Sometimes I come across “high end” recipes for grown ups that would be a lot of fun for kids. This sushi dish featured in the Denver Post is one of them. Now before you go, “My kids HATE fish!” this is vegetable sushi. It’s colorful, easy to make, healthy,and you get to dip it. (What kid doesn’t love dipping things?) If you have the patience, get the kids to help you chop veggies, mix the sauce, and assemble the sushi. My husband and kids enjoy making sushi together. Me? I enjoy eating it!

Vegetable Bouquets with Spicy Dipping Sauce
By Diane Carman, makes 25-30

Many regular supermarkets have all the Asian ingredients you’ll need from daikon radish to sushi nori (dried seaweed). If not, maybe there is an Asian grocery store near you. We love visiting our local Asian market and as a mom you’ll love their prices on meat, fish, spices, and produce.

Ingredients:

1. 1 carrot, scraped
2. 1/2   mango, not too ripe, peeled
3. 1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
4. 1 small daikon radish, scraped (if you can’t find daikon radish, substitute jicama, which is mild tasting and very crunchy )
5. 1/2   red bell pepper
6. 1 package of Sushi nori (seaweed)

Dipping Sauce:

1. 1/4 cup soy sauce
2. 1 teaspoon sugar
3. 1/2 teaspoon Chinese black vinegar or worcestershire sauce
4. 1 teaspoon Chinese sesame oil
5. 1/2 to 1 teaspoon Chinese chili oil, or to taste

Directions:

1. Cut carrot, mango, cucumber, radish and bell pepper into thin julienne pieces about 2 inches long. Blanch carrot pieces in boiling water for about 30 seconds, drain and run under cold water to stop cooking.
2. Bundle 2 pieces of each vegetable and one piece of mango and wrap in a 1-inch-wide by 4-inch-long piece of sushi nori, moistening the end with water to secure the bouquet.
3. Sauce: Stir ingredients together in small bowl. Adjust seasonings to taste.
4. Arrange on a platter and serve as an appetizer with dipping sauce.

Children’s Books About Sushi

Believe it or not there are few books for kids on sushi. Check these out:

• First Book of Sushi for ages four to eight
• Sushi for Kids: A Children’s Introduction to Japan’s Favorite Food for ages seven to 10
• Squeamish About Sushi: And Other Food Adventures in Japan for kids and adults

Kellogg’s and Animal Planet have paired up to bring you Wild Animal Crunch, a whole grain, vanilla and chocolate flavored cereal. Wild Animal Crunch is one of Kellogg’s first cereals to meet the their new Global Nutrient Criteria. It has 14 grams of whole grains, 3 grams of fiber, 100 calories, 1 gram of fat and 8 grams of sugar per serving.

The folks at Kellogg’s sent us a box to try. As a mom, I’m not thrilled with the amount of sugar, though it’s better than most. I thought the cereal was o.k., but the kids found it delicious. Nathan and Lucie had bowls and bowls of it during every breakfast and snack until it was gone – about three days. I’m surprised it took them that long.

Besides the tie in with Animal Planet, eating Wild Animal Crunch is fun because it comes in animal shapes. This would be a great cereal to snack on while watching Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor. It would also make a very portable snack to take to the zoo, camping, or hiking to go see animals out in the wild.

Take a Wild Animal Journey with Books

You don’t need to leave the house to go on safari. You can read Meet the Meerkat by Darrin Lunde from Charlesbridge Publishing (read my review here.) Sylvan Dell Publishing also has some terrific animal books:

• The Giraffe Who Was Afraid of Heights – a tale of a giraffe who’s scared of heights and two of his animal friends who have their own fears to overcome (read my review)
• Tudley Didn’t Know – the story of a painted turtle who adopts other animals behaviors (read my review)
• ‘Twas the Day Before Zoo Day by Catherine Ipcizade and illustrated by Ben Hodson. This book is an adaptation of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas and shares zoo keeper and animal preparations for the upcoming “Zoo Day.” Like all Sylvan Dell books, their website features a PDF of the For Creative Minds (PDF) book section, along with Teaching Activities, Learning Links and more.

Whether eating Wild Animal Crunch, reading books about animals, or watching Animal Planet, these are all fun ways to get your child interested in nature and the world around them. Get wild!

I’m attending a special mommy blogger event next week in Southern California put on by the kind folks at Sony. We’ll be trying out Sony Digital imaging products and services including trying out the Sony Cybershot DSCW170, Sony Alpha DSLRA350 Digital SLR Camera, and the Sony HDR-SR11 10MP 60GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom. Fancy! We’ll also be meeting with photography expert Me Ra Koh, and from shooting pictures on the beaches of La Jolla.

I’m excited but nervous. It’s been years since I took a photography course. Let’s just say it was before digital cameras were invented and I spent more time in the darkroom printing pictures than I did taking them. My experience with digital cameras is limited. Like most folks, I just point, shoot, download, crop and post/email. So I’m glad that I have a copy of Photographing Your Family: And All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too to read on the plane thanks to the folks at National Geographic.

What I liked about Photographing Your Family is that Joel Sartore, a National Geographic magazine photographer and father of three, reviews the basics like composition, key elements and light. Then he shares his secrets for photographing your family by going through his own family albums and explaining what he did to get the shot. You will also learn the best ways to print, display, and store your work, and tips on choosing equipment. I was especially interested in the chapter on the digital darkroom where he explains how to use software programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 to alter and improve your photographs.

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I realized this April Fools Day that my kids are especially bad at telling jokes. For one thing, Nathan’s timing is completely off. And Lucie doesn’t understand how to do a simple “knock- knock” joke to save her life. When she makes one up, they make no sense.

As a mother, this is disconcerting since the only reason I put up with my kids and their father is that they make me laugh. Aside from sending them to a comedy camp for the humor challenged, I thought a little humor therapy was in order. Maybe viewing Caddyshack would help, as would getting a few jokes books. Heck, Lucie could listen to Nathan reading the jokes out of the book and maybe they’d learn through osmosis.

Here are some of the joke books I found at the library:

• Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
• School Jokes
• Stinky Riddles
• The World’s Greatest Knock-Knock Jokes for Kids
• Knock, Knock

And here are a couple we already had at home:

• The Everything Kids’ Joke Book: Side-Splitting, Rib-Tickling Fun
• The Usborne Book Of Really Awful Jokes

The easiest jokes for young children are knock knock jokes and puns. Here’s a sample from Yummy Riddles:

What do you call a dinner that talks back to you?
Rude food

What did one pork chop say to the other?
Nice to meat you.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Bacon.
Bacon who?
Bacon my mother a birthday cake!

This is not Chris Rock by any means, but it’s a start.

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Congratulations to the winners of my Smart People Drink Milk and Milk is Brain Food contests.

My apologies not getting the word out quicker to my readers. I’m in the middle of Spring Break and preparing for the two blogging workshops I’m giving at the Northern Colorado Writer’s Conference on Friday and Saturday.

Here’s the lucky people who got the coupons for a FREE sample half-gallon of Horizon Organic’s new DHA Omega-3 milk:

• Aimee B.
• Summer at Wired for Noise
• Lisa of Workout Mommy

And if you didn’t win, you can get some cents off coupons at the Horizon Organic website. I got a $1 off a half-gallon of the DHA milk and some coupons for their yogurts.