Yesterday it practically felt like summer, and this morning we woke up to a pile of snow!  Of course being the slave driver I am, I sent my kids out at the crack of dawn to start shoveling.  I hope we never buy a snow blower. (at least until the kids are grown, then we can buy one )

Once inside, they were ready for some hot cocoa!  Here is our healthy version:

• 1 cup low fat milk
• 1 TBL Agave syrup (or honey)  (if your kids are used to Nesquik or other sweeter cocoas, you may want to use 2 TBL
• 2 TBL cocoa powder  (the 100% cocoa powder)
• Mix together over the stove, or in the microwave until warm and dissolved.

If you love chocolate you will be happy to know a few things:

• Although it contains a little saturated fat, research is showing it may not block LDL receptors the way saturated fat from animal sources do!!
• Cocoa contains phytochemicals that can help your heart, skin, vision, etc.

So, go enjoy the last few days of winter (crossing my fingers) and relax with your kids and some cocoa!

P.S. One of my first posts was about how TJ was completely addicted to Nesquik!  He truly drank it every day!

Awesome! Dana just left a comment that Batatas are also the Spanish word for Sweet Potatoes!! Thanks for making us all a little smarter today Dana!

I’ve just had our protein lecture in Nutrition this week, and have been all about the eggs ever since!  We love our eggs over here!

So, try this super quick (I’m into quick these day’s!) way to hard boil some eggs.  Let your kids fill a microwave safe container full of water, and microwave for 10  minutes.  Add a little vinegar and salt to the water, so your eggs don’t crack being jostled around in the water.

After 10 minutes in the microwave, take out, and rinse with cold water.  Your eggs will be completely hard boiled. 

For the sailboats, I sliced some colored paper, and let the kids decorate the sails. 

For the filling, I mixed the yolk, with a tiny spoon of light mayo and a squirt of mustard.  Filled the shell, and put the sail on.

Why should your kids eat eggs?

EGGS ARE:

So, make some eggs today!

Other Egg posts:

• Breakfast for my little Champions
• One Eyed Monstors
• Easter Eggs (coming up!!)

Do your kids like eggs?  What’s your favorite way to eat them?

Post edit: While our eggs turned out great, two of our readers had their eggs explode in the microwave.  Please use caution, or go traditional: Stove-top always works!

This is the last day to enter to win this awesome book, Poems to Fruits, and Odes to Vegetables!

Pancakes and waffles are so easy to “hide” nutrient rich fruits and nuts!  On Saturday we set out to make our typical waffle recipe, but this time, puréed some banana, and ground up some walnuts for a little pizzaz!

First the dry ingredients:

Then the wet:

Blended together:

And only after the full recipe was prepared did I chop some walnuts:  (The kids like to do this with a mallet, but I wasn’t in the mood)

Pureed some bananas (Again, I preferred the food processor to actually mashing with my own energy)

Then slowly folded the nuts and banana into the waffle mixture.

And, that’s it!  This kid loves them:

However, this recipe makes a TON of waffles.  I always make them all and freeze the leftovers.  We can eat these for several more days by just popping them in the toaster.

What do you like to add to your waffles?

Great source of Vitamin A and a great way to get some carrots!

The recipe:

• 1 cup of carrots
• 3/4 cup pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 TBL honey
• 1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
• ice cubes

First I softened the carrots in the microwave for about 4 minutes.  Then I put them in the blender first and puréed them.

Really puree the carrots for a long long time, until it is not pulpy at all. Use some of the pineapple juice to make it smooth. Then finish with the rest of the ingredients.

I always let them drink smoothies with a straw! No exceptions.  It makes the whole smoothie experience that much better for them!

Well, gotta get ready for a girls night out!  I am normally a home body. I’d rather curl up on the couch with my husband and watch the Office, so I appreciate my friends getting me out tonight.  Dinner and a midnight movie!  One guess what midnight movie that would be??? 

Then it’s sleep in tomorrow for two reasons: Very late night, and my birthday!! Too bad I already have all my birthday gifts.

There are so many different ways to make a smoothie, your kids should never be bored.  While not packed full of fruits and veggies, this smoothie sure made a great treat. We called it the Orange creamsicle smoothie.  I’ve seen different versions on many different websites, but I kept ours simple:

• 1 Cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup Orange juice
• 24 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in a blender.

  And drink

(Those are sunglasses that the lenses broke out of. She loves to wear them and “trick” people into thinking she wears glasses.  She wants braces too. Remember those days?)

I need your help.  It appears there are still some bugs to my new site, but I need to know about them. Everything looked perfect to me, then I found out my blog was displaying an entire post, one word at a time!  It also has some alignment issues in certain browsers, and I still can’t get rid of an entire paragraph becoming a link.  Plus, my husband complained of  longer than normal page loading.  So, if you would pop over and see how it looks in your browser, or if any of my links are broken, I would love to know about it!   Leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll check it out.  Thanks for being patient.

Here is a family favorite.  Apple pancakes!   I started with the Homemade pancake mix.

This time however, I added

• 2 TBL of applesauce and
• 1/2 cup of shredded apple.

Then on my cast-iron skillet, I used my pancake shaper that Quaker sent me.  And cooked until it was cooked all the way through.

These were sweet enough to not need syrup.  But some chopped apple on top or some walnuts would have been delicious too.

I haven’t made muffins from my Master Muffin Mix in a while.   Of all the muffins the master mix makes, this was a family favorite!  Everyone, including my husband thought they were great!
Once you have a Homemade muffin mix, there is no reason to buy purchased muffin mixes. Its just as fast to make it from this mix.   I added the recipe to the bottom of this page (A quick peak at my super awesome, amazing, new website. I’m so embarrassed by the old recipe pages!   I screwed them up one to many times.   My sister has almost fixed everything I messed up, and I promised her I would only write with the <div> and NEVER change my fonts willy nilly again.

Anyway, back to the muffins!

Simple ingredients.

Added wet things first (oil, eggs, vanilla, and soy milk)

Then the dry Master Muffin Mix

Then I crushed some STILL frozen raspberries.  (I just pushed a mug onto them)This made it easier to crush into their beautiful little individuals cells….rather than squishy and mashed.

Added the berries to the mix

Then for the “Mystery” part of the muffin, I added a dab of raspberry jelly to the center.

Then added the rest of the muffin batter to the top till it was about 3/4 full.

Then in a tiny bowl, made a small amount of streusel. Literally only about 1 TBL of brown sugar, 1 tsp of butter, and 1/8 tsp cinnamon.

Then mashed it between my fingers, and sprinkled it on the muffins.

And BAKED!  Again, the recipe is here

Of course, being Halloween, we had to add Halloween muffin papers, and the token cupcake flag to the top.

I changed my menu to include pumpkin waffles rather than pancakes.  A waffle iron seemed like less effort than a griddle.  These waffles got a terrific review from TJ, but Erica however woke up on the wrong side of the bed!  Nothing I offered the girl was satisfying. The only thing that would make her happy was if I were to remake the waffles and leave the pumpkin out. She refused to try them.  I let her know she was welcome to eat something else for breakfast, but I wasn’t going to help her out, considering I already made breakfast.  The poor girl is going to go to school hungry. (which will make her even grumpier).

The lighting in my kitchen was terrible this morning, but here you go.

Mix dry ingredients together first.

Then in a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients and add them together. Do not over mix!  Gently wetten the dry ingredients with your wet ones.

Pour onto waffle iron and leave until crisp.  I opened mine too early, and the waffle fell apart.  Leave it closed until you know they are done.

I don’t cut waffles or pancakes for my kids anymore.  But they still like it in bite size pieces.  So I often find them like this, tearing their waffles up with their fingers.

And finally, Pumpkin Waffles:

• 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 TBL pumpkin pie spice (or 1 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 2/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil

Other pumpkin recipes:

• Pumpkin muffins
• Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
• Pumpkin Dip
• Pumpkin Cookies

I  love granola!  With anything I love, I can’t make it very often.  Its just too hard for me to “eat in moderation” when I have a compulsion to overeat on things I love.  Granola and trail mix included.

I got this recipe from my sister in law, who is the QUEEN of homemade.  She truly doesn’t buy packaged foods, but prefers to make everything in their kitchen from scratch.  She saves loads of money on groceries as a result.

• 6 C oats
• 1 C chopped almonds
• 1/3 C sesame seeds
• 1/2 C Sunflower seeds
• 1-2 tsp cinnamon

Mix

• 1/2 C Olive Oil (I used canola)
• 1/2 C brown sugar ( I used 1/4)
• 1/3 C Honey
• 2 TBL Vanilla

Mix wet ingredients with dry

Pour onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 25-27 minutes

After it cools, mix in 1 cup of raisins.  Store in container for breakfast cereal!!

Other posts:

14 uses for Granola

Don’t forget to enter the Yoplait giveaway.

I have not put milk on my cereal- EVER. I’ve actually never liked the taste of milk.  But from when I was very very small, I’ve always enjoyed yogurt on my cereal. And so my kids have followed the same pattern.  Thus, our Monday breakfast menu item: Cereal with fruit and yogurt.  So delicious! 

And PS, did you know that the number one ingredient on Froot Loops is SUGAR!  At the grocery store on Sat. my kids saw a display of Froot Loops and were begging for some.  I said, “OK, you win. If the first or second ingredient on the label is NOT sugar, we will buy a box.”  BUT IT WAS THE FIRST! Needless to say, my kids were as shocked as I was.  TJ thought it was best to check ALL the boxes, because maybe the other ones would be different.

So, back to my yogurt… I always buy Yoplait!  I think the texture is the smoothest.  And I really do like the taste the best.

So when the people at MyblogSpark contacted me about this Yoplait giveaway:

I was like, OF COURSE!  I just bought 48 little mini Yoplait cups at Costco!  Here is what they had to say:

Did you know that?

• 76% of the population is falling short of getting enough vitamin D; and 72% of the population is not getting enough calcium in their diets*

• Consuming calcium and vitamin D during childhood and adolescence can help reduce risk of fractures in adulthood*

Getting an adequate amount of calcium and vitamin D, paired with exercise, is important to help build and maintain strong, healthy bones. Yoplait is partnering with Nancy O’Dell, entertainment news reporter and celebrity mom, who understands the importance of incorporating calcium and Vitamin D into her diet, while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

So, I am holding my giveaway on THIS POST at my mom blog.  Just leave a comment and I will choose two winners on Wednesday morning for

1. Yoga mat
2. yoplait coupon
3. A signed copy of Nancy O’dell’s book

GOOD LUCK!!