This Mama Cooks! On a Diet

Frozen sweet treat week: fruit popsicles at Diets In Review.com

This week in celebration of summer, I’ll be featuring all sorts of frozen concoctions and yummy smoothie drinks.

These types of treats are a great way to get in your daily serving of fruits and milk into yours and your family’s diet.

It’s also an easy way to sneak in some healthy items while the kids aren’t looking like ground flax seeds or a teaspoon of an flax seed oil, both which are high in Omega-3. Or you can add some protein powder or tofu for a little extra protein boost for kids who don’t like to eat meat or eggs.

Diets in Review.com

First, stop by Diets in Review.com and check out my Frozen Fruit Popsicles Make Snacking Healthy Fun guest post. Hope it inspires you to visit your local farmer’s market or to make some frozen fruit snacks with the kids.

Smoothie image by taupetortoise via Flickr

Honey week: healthy honey snacks for kids

The National Honey Board has many kid-inspired healthy honey snacks. The Honey Banana Pops is a fun one to make with the kids this summer. Plus, you can roll the bananas in everything from chopped dried fruit to graham cracker crumbs. Honey Care to Take a Dip is a healthy recipe using honey, orange juice, yogurt and fruit.

Here is one of my favorites honey inspired recipes both in its original kid-friendly form and with a more Weight Watchers friendly version for us folks watching our calories.

Peanut Butter & Honey Silly Sushi Roll-ups
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 slices whole wheat bread
• 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup pure honey
• 2 Tablespoons nuts, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup strawberries, finely diced
• 4 skewers, optional
• Additional fresh fruit, such as kiwi, strawberries, grapes or pineapple (optional)

Directions:

1. Trim crusts from bread and gently press slices or flatten with a rolling pin.
2. Spread each slice with 2 Tablespoons peanut butter and 2 Tablespoons honey.
3. Sprinkle 2 bread slices with 1 Tablespoon nuts each.
4. Sprinkle remaining slices with strawberries.
5. Cut each slice in half.
6. Firmly roll up each slice and serve, or thread the roll-ups and fruit onto skewers and serve as kabobs.

If your child is allergic to peanut butter, just leave it and the nuts out and add a little more honey.

Share your kid-friendly breakfast recipes

I'm posting another Recipe Roundup for the FoodieView blog. (Click here to see my Swiss Family Recipes and Cinco de Mayo healthy recipe roundups.)

My next assignment from my FoodieView Blog editor is fun breakfast ideas with kids. I have a few dishes in mind at my children's book and cooking blog, My Readable Feast. I would also love to get some recipes and pictures from my fellow food and parent bloggers.

If you have a post you'd like me to consider, email me at mama at thismamacooks dot com or leave a comment below with your name, email, your blog's name URL, and the URL of the post.

Remember, the recipe should either be kid friendly (i.e., something that they could make with a little supervision) or a special breakfast treat that would appeal to kids. It doesn't need to be healthy (though that's a plus) just lots of fun! Of course, I will link back to your blog and give you full credit for the recipe and/or picture.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Get your children to eat healthy with the Sneaky Chef

Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favorite Meals helps you prepare meals that your children already loves, but with secret, healthy ingredients. Missy also runs The Sneaky Chef workshops, which is a program of cooking classes and demonstrations that teach families how to eat healthier. You can learn more about her classes and book at TheSneakyChef.com.

Who knew brownies could be good for you?

Sneaky Chef Brainy Brownies
Makes about 30 kid-sized brownies

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup Purple Puree (see Make-Ahead Recipe below)
• ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons Flour Blend (equal parts white flour, whole grain flour, and wheat germ)
• ¼ cup rolled oats, ground in a food processor
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• Butter or non-stick cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter or spray only the bottom, not the sides, of a 13-by-9-inch or 9-inch square baking pan.
3. Melt the butter and chocolate chips together in a double boiler or metal bowl over simmering water (or in a microwave, checking every 15 seconds). Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool a bit. Meanwhile, in another bowl, stir together the eggs, vanilla, sugar, and Purple Puree. Combine this purple egg mixture with the cooled chocolate mixture. In a mixing bowl, stir together Flour Blend, cocoa powder, oats, and salt. Add this to the chocolate mixture and blend thoroughly. Mix in the chopped walnuts, if using, then pour the entire mixture into the baking pan.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in pan before cutting the brownies and use a plastic or butter knife. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Keeps for a week in the refrigerator, covered tightly.

Sneaky Chef Make-Ahead Recipe: Purple Puree

• 3 cups raw baby spinach leaves (or 2 cups frozen chopped spinach, or frozen chopped collard greens)
• 1½ cups fresh or frozen blueberries (no syrup or sugar added)
• ½  teaspoon lemon juice
• 1-2  tablespoons water

Directions:

1. If using raw spinach, thoroughly wash it, even if the package says “prewashed.” Bring spinach or collards and water to boil in a medium pot. Turn heat to low and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. If using frozen blueberries, quickly rinse them under cold water to thaw a little, and then drain.
2. Fill the bowl of your food processor with the blueberries and cooked spinach, (or collards) along with the lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of water, and puree on high until as smooth as possible. Stop occasionally to push top contents to bottom. If necessary, use a second tablespoon of water to make a fairly smooth puree.
3. This amount of spinach and blueberries makes only about 1 cup of puree. Double the recipe if you want to store another cup of the puree. It will store in the refrigerator up to 2 days, or you can freeze ¼ cup portions in sealed plastic bags or small plastic containers.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Food Blog of the Week - KidsKuisine

I came across KidsKuisine when I did a Google search looking for Spider Cake ideas for my children's books and cooking blog, A Readable Feast. KidsKuisine is from the folks at CopyKat Recips, another terrific foodsite.

The recipes on KidsKuisine just for Halloween are hysterical - Pumpkin Gut Nachos, Graveyard Pudding, and Witches Tongues, for example. Of course there's the infamous Kitty Litter Cake, too.

Their creativity blows me away. In the future, I will be consulting this site every time a kids' party food idea is needed. Out of the 34 Halloween recipes, I especially loved this one:

Strained Eyeballs 
Serving Size: 12

Not all Halloween treats need to be sweet.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs, hardcooked, cooled and peeled
• 6 oz. whipped cream cheese
• 12 green olives stuffed with pimientos
• red food coloring or ketchup

Directions:

1. Half eggs widthwise. Remove yolks and fill the hole with cream cheese, smoothing surface as much as possible.
2. Press an olive into each cream cheese eyeball, pimiento up, for an eerie green iris and red pupil.
3. Dip a toothpick into ketchup and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese.

Since I'd hate to throw away the yolks, I'd experiment with adding some of it into the cream cheese. Yellow-ish eyes would be even scarier than white ones.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Adam@Home - creativity in the kitchen starts at home

This week's Adam @ Home cartoons have been fabulous. It's the only cartoon I read because I can relate to Adam, a work-at-home dad. This week's edition must have been inspirational for parents like me who are constantly challenged by our kids' eating jags, the lack of time to shop and cook, and our little (and big) picky eaters.

Here's today's strip:

Links to this week's strips at The Seattle Times:

• Monday, August 28
• Tuesday, August 29
• Wednesday, August 30
• Thursday, August 31
• Friday, September 1
• Saturday, September 2

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Eating activities for babies from Rookie Moms

As Rookie Moms, Heather and Whitney of Berkeley, CA, decided to do at least one activity per day with their children. The activities are meant to be enjoyable for mom and help her get out of the house. Often the activities involve eating, which is always challenging with a new baby, like getting meals on the table every night.

Rookie Moms eating activities range from food suggestions (try adding cumin to avocado - kids love it!) to tips that make your life easier like signing up for a meal planning e-newsletter. There are also suggestions on things to do locally like going to the tasting room at L.A.'s Homemade Baby, a maker of home-style organic recipes, cooked under a Le Cordon Bleu Chef's supervision in a certified organic kitchen.

So if you're a new parent - or even an experienced one with a small child - check out Rookie Moms. Because you never know when you'll find advice that you can really use, like this post:

Activity #94: Drive-through

If baby likes to sleep in the carseat, it is great to patronize nearby drive-through businesses so you can have a destination. Maybe it’s an In-N-Out or a drive-through Starbucks. If you’re creative and persuasive, you might get normal businesses to serve you curbside if business is slow. As I was doing our environment a disservice by driving around to keep Holden asleep, I called up Baby World on Telegraph Avenue and asked if they could possibly come outside and take my credit card and bring me some things I needed. Score! If your baby is a car napper, keep the phone number of a store like this in your cell phone.

I love this idea and wish I had thought of it when my kids were small. While they still fall asleep in the car, waking them up isn't a problem. But it was a HUGE deal when they were infants.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

SuperFoods for Babies

With berries in season you may want to try this child friendly recipe from Superfoods : For Babies and Children by Annabel Karmel. Anna is the mother of three children, a bestselling author of books on nutrition and cooking for babies and toddlers, and a familiar face on British television. Annabel travels frequently to the United States, where her books on feeding babies and young children are very popular. She's appeared on many TV programs, including the Today show and The Early Show.

This recipes looks good enough to satisfy the big people in your household, too.

Mixed berry and white chocolate cheesecake
8 portions

Crumb Crust:

• 8 ounces graham crackers (2½ cups crumbs)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• Vegetable oil for greasing

Cheesecake:

• 5 ounces white chocolate
• 10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
• 1 cup heavy cream

Topping:

• 14 ounces mixed summer berries, such as strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and red currants
• 2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
• 2 ounces white chocolate

Directions:

1. To make the crust, put the graham crackers in a plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin; then mix with the melted butter.
2. Press them into the bottom of a lightly oiled 8-inch loose-bottomed tart pan or springform pan (this can be done with a potato masher). Place in the refrigerator to chill.
3. Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Remove the bowl from the pan and beat in the cream cheese.
4. Add the vanilla to the cream or, if using a vanilla bean, split it lengthwise with a sharp knife and scrape the seeds into the cream.
5. Whip the cream until it forms fairly stiff peaks and gently fold in the cream cheese and white chocolate mixture.
6. Pour on top of the crust and put in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to set.
7. Once the cake is set, carefully remove from the pan.
8. Arrange the berries on top of the cake.
9. Heat the jam with 2 teaspoons of water and strain through a sieve.
10. Allow to cool for about 1 minute and gently brush over the fruits.
11. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle over the top of the fruits with a teaspoon.

Summer berries are packed with vitamin C, which helps to strengthen the immune system and fight infection. Vitamin C also aids in the absorption of iron.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Reynolds fun shapes baking cups

Reynolds recently introduced fun shapes baking cups. These are a disposible, easily stored alternative to mini shape baking pans like those by Wilton. Coming 24 foil cups to a package, and retailing in the $2-3 range, they're much cheaper, too.

The Reynolds fun shapes website gives you many recipes for everything from appetizers to desserts. There are also tips on using the cups as serving dishes for dips or side salads. I'm going to use my fun shape cups this weekend for individual servings of flan (Mexican style egg custard). I think the flan will hold up better in the cups than in one big bowl when I take it to my bookclub meeting.

Here are two of my favorite recipes from the site:

Stained Glass Lollipops

• 8 Reynolds® FunShapes™ Stars Baking Cups
• 8 (6-inch) Lollipop sticks
• 40 Hard candies*

PREHEAT oven to 300°F. Place Reynolds FunShapes Stars and/or Hearts Baking Cups on a cookie sheet with sides.

MAKE a hole in one side of each of the baking cups near the bottom of the cups with a toothpick. Insert the lollipop sticks from the inside of the cup through the hole made with the toothpick and push it to the outside leaving at least 1 inch inside the cup.**

ARRANGE 5 candies in each baking cup, placing one candy over the lollipop stick. (It does not need to lay flat, it will melt around the stick.)

BAKE 5 to 6 minutes or until candy is melted. Carefully remove baking cups from cookie sheet onto a tray to cool; immediately twirl stick to completely coat with candy. Prop sticks with handle of a wooden spoon if necessary to keep the sticks straight in baking cup while lollipop cools.

REMOVE lollipops from baking cups by tearing foil and peeling away from lollipops.

*REYNOLDS KITCHENS TIP: We used Jolly Rancher® Hard Candy for our testing.

**The lollipop sticks must be inserted from the inside out to avoid getting the pierced foil edges in the melted candy.

Number of Servings:8

Mini peach pies

I'm always on the lookout for recipes that look fun for kids to make as well as eat. This one for pint-sized peach pies in the March 2006 issue of Parents magazine fits the bill. Since they're made with frozen fruit, you can make them year-round.

Mini Peach Pies

Ingredients:

1. 1 1/2 cups frozen peaches
2. 1 refrigerated piecrust
3. 2 1/2 Tbsp. graham cracker crumbs
4. 2 Tbsp. sugar
5. pinch of cinnamon

Directions:

1. Defrost peaches. Heat over to 400 degrees.
2. Using 4-inch bowl as a guide, cut 5 circles from piecrust. Roll out slightly, then place on a baking sheet.
3. Place 1/2 Tbsp. of graham cracker crumbs in center of each crust.
4. Using a plastic knife (for kids), cut thawed peaches into chunks. In medium bowl, mix peaches with sugar and cinnamon. Divide peaches among crusts.
5. Fold edge of each crust up and over peaches to form pies.
6. Bake 30 minutes until pies are golden brown. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Suggestions:

• Try using berries or other kinds of fruit - fresh or frozen.
• Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
• These would also make great party finger food.
• Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or powered sugar.

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.