a-PEEL-ing Recipes

It’s Spring Break, which means no school, warmer weather and the arrival of new fruits and veggies! The break also provides time for us to test some recipes in the Brighter Bites kitchen. When coming up with new recipe ideas, we like to create dishes that are fun and inviting. For example, we recently developed several recipes that combine fruit and vegetables. Various fruits bring sweet, citrusy, creamy, crisp, or tart flavors to a dish, while vegetables add fresh, spicy, bitter, or earthy ones. Creating a combination of the two can produce the perfect harmony of flavors and it might be a great way to introduce new foods to your kids! Think about these salads: the sweet zest of a summer melon with the crispness of a cucumber; the fresh taste of a juicy watermelon with the tartness of a tomato; or even the sweet flavor of a carrot with the earthy tang of fresh cauliflower. We’ve also taken our smoothie to a whole new level. Have you tried baking spinach into a muffin? With the sweetness of bananas and applesauce to balance out the neutral flavor of the spinach, we were able to make our HULK Smoothie into a MUFFIN. It’s perfectly green, scrumptiously sweet and absolutely kid approved! These dishes are just some of the fruit and vegetable combinations we tried this week. We encourage you to do the same in your own kitchen. Look for inspiration from fruits and vegetables currently in season. Try pairing them to make simple salads, salsas and smoothies, and find out if your kids like these combinations too!  We think you will be berry peas-ed!