Hitting the Mini Challenges

Challenger AnskySue took us up on one of our mini challenges in week one – swapping white grains for whole grains. It looks like her family found a winner; it’s worth the trial and error with your family to find the whole grain products that taste best to you. Look in your Cook at Home Challenge weekly update email for more mini challenges!

I wanted to make sure our family was fully participating in the challenge so we decided to try and tackle at least two of the mini challenges in the same meal. Eating a whole grain food in place of a non whole grain food seems easy enough but we already eat whole wheat bread, tortillas, brown rice. As I was wandering around the grocery aisle, I came across an oatmeal pancake mix. I don’t make pancakes often – in fact, the last time I made them, my son refused to eat them because they didn’t taste like McDonald’s pancakes. And I have never made whole grain pancakes so this would fit the bill for the mini challenge. My son was with me and agreed that he would be willing to try them (with the caveat that if he didn’t like them, he didn’t have to eat them). I checked the ingredient list on the mix and found out that I could actually pronounce every ingredient (Quaker brand). So this morning was the big day! I was in the middle of the batch when my son came in to see how it was going and whether they looked edible. He decided they weren’t colorful enough – so we colored the last 1/3 of the batch with red food coloring. The red pancakes became “his” pancakes. The mix came with both a heart healthy prep and a traditional prep – I went one better using the heart healthy prep but switching fat free milk for the skim it recommended and egg substitute. The pancakes were great and we had a fantastic Sunday morning breakfast together as a family. I can see this becoming a fun tradition!