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Can you share any ideas about spontaneously cooking from box of seasonal veggies for finicky kids?

Beyond Recipes

Deb Kennedy, PhD - Beyond Recipes

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This event was on March 6, 2025

Teaching others to cook is about more than just recipes—it’s about meeting people where they are, honoring cultural traditions, and building confidence in the kitchen. This live event explores how to adapt cooking instruction for different skill levels, backgrounds, and learning styles while emphasizing intuitive cooking over rigid steps. Learn how to empower others with essential skills, inspire creativity, and make cooking an accessible, enjoyable experience for all.

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Question

Joy Johansen Slaman

Can you share any ideas about spontaneously cooking from box of seasonal veggies for finicky kids?

Answer

Yes, joy, absolutely. Let them play with the veggies. Let them touch 'em, smell 'em, lick 'em. Um, kids that are cooking together tend to eat with their frenzy. So you can throw together a, you can make a soup, you could, let's see, it's a box of vegetables. Uh, I would do, I would do soups. I would do a cold soup and maybe a hot soup, but I'd also cut them up into sticks and then make dipping sauces. Kids love dipping more than anything, so you don't have to go with sour cream or cream cheese, but you can use, uh, unsweetened yogurt, add some garlic to it and have them throw in some flavors. Uh, you can put some onions in there and, you know, really talk about the color, talk about how it feels. Um, I, I teach kids that real food doesn't bounce, so sometimes I'll bounce it in front of them and if it does, you know, if it doesn't bounce, it's a whole food. That's how I get kids off a gummy fruit. But you wanna make it fun and enjoyful.

Deb Kennedy, PhD

PhD Nutritionist

drdebkennedy.com

*Deb Kennedy, PhD* nutritionist, chef and Value-Based Medicine certified, is dedicated to helping people improve their health through food. She received her Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry from Tufts University, and previously held roles with Tufts Human Nutrition Research Center for Aging, Yale’s Prevention Research Center, Babies and Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian, Cornell University, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She also held the position of first Chair for Best Practices at the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (CIA) and was an instructor in Culinary Nutrition at the New England Culinary Institute. A pioneer in the growing field of culinary medicine, and self-proclaimed food warrior, Dr. Kennedy is the author of multiple books, including The Culinary Medicine Textbook, a five-volume publication to date that uses her research in food, flavor, eating and nutrition to lay out the concepts and fundamental topics needed to master culinary medicine. For the last several years, Deb, along with 40 nutritionists and a dozen chefs from around the world, created culinary competencies for nutrition recommendations. She has developed the Food Coach Academy based on this work, which is delivered in a science-based modular format that provides individuals with expertise needed to use the power of food to transform health.