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 can’t believe how busy we have been this summer.  Which is why this tip is so important!  When you have too much produce, freeze it! 

My mom gave us a HUGE bowlful of cherries from her neighbors tree that they needed to pick right away.   They were all ripe, and I knew we wouldn’t eat them all before they went bad.  Immediately, I kept a bowlful out for snacking, and the rest I washed and spread onto a cookie sheet for the freezer.  I put the cookie sheet in the freezer for a few hours, and then bagged the cherries (pit and all) into freezer bags.  Freezing on a cookie sheet first, prevents clumping that would occur if you threw all the cherries into a bag at once, and then froze.

The frozen cherries, EVEN though pit is still in tact, have been a perfect snack.  They are not rock solid.  They are kind of like grapes.  We can take one cherry out of the bag and eat it immediately, and its this slushy, delicious, refreshing snack. 

Other things I have been doing with the frozen cherries:

• Chopping for smoothies.
• Topping on salads
• Mixed in with plain yogurt.
• And taught my kids how to have a cherry spitting contest.  Truly a lost art!  Even the kids who were, not so interested in having a cherry, ate several just so they could spit the seed.

Freezing is so much faster than canning or other methods of preserving.  I probably will never can something again!   Other things we have frozen when there was a great sale, our garden produced it faster than we could eat it, or a neighbors tree was overflowing:

• Zucchini (I store this shredded and used in bread)
• Summer squash ( I puree and then freeze to add to baked goods, macaroni and cheese, or soups)
• Onions (chopped first and then frozen)
• Strawberries (usually because there is a great sale)
• Other berries (We have a blackberry bush and this is our first year of getting a real good amount).
• Celery! (only because I forget to use it out of my fridge and its about to go bad…but it works)
• bananas! (for smoothies, because fresh ones go REALLY FAST at my house.)
• Corn
• Broccoli

WHAT PRODUCE DOES YOUR FAMILY FREEZE?

…and sometimes a spouse. 

There are other ways than pureeing veggies or spending an hour cutting shapes out of cucumbers.

The most common complaint I get from people is “my kids won’t eat healthy food.” 

At first, my kids wouldn’t either. After I spent years letting them eat fruit snacks and hot dogs,  broccoli isn’t exactly appetizing.  It takes time.  Here are 5 things that can help along the way though:

1. Make small modifications. Replace wheat flour with white flour, black beans for ground beef, or bake something instead of frying it.  Small changes to familiar foods is less likely to be met with resistance.   Our favorite is to make our own pizza! What kid doesn’t like that.  I use homemade whole wheat crust, more veggies, and less cheese, it is still gobbled up every time.
2. Dress it up.  Whole wheat pasta, blah.  Whole wheat pasta with a TBL of butter and parmesan cheese, DELICIOUS!  Raw broccoli and carrots, ho-hum. Broccoli and carrots dipped in ranch, bring it on!   As Zonya says, “in small amounts, sugar is the vehicle that helps the healthy stuff go down.”
3. Learn to cook!   Your family will eat it if it tastes good.  Did you hate brussel sprouts as a kid?  Chances are, your mom just didn’t know how to prepare them!  Learn to make healthy food taste good!  Then engage the kids in the cooking process.  Not only are they going to be more interested in what’s been made, but you are setting them up to prepare healthy food for their future families too! 
4. Don’t serve adult size portions.  I hate to say it, but my husband is the worst about this.  He will PILE it on the kids plates and then expect them to eat it all.   Nothing is more intimidating than a 12 inch plate full of salad to a 4 year old.  1/2 cup of salad may be plenty for little stomachs.  And when you realize you gave them too much to eat, don’t make them “finish it off”.
5. Make sure they are hungry.  How good would an apple taste after you just walked out of an All You Can Eat Buffet?   Now how good would an apple taste after you hadn’t eaten for 24 hours.  Probably would be the most delicious apple you ever tasted!  With your kids… they aren’t going to love your asparagus if they snacked on pretzels all afternoon. But it may taste pretty great if they hadn’t eaten since lunch.

Bottom line is to make some efforts to feed your kids better!  If something doesn’t work, don’t give up so easily.  The quality of your precious families life depends on it.

This post is intended for entry into The Juice webisode contest.

Related posts:

• Picky eaters
• Carrot Juice Anyone?
• Enlist the Forces
• Re-offer, Re-Peat, Re-ask
• Covert Operations (hiding the healthy food)

A bit of business:  CROCK-POT giveaway: Thanks to everyone for entering. We had 85 entries, and Random.org chose commenter number 28.

Mel, who said:  That is a wonderful quick change with the beans and rice. Good call! I would love a crock pot, so please sign me up.

Monday: Breakfast

Saturday was an adventure. I decided I wanted to go to the Air Force Air Show.  Little did I know, 400,000 other people ALSO decided to go.  With so much traffic, we ended up parking and waking over 1 hour, one way, to the gate.  Boy was I glad my kids got a good breakfast!

Joel Fuhrman said, the headaches, fatigue, irritability, etc., that you (or your kids) experience when you get hungry is not because you are hungry!  Its because you are detoxing from inferior food. With a healthful diet, you should be able to go for several hours, without experiencing those symptoms, and merely experience hunger as felt in your throat, not accompanied by headache and crankiness.  A different sensation than most of us are actually experiencing. 

So literally after walking from 12:15 to about 5:30, and merely only eating a granola bar, my kids were actually in great spirits.  They didn’t ask for concessions, or complain about eating the whole day.  This is what they had for breakfast that I think helped them get through the day:

PUMPKIN MUFFINS:  Thanks to Amy W.  for coming up with this recipe. She used my Master muffin mix and made some delightful pumpkin muffins.  The recipe has been added to my recipe list.

Muffin tips:  I’m a busy mom.  I like to throw all my ingredients at once, in ONE bowl, and not mess up many. However, muffins do turn out better when you mix wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately, then FOLD the wet into the dry, just until moistened.  Sorry guys, one extra dish!

PLUS, I’ve been making Green Smoothie’s for my kids, and they lick their cups clean. They even like that there is Spinach in it!  Maybe it makes them feel grown-up? I don’t know.  You must give this a try.  I’ve been inspired by Green Smoothie Girls Green smoothies, and Oh She Glow’s, Green monsters… but without a high powered blender (like a Blendtec), and the fact that I’m serving it to my children, and all those veggies get pricey, I don’t use as much veggies as they do.  Our basic ingredients are:

• Any frozen fruit
• Soy milk
• a squirt of flax seed oil
• As much spinach as I can add before its doesn’t get blended in well.

Because of the crappiness of my blender, I have to use a lot of liquid (the soy milk).  Have a great Monday.  Be back tomorrow with some lunch ideas.

MONDAY: Fruits and Vegetables

There is a fond place in my heart for Orange Julius. I worked there the end of my senior year.  I lost weight, met two of my summer boyfriends there, and learned how to make an orange julius. 

Every morning we were met by a dozen boxes of fresh oranges we had to juice.  Then all I remember about the drink itself was fresh orange juice, ice, and a powdered mix.  I can only image the powder probably had sugar, dry milk, and maybe some powdered eggs (but obviously I can’t be sure).

Seeing some shriveling up Clementines on my kitchen counter gave me the idea to give the drink a try again.  Instead of juicing, I put the whole oranges in the blender (minus the seeds), some milk, vanilla, powdered eggs, and some stevia in place of sugar.   I wrote the recipe here, although it may change as I perfect it… it tasted a bit too milky for my personal taste.

These drinks can be a delicious, healthy dessert for your children.  With loads of vitamin C, I also would also feel good about offering it as a healthy snack for your kids.

A word about fake sugars:  While I want to avoid the controversy about fake sugars, all I will do is state my opinion.  I am uncomfortable purchasing products with Splenda and aspartame for my kids.  First off, I think Splenda leaves a horrible aftertaste!  Especially in yogurt, I can not even stand it.  
Secondly, the chemical makeup of these fake sugars make them too unnatural for us to use in our diet.

Then comes Stevia:  The people from Steviva sent me some sample bags of stevia sugar.  I have always wanted to try this because I understood it to be a healthier alternative.  From their literature: 

• One bottle of Steviva stevia powder is equivalent to nearly 50 pounds of sugar with 0 calories, 0 carbs, and no fillers, additives, or Maltodextrin. 
• Unlike Most brands it is 100% natural in every sense of the word. 
• It increases energy and aids digestion by stimulating the pancreas, and it does no harm to healthy teeth. 
• Overseas…since artificial sweeteners are banned in Japan, Japanese are its greatest consumers.  Its what they use to sweeten their Diet coke (instead of NutraSweet)!!!
• Stevia is an all-natural herbal product with cenuries of safe usage by native Indians in Paraguay. 
• It has been consumed safely in massive quantities (thousands of tons annually) for the past twenty years.

While we are actually trying to have less sweet things around (fake or not), there is occasion for me (when I feel like sneaking treats without my kids noticing) this might possibly be a good, low calorie alternative.   Better on the waistline!

I once had a friend who was trying to sneak some chocolate so her kids wouldn’t notice and ask for some too.  One of her little ones said to her, “Mom, where’s the chocolate? I smell it in your mouth!”

Thanks everyone for entering, and Quaker for sponsoring. The winner is Natalie with

wow! quaker rocks with the giveaways!!!  We love pancakes and would love the chance to try these
 

Tip of the day:

To add a little spice and fun to the morning rut, try having a breakfast bar. My kids love the hotels with a continental breakfast. Recreate this at home.

• You can choose different toppings for pancakes or waffles; such as berries, powdered sugar, yogurt.
• A must have is a variety of fruit; canned peaches in a bowl, cut up melons, orange slices, thawed out frozen berries, or just chopped apples and bananas.
• An oatmeal bar with different toppings.
• Two different flavors of muffins.
• Bagels with various toppings such as sliced strawberries and light cream cheese, or toasted with cinnamon. 

Our kids get so many choices automatically made for them, yet they yearn for a little independence and to make their own choices. If they are choosing one healthy, nutritious food over another healthy item, its a win-win situation.

I’m not a strict mother when it comes to snacking.  I don’t have time to police the pantry, and I would be a hypocrite to do so (since I’m a grazer myself).  We don’t have junk food in the cupboards anyway, but my kids could definitely put away their fair share of the pretzel crop.  This can go on until just before dinner is on the table.  I’ve tried cutting them off at 3pm or so, and making them actually BE HUNGRY for dinner, but again, I would have to be sitting in front of the pantry, and I choose other things to do.

So tonight, I put out the appetizer tray.  Picked this one up for $1.50 with the Christmas dishes.  Between 3:00 and dinner, they ate the entire tray!  How easy was that.  Then I didn’t feel so bad when their dinner veggies got a token bite taken out of them. 

Snacking on fruits and vegetables is the best healthy habit you can teach your children.  As they begin to develop a palate for fruits and vegetables they will crave them more and more.  Many times you just need to make it available and convenient for them!  My friend Eliece started doing this a year ago.  But she would buy the pre-cut trays from Costco, and then just pull it out of the fridge every night as she prepared dinner.  It was a healthy behavior change that was good for everyone.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow for another giveaway:  Here’s a clue Mizfit style.

Tips and tricks with your kids in mind;

this woman has answers I’m sure you’ll find. 

I’ve tried many, now you can as well

Come back tomorrow and I will tell.

Related Posts

Pack a Snack  What to bring on a road trip

After School Snack Ideas for after school snacking

I need to make a serious trip to the grocery store. We are out of all fresh fruits and vegetables.  So this is what we scraped by with:

A healthy kids breakfast;  One eyed monstors…whole wheat bread, spread with Land O Lakes light butter with canola oil, and egg.  Frozen strawberries defrosted.  Food groups; One whole grain, one protien, and fruit.

For a healthy lunch PB&J on whole wheat bread (Fruit spread for jam, but regular peanut butter), string cheese, frozen cherries (remember out of fruit and carrots), and a cookie. One whole grain, two fruits, two protiens.

And for a healthy dinner: Lemon chicken, salad with only lettuce (blehhh I know, but the kids like it and I didn’t have anything to put on top), and pesto noodles. This pesto idea was sent in by Kemily*, (name has been changed cause if people don’t like it she doesn’t want to be identified).  She used a regular pesto recipe, except used fresh spinach leaves rather than basil!  I think it turned out fabulous.  The kids liked it, and no one complained there was “green stuff” on their noodles, which has been a problem in the past.  I posted the recipe here.  So for dinner; one grain, one protein, and one vegetable.

And for a snack my kids love, frozen cherries, defrosted mixed with plain yogurt. one fruit, one dairy.

Definitely not enough vegetables today. Tomorrow will be better considering I’ll BUY some!

And  big thank you to Whitney for giving me my first blog award.  Thanks Whitney. I will pass this along ASAP.  Can’t promise how soon, but I’ve added it to my to-do list.

Looking ahead:  Giveaway on Friday!

Last night was fabulous!  I was able to go with some friends to the not super healthy, but oh-so yummy, Taste of Home Cooking Show!  It was so fun!  It’s so inspiring to get back into the kitchen. They make everything look so easy.  And a big thanks to everyone who commented on where to pick up Bento Boxes.  I’m so grateful.   And for making me laugh about the things you deep fry in the south!  All I can say is WOW!

Today, it really feels like fall. A little cool, a little rainy, and fruit stands are coming out with some great tasting APPLES!!!  We love apples. I’ve done many posts about apples.  And we all love applesauce except the flip-flopper.  I love homemade applesauce. I grew up on it, and love the chunkiness only homemade can give you.  But being busy, I settle for jars of store bought applesauce.  The kids however, love single serving sized applesauce, which can get a little pricey. But it’s shelf stable, and very portable. 

Now introducing, a new way to eat applesauce.  Perfect to throw in a lunch bag, it’s Smashies!  My kids thought they were fabulous.  It’s applesauce, in a easy to eat pouch with a spout.  The best part is, they are organic, and do not add any sugar. Sometimes when I am buying applesauce, I’ll only notice it says no sugar, until I get home and notice FAKE sugar!  It drives me crazy.  But smashies, reallyl has no sugar.  Look for them in stores coming this October!

Adding apples to your diet has long been mentioned as good for your health.  You know, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”  It has both soluble and insoluble fiber.  It has vitamin C and tons of antioxidants.  Here are some great ways to get apples in your kids:

• Applesauce (like Smashies of course)
• Sliced and dipped in peanut butter, or peanut butter dips, or even other fruity dips.
• 100% apple juice
• Chopped and added to salads such as a Waldorf Salad or Carrot salad, the Wheat Berry Salad
• Dried apples (they are soft and chewy)
• Quick microwave apple dessert.
• Including applesauce in your baked goods.
• Add apple juice to Smoothies
• Shredded and added to a muffin recipe.

My kids have always preferred adding yogurt to their cereal than milk.  Their preference, fruit flavored yogurt on Cheerios.  Well, after this last General Mills sale at Albertsons, we have lot’s of cheerios.  I remember adding fruit to my cereal growing up.  I think it was more common because we had a lot less sweetened cereal in the 70′s , or my mom just never bought it. Not sure.  Adding sliced bananas to my rice chex or cheerios was habitual.

This morning I decided to add ACTUAL fruit to their cereal, with plain yogurt. (I love the plain yogurt).  It’s  not much different than fruit flavored yogurt, right?  It shouldn’t have been much of a stretch.  I took out some frozen blueberries and defrosted them in the microwave. The fruit was a bit too chunky for them I guess.  If I could do it again, I would chop the blueberries much smaller and mixed it with the plain yogurt, before adding it to the cheerios.  I think then, they would have been more likely to enjoy it.

While blueberries are a great source of vitamin c, eating blueberries are a much better way for your body to get vitamin C than a supplement.  The antioxidants in blueberries, anthocyanin, enhance the effects of vitamin C in your body, helping improve your vascular system and even your vision.