Cooking for the Little Ones

Cooking for toddlers and growing children presents some unique challenges along the way. While you want to provide them with those ever so important nutrients, it is often difficult to get them to eat those foods that are best for their growing bodies. We are all probably well aware of the food pyramid and the number of servings our children need of healthy grains, proteins, fruits, vegetables, and calcium products. Getting them to eat these nourishing products is another matter all together unfortunately.

The good news when cooking for children is that you do not necessarily need to incorporate all the important nutrients into dinner food. The truth of the matter is that raw cucumbers, which are thinly sliced and sprinkled with salt make a much healthier snack than potato chips and many little ones love this for a snack. You get a vegetable in their system and they are getting a treat at snack time. The same holds true for melon and cantaloupes. These make excellent snacks and are a much-needed fruit in these important diets for little ones.

When it comes to cooking for little ones, however man, woman, and child cannot live on macaroni and cheese alone. It’s been tried and tested and failed miserably.  Try mixing things up whenever you can while keeping meals kid friendly. It is important that you try to introduce whole grains, proteins, and vegetables whenever possible at meal times around your home. The good news is that there are many prepackaged convenience foods that are introducing whole grains like never before in order to meet the growing demand of consumers for healthier meals that can be prepared with little fan fare or fuss.

Cooking healthier meals for kids is now easier than ever before. Fresh fruits and vegetables are best whenever possible. However, if you cannot manage fresh, you should avoid canned (fruits especially as they are often swimming in sugary sweetness) whenever possible. Frozen is far preferable to canned when it comes to both fruit and vegetables, as there are often fewer additives.

If you need some great meal ideas that are kid friendly and easy on the budget, you can often find recipes readily available online. You can meet your child’s calcium and dairy product needs by adding milk as the drink of choice for meals or a slice of cheese melted over their favorite vegetable. Ice cream, yogurt, and pudding also make excellent calcium rich treats, in moderation of course.

Encourage your children to try new things rather than cooking the same few meals over and over again that you know they are likely to eat. This prevents two things from happening. First of all, it helps you not to get bored when cooking for your children. Second, it allows your children to try new flavors and textures and form opinions about them. By trying new things they will learn not only about the things they dislike but also the foods they really enjoy.

You should also keep in mind that your children are people too when cooking for them. Just as you have foods you like and dislike they also will develop tastes over time. Those tastes may also change in time as well. It’s frustrating, I know, to spend time and money preparing a meal only to have your child push the plate away and refuse to even try the meal. For this, I recommend enlisting their help in the kitchen. Children are much more likely to eat the things they had a hand in preparing as a matter of accomplishment and pride. It’s psychological warfare I know but all is fair in war and dinnertime.

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give yourself (much greater than the help in the kitchen) by ‘forcing’ your little ones to help prepare dinner is that they will learn to better appreciate your culinary efforts and eat peacefully rather than sullenly. This tactic has met with great success in my household when cooking for little ones. I hope you will enjoy the same degree of success as well.

 

Breakfast Frittata

For the busy mom who doesn’t have time to make elaborate breakfasts but want something good for the kids to eat.

BREAKFAST FRITTATA
Prep and Cook Time:
20 min.

Ingredients:
½ medium onion, minced
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped
¼ lb ground lamb or turkey
2 + 1 TBS chicken broth
3 cups rinsed and finely chopped kale, (stems
removed)
2 whole free range chicken eggs
3 egg whites
salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat broiler on low.
Heat 1 TBS broth in a 9-10 inch stainless steel
skillet. Healthy Sauté onion over medium heat, for
about 3 minutes, stirring often.

Add garlic, ground lamb or turkey, and cook for
another 3 minutes on medium heat, breaking up
clumps.  Add kale and 2 TBS broth. Reduce heat
to low and continue to cook covered about 5 more
minutes. Season with salt, pepper and mix.

Beat eggs, season with a pinch of salt and pepper,
and pour on top of mixture evenly. Cook on low for
another 2 minutes without stirring.

Put under broiler in middle of oven, about 7 inches
from the heat source, on low, so it has time to cook
without the top burning. When it gets firm it is done,
about 2-3 minutes.

 

Breakfast, The Most Important Meal Of The Day

We have heard it over and over before that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and there is a reason why, let’s look at it.

First we know that breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal but, that doesn’t stop millions of Americans, and people around the world, from skipping breakfast or opting for only a drink of coffee. The truth is that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, and you will have a much  healthier diet if you include breakfast in your daily life.

 

Breakfast is named so because it is when we—break our fast. When you sleep, you are not eating for 6 to 9 hours at least, and more if you haven’t eaten since dinner the night before. Therefore, breakfast is the first time you’ll be eating anything for a very long period of time. Some nutrients, like proteins, cannot be stored in the body and are therefore not present, so the body needs you to replenish the “low” levels of such nutrients. Breakfast is like the match that lights the fire. It truly is a very important source of energy for your body in the morning.

 

Eating breakfast in the morning also helps you avoid some illnesses and disease. For example, your sugar levels are probably out of whack from not eating for many hours, so having breakfast levels out the amount of sugars in your body, helping to prevent diabetes. Eating a healthy breakfast also helps you to provide food to your stomach so that you don’t overeat at lunch because you are so hungry. Overeating leads to obesity, which comes with a whole host of problems, including heart disease.

 

Healthy breakfast foods, like eggs, fruit, or bran cereal are also a good source of many of the vitamins and minerals a person needs during the day. If you don’t eat these things in the morning, it will be hard to make up for that loss later in the day. Remember that without the proper amounts of nutrients, you body will not function correctly. When you eat a healthy breakfast, it also makes you choose healthier foods during the rest of the day, so that you continue to get the proper nutrients needed for your body.

 

Setting aside 15 minutes in the morning to eat breakfast every day can truly make a great different in your diet. In the best case, your breakfast will include foods from at least three different food groups. For example, you can have whole grain toast (bread food group) with peanut butter (protein food group) and a banana (fruit food group). Top that off with a glass of milk to drink, and you’ve even hit a fourth food group. Breakfast does not have to include a heavy pancakes and sausage meal every day to be healthy, and even grabbing a single piece of fruit or a muffin is better than skipping the meal completely. Breakfast is important to your health!

 

Bloggers Unite For World AIDS Day

Nearly half of all AIDS cases in the U.S. involve people 13 to 24 years of age, placing many of Blog members or their children in the highest risk age groups. More than 250,000 are estimated to be HIV positive and not know it. And more than 1 million are estimated to have AIDS.

Of course, AIDS is not limited to the U.S. There are an estimated 33 million people with AIDS worldwide. It affects every country, city, and town in the world. And, the most frightening thing about it is that is going largely unchecked. In fact, that is one of the reason that worldaidscampaign.org is continuing its “leadership” theme, which it developed after learning that many leaders who promised to support AIDS were not keeping their promises.

As always, what you choose to write about is up to you. However, you might consider checking the NIDA and AIDS.gov research and prevention resources on the Bloggers Unite resource page. Or, for a more global view, check out http://www.worldaidscampaign.org

Unlike most campaigns where we hope awareness led to action, this is one campaign where awareness is action! If even just 10 percent of our members get involved, we can reach an estimated 4 million blog readers. And if half of our members participate, we can reach 20 million. And if all bloggers participate, we can reach the entire world. But more importantly than all that. If your post just touches even one person and convinces them to get tested or helps someone learn about AIDS prevention, won’t that will be worth it?

Your words, voices, videos, and actions can all help people become more aware about AIDS and how to prevent it. And by doing that, you might not only save someone, but save someone close to you.

 

Crock Pot Cooking Saves You Time and Money

First introduced in 1971, the Crock-Pot revolutionized the way we cook meals. The word Crock-Pot is actually trademarked by Rival Industries, but is used in every day conversations instead of the term slow cooker. Many recipes for the crock-pot require little preparation. The slow cooker can then safely be left to run unattended, making it a convenient cooking method.

Crock-pot meals can not only save you time in the kitchen, but they can also save you money as well.  The reasons are as follows:

1.    It keeps you out of the fast food line.  If you had not loading up the crock-pot with the ingredients this morning you’d likely be in the drive through line at the local fast food restaurant this afternoon after work, grabbing a meal for your family.  The average fast food meal for a family of four rings up over $20.

2.    Stretches your dollar.  Most crock-pot recipes and meals can truly stretch your food dollar.  Because you can put a whole chicken in the crock-pot to cook then cut it up for several meals, you can stretch your budget with the use your leftovers.

3.    Cuts your grocery budget.  You can save money at the butcher since the slow cooking process is especially useful to tenderize cheaper cuts of meat.

4.    Saves on your energy bill.  Instead of running a larger appliance like the stove you are running one small energy conservative appliance, the crock-pot, saving on your energy costs.

The convenience of the slow cooker not only saves you time, but will also save you money. Don’t you think it’s time to take it out of your closet (or wherever you have it packed away collecting dust) and make a Crock-Pot meal today?

About the Author:
Cara Mirabella is a WAHM with one toddler from New Jersey. She owns and manages TheHouseholdHelper.com – a site dedicated to saving your time, money and sanity when managing your household. She has written several articles, reports and e-books including “Recipes For Every Occassion: 470 Crock Pot Recipes”.