Kids ‘in the’ Kitchen Thursday – Red & Green are SO Good for you!

After making our Christmas Trees that we decorated with fruit and cereal (more pictures to follow soon), we made a Red and Green Salad. Spinach and Strawberry Salad that is.  I picked this salad simply for two reasons. The beautiful colors of the season and the high nutritional content.       It’s great to serve some back-to-basic side dishes during the holidays.  Almost 100% of the kids tried the spinach salad. Over 75% of kids said they liked it, not to mention the ones that cleaned their plates clean – left no spinach salad for mom or dad to try! 

INGREDIENTS

•        
2 bags baby spinach

•        
1 pint strawberries,
sliced

•        
½ cup slivered almonds
or walnuts, optional

Dressing:  (all of these ingredients keep for a long
time in your pantry)

•        
¼ cup olive oil

•        
2 tbsp red wine vinegar

•        
½ tsp dill weed

•        
1 ½ tbsp sugar

•        
½ tsp salt, pepper,
garlic powder, onion powder, and dry mustard

DIRECTIONS

1.       
For children, have kids
cut the spinach leaves to make bite size pieces with kid-safe kitchen scissors. 

2.       
Slice strawberries with
plastic lettuce knife

3.       
Mix all dressing
ingredients together with whisk.

4.       
Add dressing to salad
based on taste. Remember, a little goes a long way.

     One Nutrition Fact about Spinach!

     1 cup = 7 calories and almost 50% daily value of Vitamin A

    Now, that’s what I call a Nutrient Dense Food!

    

KIDS KITCHEN KONNECTION: Chopping or cutting their own spinach, slicing strawberries, and topping it with a yummy salad dressing that they helped make, encouraged the kids to try and eat the salad.  It was successful!