (Persian spices.) Such spices include cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, dried rose petals, turmeric, cloves, etc. (If you’ve never used cinnamon with ground beef, mmm…it’s nice.)

4. When spaghetti is done cooking, strain it. Take out a big handful of noodles for twirling (you want them starchy.) Rinse and/or add oil to the remaining noodles so they don’t stick together.

5. This is the part kids will love: put about 4 strands together and twirl them on your fingers. Make little whirls and set them aside.

6. Oil a small or medium pot really well, and start placing your swirls of spaghetti on the bottom and sides. Then layer in the rest of the spaghetti as well as the sauce you made.

7. Put a lid on your pot and cover it with a towel so no steam escapes. Cook it on medium-low for 20-40 minutes.

8. In a big reveal, remove the lid from the pot and place a big plate over it, then flip it upside down. Voila! How does it look?

Green Pancakes (breakfast for dinner)

On Monday we talked about establishing weekly traditions to spend more time together as a family. Breakfast-for-dinner is something everyone looks forward to! To add a little nutrition (and fun), blend spinach with milk and then mix it with whatever pancake batter you normally use—we use Kodiak Cakes—and cook like normal. (We never measure but just add milk until it’s the thin consistency we like.)

It helps to add a touch of vanilla to the batter, too, and of course you have to add some dark chocolate chips while frying the pancakes, and top with quality butter.

P.S. If you use dark chocolate batter, the spinach sneaks in unnoticed 😉

Spinach who?

Treat

Chocolate-Dipped Apricots

This is an unbelievably simple treat that your kids can make by themselves. Instruct them to microwave a small cup or bowl of chocolate chips, 15 seconds at a time and stirring in between. (You really don’t need a lot of chocolate chips.)

Then dip dried apricots into the bowl and place them on parchment paper or shrink wrap. Refrigerate, and you’ve got a delightful and pretty treat! This is a great thing to give away and bring to parties, too.

Exercise

Here’s an intense workout that doesn’t require any equipment! It’s crazy how much you feel “Good Mornings” in your hamstrings, even without holding any weights.

Vytas has some awesome quick workouts that feel good and strengthen everything.

Hopefully some of these ideas gave you some inspiration!

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts

P.S. Don’t forget to submit your Focaccia Art by tonight, March 24th! We haven’t had many entries so far, but I want to see lots of pretty masterpieces! You can even use a premade naan or pizza crust. The main point is the food-art 😉

P.P.S. As promised, here’s the picture of my first attempt at Makaroni, in which I cooked it at “medium” instead of “medium-low.” 😬 We scraped off the top and the rest was still quite good.