Announcing Cooking For Kids/ HLI - event

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Most of my friends out here must be aware of the very famous "HLI" event of Kalyani @ Sizzling Tastebuds and I am guest hosting this event for the month of April. The event has been renamed as "Cooking For Kids" .  This is also my first in hosting an event and I must say I am pretty excited about this whole thing.  When the opportunity came up I did not hestitate to take it but at the same I was a little bit skeptical as to what I can come up with for myself because of the theme.  Yes, the theme for this month's event is Squash/Sweet Pumpkin.

Pumpkins are squash like fruit that widely range in sizes.  As they both share some botanical classifications, both squash and pumpkins are used interchangeably.  The colour of the pumpkin is derived from the orange pigments in them.  Beta carotenes being one of the main nutrients, these vegetables are rich in Vitamin.  It is no wonder that pumpkin puree forms an important part of  a  toddler's diet apart from carrots and sweet potatoes. 

It is believed that pumpkins originated in North America.  In the US and Canada, pumpkin is a popular Thanksgiving and Halloween staple- Pumpkin Pie being the traditional dish.  Pumpkins are very versatile in their uses for cooking.  Most parts of the pumpkin are edible, including the fleshy shell, the seeds, the leaves, and even the flowers.  When ripe, the pumpkin can be boiled, baked, steamed, or roasted. The flowers can be dredged in a batter and then fried in oil.  Pumpkin seeds also known as Pepitas, is a very popular snack when roasted.  These seeds have good health benefits as they are a good source of protein, zinc, magnesium and vitamins.  It is also believed that they can lower the cholesterol(source:Wikipedia)




The event officially runs from 15th April till the 15th of May.  The event details are as follows

Prepare something healthy using the featured ingredient and post it on your blog....no deep fried recipes
Vegetarian dishes only are acceptable
Only new entries(no limit) and a mximum of 2 archived entries are allowed.as long as they are linked and reposted again
Link the posts to this announcement and to Kalyani's original announcement page
Include the above logo in your post
Please send in your entries to krithikar@gmail.com.
Non bloggers are also welcome to participate. 
Eventhough the event is open only till the 15th of May, I am going to keep it open until the 17th of May due to the initial delay in announcing the event. 






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