Our Pathfinder Produce fresh fruits and vegetable market is closed this week and next for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but our staff extends holiday greetings to our friends and customers. Our market will reopen on Thursday, January 8, 2015.
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Last
week, our good friends The Schlegel Family came to Pathfinder Village and
worked with our students and adult residents to create some colorful
gingerbread houses. I had fun taking pictures during their visit, but I
was wondering if there’s a way to make gingerbread houses healthier and less
sugar-laden. Even though many builders do not eat their creations,
there’s always a fair amount of sampling that goes on during the construction
process!
I
did a little web surfing and found a few options. There are several ways
to build houses out of vegetables, as these posts from vegetablefruitcarving.com
and the Green
Giant’s Facebook show. The Green Giant’s entry uses cream cheese as
mortar; I would probably use a Neufchatel or non-fat cream cheese as a lighter
calorie option. (These should stay cool and be eaten fairly quickly, given
their dairy content). You may need to use a few strategically placed
wooden toothpicks to hold the veggie house together. I would also use
more carrots or maybe celery logs for the gable ends and a holiday plate for
the base.
Another
option that looks like fun is to use pretzel rods (low-salt if possible), with
peanut butter mortar. Epicurious.com
offers a recipe that uses small pretzel sticks, but it would be easier to use
pretzel rods (or a combination of pretzel sizes and shapes). You could
also incorporate breadsticks too, to provide some variation in texture and
coloring. You might be able to decorate the houses with some dried
fruits, nuts, and maybe just a few candies.
I
was also thinking that if you didn’t wish to eat your house, you could also
make the building walls and roof from the mixture of applesauce and cinnamon
(TONS OF CINNAMON) that is used to make tree ornaments. I haven’t tried
this, but it could work if you made the walls a bit thicker. The recipe
is at the McCormick
Spice website; just be aware that it takes a long time to bake these.
But
there are purists who will not be denied their gingerbread … so here’s a recipe
from Healthy
Recipe Blogs with less sugar and very basic ingredients. When you
roll out your dough, cut the shapes you will need for your house … two
identical long sides (include some windows), two shorter sides with second
story gables (one with a door opening), and roof panels. You could
probably cut back on the brown sugar in the recipe, and add just a bit more
molasses. (Blackstrap molasses comes from the third boiling of cane juice
to extract sugar; it is lower in sucralose, doesn’t cause a spike in blood
sugar levels, and is rich in minerals like iron, calcium, selenium, manganese,
potassium, copper, and zinc).
For
traditional gingerbread houses, “royal” icing is used to hold the house parts
together … that’s a combination of confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder, water
and sometimes egg whites and flavorings (there are tons of recipes
online). I wasn’t able to find any widely-used edible alternative glues;
some sites recommend using either basic non-toxic white glue or hot glue for
houses that aren’t going to be eaten. Maybe if you’re inventive, you
could use toothpicks and bamboo skewers to help hold everything together, and
just use the minimum amount of icing and candy decorations.
As
many families now have their kids home from school, maybe these ideas will
offer a fun afternoon activity once all the excitement of the holiday is
over. You may want to try some of these activities later during the
winter, especially if the weather is too unpleasant to play outside.
Until
next time, enjoy the holidays, and be well. Best wishes to all in 2015!
Lori
