Family Features Introducing kids to unfamiliar flavors doesn’t have to be a frightful experience. Getting creative and taking cues from some beloved characters may be all it takes for families to explore produce in a new way and discover how delicious, satisfying and enjoyable fresh fruits and vegetables can be.
A passion for produce may begin with America’s favorites, like bananas, apples, citrus, celery, carrots and broccoli, but that’s just the beginning.
Whether it’s their angry names and tough exteriors, or simply a fear of the unknown about taste and pre paration, dozens more diverse and exotic fruits and vegetables like dragon fruit, horned melon and Brussels sprouts are often the sources of produce paranoia.
An initiative from Dole, in collaboration with Disney and Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., is helping to take the scare out of specialty fruits and vegetables and widen America’s produce horizons. That’s because, like a good book or the characters in a beloved film, you can’t judge a fruit or vegetable by its appearance; nature’s true beauty often lies within.
Chicken Stuffed Roz Heads
Prep time: 15 minutes
Servings: 3
1 cup cubed, cooked
chicken breast
1/2 cup DOLE® Green
Grapes, halved
1/4 cup chopped Dole Celery
1/3 cup nonfat plain
Greek yogurt
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 Dole Avocados, halved,
pitted and peeled
6 whole-wheat pretzel twists
18 whole-wheat pretzel sticks
1 Dole Strawberry, sliced
3 dried, sweetened
blueberries
In bowl, stir together chicken, grapes, celery, yogurt, salt and pepper.
Scoop three equal portions onto serving plate. Shape each into oval.
Top each with upside down avocado half. Decorate each avocado half to
resemble Roz’s face. Using sharp paring knife, trim each pretzel twist
to create horn-rimmed glasses lens by cutting off double loop section of
each pretzel twist and discarding or enjoying as snack, keeping single loop
portion, which will become one lens. Two lenses are needed per Roz Head.
Place two pretzel lenses on each avocado to form glasses.
Add pretzel stick to each side of avocado to form arms of glasses.
Push four pretzel sticks into top of each avocado to form hair. Add
strawberry slice, trimmed to look like lips for her mouth, and place
blueberry on lower left side of face to form mole.