Give your freezer a rest and start cooking fresh! Tyler Florence, the Food Network veteran, restaurateur (he’s opened four restaurants in the past year), and founder of the Sprout line of baby foods, is making it his mission to introduce tots to the wonders of vegetables as early as their first bite of solid food.

The father of three’s new cookbook, Start Fresh: Your Child’s Jump Start to Lifelong Healthy Eating, is more than just a baby food cookbook packed with beautiful photos and accompanying recipes, it’s a guide to introduce families to a healthier way of eating. The bulk of the recipes are designed to feed the whole family, with instructions for making the meal appropriate for infants and toddlers. I broke bread with the chef yesterday and asked him about his veggie-fueled philosophy. See what he had to say (and learn the secret to his one-pan lasagna) in this slideshow!


What’s the first step parents should take to incorporate your philosophy into their homes?
“If you don’t want your child running and screaming into the arms of a clown the first time you give them a french fry, you really have to give them the most nutritious food and the most flavorful food from the beginning. And vegetables taste better than french fries.
For the first couple of spoons from when they start to move from rice cereal and barley to vegetables, you really just want to steam. It’s basically just taking organic carrots and steaming them using filtered or distilled water. Put them into a basket, and, I know this sounds simplistic, but you basically put a top on them and cook them for a few minutes. You don’t want to overcook them, you just want to cook them until they’re bright and tender and you can mash them with the back of a spoon. Then put into a high speed blender, I highly recommend the Vita Prep. It’s expensive, but you can make smoothies for the rest of your life and it makes great margaritas so it’s really worth the price! After you get to that point, it’s really about roasting. Once you get into the roasting stuff, that’s when you’re really cooking for your children. (And) roasting is, without a doubt, the most flavorful way to make vegetables.”
Tyler’s Pearled Couscous With Brussels Sprouts and Chickpeas is a great way to incorporate roasted vegetables.

What’s the biggest mistake parents make when introducing kids to solid foods?
“They kind of play into the advertising world that kids only eat pizza, burgers, chicken nuggets, and french fries. Kids really do like vegetables. If you go to most European cities, kids eat a lot of things, because they’re exposed to it. We kind of fall into this rut, where kids eat the big five, or they won’t eat. Most parents will agree that children have a strong way of manipulating the situation, to try to see if they can outlast you. If you let them win, they’ll always win. So you have to decide who’s in charge here.”

What is the one vegetable or food that parents have the biggest misconception about?
“Parents really don’t give their kids credit for what they really like. I don’t think there’s really one food that they won’t eat. When it comes to feeding children really incredible flavors, you have to start out with the basics, and you have to start off with flavors you’re going to like. They’re going to like everything from roasted chicken to cranberry pork chops to beef wellington to dessert. You have to open up the menu.”

If parents didn’t make their own food when their tots were starting out on solids, is it too late to go fresh?
“Have a dedicated drawer in the fridge for vegetables they want to cook and roast. I would incorporate part of what you’re cooking into what the rest of the family is going to eat. It starts to make life easy if you’re not a short order cook, and you’re not trying to make a lot of different things. If you’re going to make a Roast Turkey With Sweet Potato, Brown Rice, and Cranberries, I would focus on one of those vegetables that the rest of the family is going to enjoy and turn it into baby food for your toddler. So focus on that, and then it’s easy to streamline everything else.”

What is the one vegetable or food that parents have the biggest misconception about?
“Parents really don’t give their kids credit for what they really like. I don’t think there’s really one food that they won’t eat. When it comes to feeding children really incredible flavors, you have to start out with the basics, and you have to start off with flavors you’re going to like. They’re going to like everything from roasted chicken to cranberry pork chops to beef wellington to dessert. You have to open up the menu.”

What’s your favorite “go-to” meal for the family when you’re in a hurry?
“I don’t have a go-to meal, but I have a go-to technique.You start off with a big empty 12-inch pan. You can have four chicken breasts, season with salt and pepper, skin side down. You get a really gorgeous sear, nice and crunchy and then flip it over and you can just take fresh vegetables, amazing Summer beans and corn, and cherry tomatoes, lay them in the corners. Stick the whole thing in the oven for 12-15 minutes, and when it’s cooked all the way through, all the flavors really pull together. Let the oven do the hard part and create these one-pan meal, which is really something extraordinary. Or as a busy mom, how many times have you built a lasagna. You bake it and you scoop it, and what does it look like? A mess. This (One Pan Lasagna) kind of re-engineers the whole thing.”