One day in early January, I stopped at Ingles to get some balloons for Anderson's party & I got in a conversation with the florist lady that stuck with me. She told me about her 2 boys who are now adults and how they used to cook food from different countries as a family. She said it made her boys want to travel & learn about other countries.
I loved the idea and totally stole it, thinking it might make my kids better eaters-maybe they would try new things if I made a game instead of "dinner." So, we embarked on a year of countries-the goal was one each month, but you will see that we did not always make that goal. I let Anderson spin the globe and choose the location (he was supposed to have his eyes closed, but I have a feeling there was some peeking) and then he picked out recipes using my Yummly app.
Before you start thinking this is some kind of over the top/pinterest situation, just check out the post and you will be relieved to see it is most definitely NOT. We quickly ventured into the dessert realm for most of the countries so the dinner situation was not really altered. Also, despite having 4 weeks to focus on one country, more often than not we ended up moving it into the next month or, in the case of a few months, just skipping it altogether.
I started the post last Jan and have added each month as we've gone.
Now it is so much fun to be able to look back on the pics like a timeline.
January-Brazil
We made Brigadeiros and Brazilian Lemonade.
I realized quickly that this was not really going to make them more adventurous eaters since the first recipe was basically fudge covered in sprinkles. Also, the lemonade was made of limes-who knew??
The verdict: They LOVED the brigadeiros (SO much sugar, of course they did) and sort of tolerated the Brazilian Lemonade. It was ok, but I am not a fan of condensed milk and I think that is what made it an odd consistency.
**Later when Brazil hosted the Olympics, Anderson felt like he knew everything about the country, which was untrue but, you know, whatever.
February-Italy
Italy was our February choice and it was a good one, of course! We really ventured out and had...spaghetti & meatballs as the meal. Even though it was super normal, we did at least have an entree this month, so I felt like we were stepping it up. Also, it was actually March when we did this because Feb was insanely busy, so I needed something easy.
The dessert was DELICIOUS! We did something called Italian Love Cakes and they were absolutely heavenly. We will be making them again, for sure.
March-Japan
Then there was that time that I reached a new low in the third month of the project. But, in my defense, it does say JAPANESE on the box and there are actual Japanese symbols/letters on the box which might be the most official thing ever.
Brandon loves, loves, loves when he is included in my ideas. I mean, giddiness is an understatement.
Anderson actually ate a few bites of the rice, which was a HUGE win!
For dessert, we made Japanese hotcakes, which were basically really thick pancakes with whipped cream, so they were pretty good.
Also, Max's belly.
April-England
So, April made my "authentic out of a box March" look even better because we didn't technically make it to England until May. It was early May-just round backwards.
Sometimes life wins & you just don't have time to....make fish sticks. Ha ha ha!!!
Seriously, he rigged his pick (again) and chose England because of Harry Potter, so I don't care about the recipes as much. We did our own version of fish & chips-frozen food style.
This is the third time ever that he has eaten fish sticks, the other 2 times being at Clare's house. After I bough a bunch of bags at Publix (BOGO,) he decided that he hates them again.
We did make "Cauldron Cakes," which were apparently quite delicious as I did not get a before pic.
He just wanted to eat Harry Potter food, which was a huge win for me.
May-Mexico
If only there was an actual holiday in May that was related to the country we picked. And, if only, he picked the country prior to said holiday. Damn Cinco de Mayo for coming in the first week! To be fair, it could have been anytime in May and we would have missed it because we didn't make it to celebrate until June. (Perhaps timeliness is not our strength with this activity?)
We made tacos, black bean salsa & Mexican fudge. Anderson actually ate ALL of it.
Max, of course, ate none of it. I think there might be 3 year olds who eat beans or tacos, but they do not reside in my house.
June-China
We made it during June! It was the last day of June, but that still counts. We made potsticker/dumplings, which is an actual Chinese recipe from one of my friend's/former co-workers, Elizabeth.
We ate them with the rest of our non-Chinese dinner and they were delicious!
Also, "We" of course means "not our kids."
July-
July makes all of the other months seem amazing because we skipped this month. Summer is a pretty busy time for me with work/back to school and by the time I remembered to have him pick a country, he landed on Afghanistan and I just did not have the energy to pull that off.
August- France
So, for France we ate A LOT of French bread and French toast, neither of which I captured in pictures.
We did make these DELICIOUS Nutella pies and I managed to snag zero pics of those in August either because we inhaled them immediately upon removing them from the oven.
**But, I did take one picture in October because they are SO good that we were still making them.
Also, technically this is not a "French" recipe, but it has Nutella and they eat that in France, so work with me here.
September- Spain
This kid LOVES olives, so we went ahead and made one of our Spanish food picks pretty easy by grabbing the jar of Spanish olives out of the fridge.
We also made magdalenas, which is some kind of lemon cupcake situation.
It is safe to say that making them was more fun than eating them because there really was not a lot of taste to them.
It's about the experience, right??
(It is actually about the cupcakes, so this month was a bit of a disappointment.)
October-Romania
For October, we really themed it up and went with Dracula's home country-Romania. While I love to share a gory History story with Anderson, I did refrain from sharing too much about the real life of Vlad the Impaler, instead sticking to the chocolate cereal version.
We had "Cartofi copti" and "Mici," which basically translates into "baked-then-fried potatoes with bacon & cheese" and sausages. Despite his smile, Anderson hated all of it.
Max didn't even sit down long enough to have any emotion toward it.
There are picky eaters and then there are my kids. SIGH ALL OF THE SIGHS.
But, that Count Chocula was DELICIOUS and brought me back to my childhood.
November-You guessed it....another miss.
December- The North Pole
For December, we kept with the seasonal theme of Christmas and went with The North Pole!
Seriously, I am actually counting the Christmas cookie making as a country because it really does work if you think about it.
Not pictured: the TRAUMA as the heads of the gingerbread men kept falling off during the decorating. The fact that 2 survived was some kind of Christmas miracle.
Looking back on these pics makes me realize how much they have changed over the year, especially Max. While my kids might not have become better eaters through this project, I do think they had fun making messes and eating chocolate cereal, so there were definitely some wins.
