Can I get some flavor with my veggies, please!!!

My family doesn't eat as many veggies as i'd like them to. Recently When I ask my 7 year old, "why don't you want to eat your veggies?" he answered, "because they have no flavor and they taste like pancakes without syrup" at that moment I fully understood why I can't seem to get my 2 year old to eat his veggies! With the 7 year old I can totally negotiate I hear myself saying all the time "20 minutes of farmville if you eat those steamed carrots." With the 2 year old it's not that simple, you can't negotiate, but  that's alright I have other tricks up my mommy sleeves and it's called...

FLAVOR!!! 

It's amazing what a little spice can do, it's even more amazing what using those highly unusual and misunderstood vegetables can do. For example, for an exciting alternative to that bland steamed spinach Grandma used to force down your throat, try some Mustard-greens instead just fry them up with some grilled onions and you're good-2-go! To make your frozen bag of peas a little more pleasing just add a 1/2 cup of leaks, and some crushed garlic. To get your 2 year old to eat his cabbage just add 1 cup chopped funnel and a cubed apple to the mix and steam just like normal.  Us mommies and daddies should never forget that our kids need flavor too, and with a little added flavor they will willingly eat those veggies!

Here is that Cabbage and Funnel recipe YUM!

• 1/4 head red/green/purple cabbage
• 1 small onion
• 1/2 bulb fennel
• 1 small apple

Shred cabbage, drop into boiling, salted water for one minute, drain and rinse.  Finely slice onion and fennel and fry in olive oil until soft.  Peel, quarter, and core apple into cubes and add to onion, fennel, and cabbage.  Add some stock or water, cover and steam for 5 minutes, remove lid and evaporate liquid. (we like to add some fresh uncooked tomato before serving. You can also add some carrots along with the cabbage)

Take out Pizza Vs. Homemade

If you are anything like me on Friday night the last thing you want to do is cook, so at my house its take out. But I recently discovered take out pizza actually cost more, and takes longer to order and have delivered. A  homemade deep dish pizza only takes 15-20mins and  the benefits to homemade pizza are tremendous, but I think the biggest benefit is that you and your kids get to experiment with healthy toppings! 

Usually I do a "this" VS. "that" but in our house it's no competition, it's homemade pizza all the way. Here is our favorite deep dish pizza dough recipe, and a list of healthy toppings and alternatives that will keep your kids excited about eating right.

Ingredients

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 1/2 cups bread flour (or 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 a cup flax seed for high fiber pizza)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt (optional) 
• 4 tablespoons corn meal
• You will need a CastIron Skillet (you can also use a deep dish pizza pan)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in flour, salt and oil. Beat until smooth. Let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Using about 1/4 of the dough turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a thick round(about the size of your skillet) . Sprinkle 1 table spoon of cornmeal on to a cold Cast Iron skillet and transfer dough to skillet. Bake plain dough in oven for 8 minutes,  Then spread with desired toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let baked pizza cool for 5 minutes before serving.

TIPS:  Instead of a bland pizza sauce try using my diced tomato sauce instead. It's 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 teaspoon olive oil, a dash of sea salt, 1 teaspoon crushed garlic, 1 fresh diced tomato.

There are also other pizza sauce alternatives, for a low calorie pizza try using just a table spoon of olive oil over the prepared crust, crushed garlic, basil, and heeps of parmesan cheese.

For a healthy gourmet alternative try pesto sauce or a healthy light Alfredo (recipe here only 124 cal )

Healthy Kid Friendly Toppings:
Black Olives
Bell  Peppers
Corn
Fresh Tomato Slices 
Pineapple 
Spinach
Cilantro 
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Feta Cheese 
Thinly sliced peaches 
Zucchini 
Eggplant 
Scrambled Eggs  *add after pizza and other toppings are baked
Black Beans  Left over roasted Chicken, Pork, or Beef.  

*Usually my kids pick 3 or 4 toppings and we usually tops with a mix of mozzarella cheese and provolone. Believe it or not Scrambled eggs and broccoli are the award winners at my house, corn and left over chicken are close seconds.

Sugar alternatives! YAY!

If you are anything like me you shutter at the idea of giving your kids sugar. I remember a few years ago I gave my now oldest son a pixie stick... oh big mistake, he was literally climbing my walls, ever since i've tired to keep him on a low sugar diet, so I might share some of my tips with all of you.

Stevia: Is a sugar substitute and type of sunflower and it's extremely sweet but has very little sugar, it's taste is almost like mint meets honey and it's a great sugar substitute with non of the hyper activity side effects. My children love the Zevia® Natural Stevia root beer (seen right) You can purchase Zevia here

Sugar-Free Jello Cookies: My children love a good cookie but it's so hard to make good sugar free ones, and believe me i've tried! But I recently came across an amazing recipe for sugar free cherry cookies.

3/4 c. Crisco
Large pkg. Cherry Sugar Free Jello
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Mix Cream and shortening. Add eggs, Jello, vanilla and dry ingredients. Roll in small balls. Flatten with a fork. Bake on wax papered cookie sheet at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. (this works with all Jello flavors and is especially good with Lemon!)

Fruit: When all else fails turn to good old mother nature. Sometimes my children just want a sweet snack so I always keep lots of yummy fruit around, Oranges, Cherries, Strawberries, grapes, apples, and even tomatoes can sometimes ease thier sweet cravings. I've also found that keeping apple sauce in the house is a quick and easy way to provide annoyance free deserts for my kids. I just put the apple sauce in an Ice cream glass add some berries for the top and my kids don't know the difference.

From frat favorite to kid treat!

Popsicles have always been a favorite in my house, but have you read the ingredients lately? Even the sugar free ones are questionable, what’s really in the “artificial ingredients” anyway? Now I’m not saying my boys will never have another taste of those extremely yummy summer time treats but they will have less. So after many failed attempts at making my own (which have always come out great but my kids never seem to enjoy them as much ) I decided to make something with less sugar, but no artificial flavoring, that both my 7 year old and my 1 year old could eat with their hands and not get messy . Inspired by some awesome Jello shots I once had at a frat party I decided to make “Jello Slices”

The first step is making your own “Flavored Gelatin” since there are very few naturally flavored gelatins on the market we had to make our own. The recipe for this gelatin is located HERE. Bet you didn’t know how easy making Jello/Gelatin was did you?SHHH... If everyone knew JELL-O would be out of business LOL.

Ingredients:

4 Fresh California Oranges

4 cups of homemade Gelatin (any flavor unset)

You Will Need :

1 cupcake pan

Plastic wrap

slice oranges in half remove pulp with spoon (save for a fruit salad or healthy snack) place orange halves in muffin baking pans pour jello in empty orange halves place plastic wrap over the top and refrigerate for approximately 2 hours slice halves into quarters and serve. Pretty easy isn’t it? And don’t limit yourself with Oranges we’ve also used grapefruits, watermelon, and cantaloupe.(Oh and check out this nice pic from notmartha.org, she used lemons and limes too!!)

TIP: Make some for yourself when the kiddies are in bed… just set modify the gelatin by adding ¼ of the amount of water and substitute the rest with some good old vodka. Share with your significant other when the kiddies are in bed!!!

Jello Slices Vs. Popsicle

Jello Slices:
My family loved the Jello slices and they've been asking for them non-stop. They love all the goofi-ness the orange slices have to offer and the sweet taste of the 100% real fruit juice gelatin. I can't belive my kids loved this so much, after all I learned to make them in college and for adults no less.

The problem with snacking

Like most mothers I have an arsenal of snacks in my pantry. Everything from treats like pixie sticks to healthy snacks like dried fruit and water crackers; little thought is given into how much my kiddies actually consume, and until recently I didn't realize just how much our snacks impact our health. A few days ago I read an article about the health risks of snacking. It stated "the current average of three snacks a day is two too many in a nation where 17 percent of kids are obese." [read here] I was shocked, although my kids are skinny little people, i'm not and more times than non i'm right there snacking away with them. This got me thinking, How many calories do we really consume daily just on snacks? And are we really teaching our children the right kind of eating habits by add even one snack to their diet?

In my family we have 2 to 3 snacks per day.
generally my children have a snack 2 hours after breakfast, an hour before lunch, and about 3 hours before dinner, so it breaks down to something like breakfast is at 7:30, lunch is always at 1:00pm (that's just we I like it), dinner is at 7pm. So you can kind of get an idea about how my kids snack.

Yesterday I really paid attention to what I was giving my children, and realized something startling: My kids consumed 1089.23 Calories a day (each) in snacking alone. And they didn't even have juice, soda, or candy with those snacks. In fact most people would agree that my snacks were generally healthy. So lets take a look at what my kiddies had...

Snack #1 : 1 cup of dry cereal Cinnamon Chex and 1 Tangerine

Snack #2: Gold Fish Crackers and 1 banana

Snack #3 4 Saltine Crackers, 5 cubes of Chedder Cheese, and 1 Tangerine.

They also had 1 OreoCookie each as a treat at one point in the day.

From the simple looks of it, most people would look at my children and say, why are you even concerned they are skinny little emaciated looking super active boys, but the truth is i'm always snacking along with them, and I'm consuming just as much as they are only my metabolism doesn't have ADHD like theirs does. Also, my kids might be super active little boys now but I worry that what I might have learned about giving kids snacks and even so-called healthy snacks is actually condemning them to a unhealthy lifestyle later on.

Leo and our goddaughter Kayla enjoying a snack of canned peaches and crackers

Polenta Vs. Nachos

One of our families favorite super fattening comfort foods is Nachos. We don't just like cheese and chips, we have to have it all, and I mean all. Cheese, sour cream, chicken (or other type of meat), avocado, salsa, rice, beans, you name it we like it on our nachos....yummmmm...
This got me thinking about healthy alternatives to nachos, and after a few ideas I came up with something 1/3 of the calories and with 3 servings of vegetables...

Chicken and Vegetable Polenta!

• Fresh diced tomatoes(1 cup)
• green chili (1 small can)
  
• Frozen corn (2 cups)
• fresh diced celery (1 cup)
• Fresh diced peppers (2 cups and any kind)
  
• Skinless Chicken boiled and cubed (3 cups)
  
• Red, pinto or black beans (1 can)
• Red Pepper (to taste)
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 tablespoon Cumin,
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 pinch ground cloves
  
• Cornmeal 1-3/4 cup
• 1/2 teaspoon real unsalted butter
  
• Chredded Cheddar Cheese 1oz
• Shredded pepper jack 1 oz

Step 1. Prepare the polenta, it's pretty easy, Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a heavy large saucepan. Add 2 teaspoons of salt. Gradually whisk in the cornmeal. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the mixture thickens and the cornmeal is tender, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add the butter, and stir until melted.

Step 2. In a pan mix corn, tomatoes, beans, chilies, celery, pepers, and chicken(remember the chicken should be skinless, boiled, and cubed/sliced) after the mixture has simmered for about 8-10mins on medium/ low heat, add all of the remaining seasoning.

Step 3. In a deep oven safe pot or casserole dish add the vegetable, chicken and bean mix. Then place the polenta on top. Top the polenta with the shredded cheeses and let it back on 350F for 8 mins or the cheese is melted

I served mine with my homemade corn tortillas and a small spoonful of my mock sour cream (plain yogurt with a little lime juice and a pinch of salt.)

POLENTA VS. NACHOS
BREAKDOWN

TIE:
My family loved the polenta though Nachos still hold a special place in our hearts but it's defiantly a new family favorite, and it's defiantly healthier.

I'm Just Another Obeasty American

Like many Americans i'm over weight, I don't eat enough veggies, I don't drink enough water, and I don't get off my fat ass enough, okay I admit it, i'm fat. Sadly, I'm not alone, according to the CDC 67% of adults age 20 years and over are overweight or obese. (SIXTY SEVEN?) it's good to know I'm not alone but it's also kind of sad but it's not surprising, the biggest reason people like myself eat is because it makes us feel comfortable. We're talking thousands of years nature telling us to eat now or die! of coarse we eat for comfort, it's natural. But these days it's dangerous, we have so much food at our disposal that we over eat, we pack on the pounds and we die from stuffing our gut with saturated goodness! The worse part is we're not even honest about it, it's like we are embarrassed by our natural drive to feed our comfort level.

In April of 2008 I went to Las Vegas for my birthday, I was 5 months pregnant at the time so I did alot of eating! The first stop on our tour of sin city was the buffet at The Excalibur, When I first saw the dinning room and all of the food I truned to Chris and said "OMG there is more food here than in all of North Korea!" as cold as that sounds It might actually be true. That morning for breakfast I had 3 poached eggs, 1 bowl of fruit, 3 slices of French toast (with syrup and butter), 4 strips of bacon, 2 links of sausage, and a biscuit. It was enough for 3 or 4 people and I ate it myself just me! Oh and Chris he ate even more! This is the world we live in, This is a perfect example of the American lifestyle. You don't have to go to Sin City to eat yourself silly, there are "hometown" buffets in every neighborhood.

I'm not the only one in my family that over eats for comfort, my kids (though they are not overweight) do it too! In fact I teach them to over eat, for example on their birthdays I make them cakes, I make them what ever they want to eat for dinner, I give them extra candy and snacks, and I do it all in the name of love.

Now, i'm not saying we shouldn't treat our children, or give them our homemade apple pies (or peach cobbler in my case) but what if we were more honest about it, what if we were more honest with our selves? Do you think honesty would make a difference? I do.