Bear Paw Sweet Potato

 

This post is sponsored by Country Crock. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Getting children to eat and enjoy vegetables is difficult for many families, including mine. My children have always been willing to eat fruit, but vegetables are more of a battle. For example, my husband I both enjoy broccoli, but none of the children like it at all. Any attempt on my part to serve it is met with groans and complaints, even when I drench it in cheese.  Country Crock recently came out with the Clare Crespo Cookbook, which is full of fun ideas to make vegetables, like broccoli, more appealing to children, and they asked me to test out a recipe from the book.

The first thing I noticed with this cookbook is that the ideas are very cute and whimsical. It has you creating things like zucchini boats and baseballs made of mashed potatoes! I decided not to push my luck with a broccoli recipe, but instead pick something that the children wouldn’t reject instantly.  I picked out the recipe for Bear Paws, made from yams. This recipe is pretty simple, with only a few ingredients, Country Crock, yams, nutmeg and cashews.

I had actually never used Country Crock in cooking before.  I have always thought of it as a spread for putting on bread, and for some reason it never occurred to me to use it in cooking!  The recipe was very simple, and here is a copy from the cookbook.

The result tasted great!  The nutmeg adds a little sweetness to the yams, without being overly sweet like brown sugar would be.  And I would not have thought of combining cashews with yams either, but they work well together.  Plus the finished product actually came out like the picture in the recipe book, and looked like bear paws.

I was surprised at how well the finished product turned out, and am looking forward to trying more recipes from the cookbook. Making vegetables look appealing and exciting will definitely make children more likely to give them a try.

The Crock Country Chronicle website has other resources besides just this cookbook.  It is an excellent resource for quick and simple tips and recipes to help make serving veggies fun.  Even with all these tips I doubt I will ever get my children to love broccoli, but there are plenty of other vegetables they can eat and enjoy!

Are you looking for quick and simple tips and recipes to make serving veggies more fun? Download the free Clare Crespo Cookbook here for fun and whimsical recipes your family is sure to love!