First, as an order of business….Thank you to all who entered the contest!  But, congratulations to Heidi who won the book we just added to our products.  Her comment was:

My son is 4 and loves to read books. It would be great to add this to our collection. Thanks for the great salad idea!

Today we had a second Thanksgiving Feast!  This time at my in-law’s.  Everything was delicious.  I brought the same salad I did to my family party yesterday.  But my sister-in-law Heather brought this one:

She used:

• Chicken (seasoned for fajita’s and actually left over from their fajita night)
• Olives
• tomatoes
• uncooked ramen noodles
• walnuts
• And carrots.

I thought it was great.  Ketchup boy had a small slice of ham and root beer, and the veggie appetizers.  Flip-flopper ate a roll, ham, and lots of dessert.  And cereal boy was pretty good about trying a little of everything. They have about 40 cousins just from my husbands family.  They all love to go in the backyard and play ball.  Its great exercise and great fun for them.

For our Thanksgiving meal, I was in charge of rolls and salad. My sister, the hostess gave me strict instructions to NOT use whole wheat in the rolls (she doesn’t think much of ‘healthy eating’).  So, I complied.  I tried these Lion House Rolls posted by my neighbor, and they turned out scrumptious!! Definitely a holiday treat.  They are easy to fill up on.

 I like being in charge of salad.  You can assemble most of it ahead of time. You can make the dressing a head of time. And best of all, you can be sure there will be something at your family party with some real fabulous nutrients.  I filled half of my plate with green salad, had a small serving of everything else, and did not feel deprived at all.   I brought a Spinach salad, which has become my favorite salad to bring to parties.  It has:

• red onions
• mandarin oranges
• craisins
• spinach
• green leaf lettuce
• and candied pecans
• And this dressing.

Everything else we had for our Thanksgiving dinner turned out perfect, thanks to my sister who while pregnant, graciously hosted! Good meal Sarah!

And a BIG Thank you to all my friends and readers (real life and virtual).  I am grateful for the joy you all add to my life.

Michael Pollan, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”

I think this is one of the prettiest salads. And the easiest. While you can do it yourself, this salad came as a kit from Costco. They include for your eating pleasure; greens, craisins, feta cheese, and pecans. It also came with White balsamic dressing, but to avoid the High Fructose Corn Syrup, I made this similar dressing.

Other things to add to this salad would be chicken and other fresh berries.  I really love feta cheese, so I usually add more feta.

This is the last day to enter the drawing for the Fruits and Vegetable Book. Leave a comment before tomorrow.

Did anyone see Oprah yesterday?  They highlighted some of the oldest living people and what they did.  Of course they all ate a natural diet, full of plant foods!  I thought it was a great episode.

My sister-in-law is amazing.  She is the mother to 9 kids. She runs 5 miles EVERY DAY. Her house is always immaculate. And she has a great body! I always ask for her weight loss secrets.  She revealed to me her cabbage salad keeps the pounds off.  She told me she eats this salad every day.(maybe she also took part in the cabbage soup diet years, and turned it into cabbage salad diet).  She says it keeps her regular.  She is right about that.  Every time I eat it, let’s just say, ‘I’m regular’.

This salad is

• cabbage
• almonds
• crispy won ton shells
• green onions, and a
• Dressing

If you aren’t already making your own salad dressing, start now!  Almost every dressing I look at has HFCS as the second ingredient! This is not neccessary. Its cheaper and healthier to make your own. Even if you are putting a little sugar and oil, its better than HFCS and partially hydrogenated fats they add to your dressing. I like to buy the jars they sell by the salad dressings called cruets.  This makes it easy to store and shake when you are ready to pour some on your salad. This one was less than $2.00

I love salads with a sweet side.  This Tropical Salad had pineapple, coconut, almonds, and craisins.  Other toppings that would give it an Island feel would be mango, bananas, or papaya.  We tried a citrus dressing that really helped sweeten up the greens for the kids.  Two of them liked it, but ketchup boy, fighting back the tears said,

“I wish I had a fairly oddparent, because I would wish that we never had to eat dinner again, and that nobody would ever have to eat salad, ever.”

 Poor kid. I did feel a little bit bad, but he ended up liking it. (well 5 bites of it)

Now for another giveaway!  Books are a great way to educate your kids about healthy eating.  One that I thought was particularly cute is called The ABC’s of Fruits and Vegetables and beyond by Steve Charney and David Goldbeck. It has a cute poem about a fruit or vegetable for every letter of the alphabet.  And we are giving one away!! Leave a comment.  Even if you don’t have little ones, it would make a fabulous Christmas gift.  This contest open until Thursday.  Check out the other products I’ve added to my store over the weekend.

*I do moderate comments throughout the day, so be patient if you don’t see your comment right away. Thanks!

Get ready for salad week! During these cold holiday months, when there are lots of heavy comfort foods around, its vital to keep our meals light and full of energy.  Which completley translates into salad for me and the kids!  The kids will eat greens with different fruit on top for a sweeter salad.  Salad can be so basic and easy, no recipes neccessary.  Sometimes I use pre cut bagged salad, sometimes I cut my own. This salad is simply a sliced up peach, some walnuts, and feta cheese I’ve grated for the top.  I used the creamy poppyseed dressing for flavor.  This is my favorite dressing anytime we add fruit to the top of our salad.

Other green salads we like, Taco salad, Berry Salad (really really my favorite), Having a salad bar, Broccoli Salad, Cabbage apple (although when I found that post on my blog I laughed cause I said IT was my favorite salad! But right now it is the berry salad-I promise).  I just realized I’ve never posted our Spinach salad… which is a favorite to take to family parties.  Now I’m getting excited. Expect 5 new salads next week!  Plus, a giveaway on Monday!

On Monday, I did this series of exercises.  Ten reps of each item. Flip-flopper always wants to exercise with me if she sees me doing it.  I’m still sore! And its Thursday! She is not.  She can do a better push up than I’ve ever been able to do. She can do more sit ups, and of course is way more flexible.  And she’s only 7!  These were the exercises.

• Squat (wide leg)
• Push up
• 45 degree lunge
• Superman
• Prisoner squat
• hip-up
• lunge walk
• alternating leg v-sit
• lateral squat
• push-up centerfold
• reverse lunge
• side stabilzation 

Dave Grotto, R.D., was kind enough to answer one my readers questions from our Quaker Weekend.  He has posted an answer here. http://asktheguytitian.blogspot.com/2008/11/potassium-calcium-and-magnesium.html.  If you have dietician related questions, you can ask him.  Great blog idea Dave!

Next to God, family, and exercising, I think breads, especially sweet breads, makes me happier than anything else.  I love a moist, delicious slice of zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, almond poppyseed bread, almost any kind of bread.

I loved this pumpkin-cranberry bread so much I did not want to share it with my kids.  I wanted the whole loaf to myself.  To hide away in a very high cupboard for late at night, after everyone was asleep, while I watch my favorite shows (Law and Order, The Office, SNL).  To eat slowly, without distraction and with full enjoyment.  But I could not hide the aroma as the kids walked through the door after school.  They were as excited as I was, so I gave in and shared.

This bread had the perfect blend of sugar and spice, with a burst of cranberry at just the right moment. 

Ocean Spray has a site with recipes to use your cranberries in.  Plus they have Crafts to do with your cranberries!! Like a garland I’m sure we’ll try.  How many food sites can claim that?

Related posts

Zucchini bread (The Divine Art of Modification)

Recently I saw this website featured in a magazine and thought it looked really great!

I love this idea! It lets you upload your own recipes, or a recipe in their files and create your own cookbook.
I haven’t exactly figured out how it all works yet. I tried to upload my recipes that I have on Super Healthy Kids, but my pictures were all too small. I shrink them so your pages load more quickly, and then I don’t keep the originals. Live and learn. Someday, when I have loads of free time, I’ll retake pictures and put them on this site for anyone to add to their own book.

So, check it out. Watch the little “get started” video on their home page.
Personal recipe books are great for wedding gifts, your child leaving home, or for Christmas. VERY COOL

Related Posts

Little chef’s

Binder Recipe Book

And the winner is of the cookbook and apron was…  Stacy who said;

About the only thing I’m doing right now is switching oats for crackers in things like meatloaf and tuna patties. I could really use this book because my kids refuse to eat vegetables.

Thank you all for some great ideas.  Now here is a healthy snack idea we tried yesterday. 

Mashed potatoes to snack on!  Why not? But to add a little flare, we put in food coloring, scooped it onto an ice cream cone, and didn’t even need a fork. The result, Mashed potato ice cream cones.  The kids thought it was hilarious to say, ” can I have more ice cream mom?”

All the ideas we come up with will work for some kids, not for others. They are going to work once, but not twice. Sometimes they don’t work twice, and then they like it! That is the joy of parenting. Wouldn’t you agree?  Kids are always evolving, always changing.  That is what makes it so great to be a parent.  I love the challenge, and I love being a mom. 

From the peanut gallery: I won’t let flip flopper pierce her ears till she’s 12.  So she’s almost 8 now and she informed me that she wants her ears pierced SOOO bad that she’s going to stick a fork through her ear!  I just laughed.