St. John’s Kitchen Manager, Bryanna Hanson, starts off most days with a trip to the grocery store for fresh fruits and veggies. Still in the early morning hours – nutrition in hand – she arrives on-site to cook breakfast for the little ones in the St. John’s Children’s Relief Nursery. French toast, homemade granola, banana muffins? Bryanna serves up these and other delights every Monday through Thursday morning at 9 am for the relief nursery classes and the monthly respite room.
Once breakfast is over, it’s back to the kitchen for clean-up and a whole new spell of spices and aromas in time for the 12 pm lunch. A new meal brings a new rotation. Some days, it’s slow cooker chicken verde. Others, it’s Korean beef bulgogi. Whatever the planned meals are for the day, Bryanna ensures the St. John’s kids have each had two nutritious, adventurous meals before they leave.
The children may be experiencing lentils for the first time or still be unsure about their feelings on meatloaf. For many, these foods represent a new flavor or texture. That’s ok, says Bryanna, because the process of introducing new and different foods is a slow one.
Observing the kids as they navigated these experiences, Bryanna thought, “It would be nice if the families had recipes for the foods the kids are having in the classroom.” The St. John’s team put their heads together, and that is how the CRN Cookbook – Family Recipes (link) was born.
What’s cooking?
The relief nursery families received a spiral-bound version of Bryanna’s cookbook that features 36 of Bryanna’s top recipes. Each meal or side is something that parents and guardians can know their child is familiar with, and that they can replicate at home for continued exposure to the varied ingredients.
Programs also use the cookbook for home visits, using the recipes as a guide or as part of client goals with home-cooked meals.
Bryanna’s favorite recipe? It’s hard to pick just one. “The one I make at home the most is the tortellini soup,” she says. “That’s probably my biggest go-to.” She also has a soft spot for the chicken fajitas, a crowd favorite.
More than a cookbook
The CRN Cookbook does more than serve up recipes. Bryanna wove in her experience working with kids and some additional research into early feeding behaviors to include four pages on approaching food and nutrition with young children.
“There’s a whole section about introducing children to food. There are some hard-and-fast rules,” says Bryanna, “But there also things families might not think of, like how to par-boil food so you aren’t giving little kids hard veggies.” Her goal was to share that the process of introducing kids to foods might not be exactly what families expect, and that bumps along the road are normal.
It is important to keep in mind that through all your efforts, there may not be a lot of movement with you child around new foods for some time. Your success as a parent or guardian is less about the outcome of them always trying something new and more about whether you are giving them the opportunity to try!
Next up for the cookbook? Bryanna has the wheels in motion to translate the content into Spanish and is adding a few recipes that didn’t make it into the original version. She is also looking at ways to expand its use with different LifeWorks NW programs.
“It’s kind of been my pet project,” she says.
