THIS IS MY SECOND FAVORITE PINTEREST IDEA, from our Healthy-ish Halloween Ideas for Kids board. Like the string cheese witches’ brooms, they’re absolutely adorable but also…shockingly easy. My girls are egg people. They love eggs. Hard boiled eggs. Egg salad sandwiches. Scrambled eggs. So I knew this would be a hit. And it was. For…
mini pumpkin pies, a low-sugar halloween treat
I CAN’T LIE TO YOU. These aren’t exactly “healthy” Halloween treats for kids. But they’re not so bad for you–or the kiddies–either. Low in sugar, full of pumpkin and even chia seeds, the main culprit here is that deliciously buttery pie crust. But the serving size is so small that I think we can get…
String Cheese Witches’ Brooms, a Healthy Halloween Treat
TODAY’S HEALTHY HALLOWEEN FOOD POST WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY PINTEREST. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? These adorable witches’ brooms made from string cheese, pretzels and chives? On this particular day, with the pressure of supplying the preschool snack falling squarely on my shoulders, I bravely tried to recreate one of the zillion wow-I-can’t-believe-other-moms-are-doing-this ideas from…
little things that work: cut cheese into shapes
ALONG WITH OUR UNSTOPPABLE PUMPKIN MINI MUFFINS, Phoebe brought a bit of cheese to school for her go at snack time. To spice things up we used our amazingly affordable vegetable cutters–the ones we made carrot and cucumber flowers and stars with for a suddenly kid-friendly spinach salad–to cut the cheese. Was this necessary? Not…
10-minute no bake chocolate, fruit & nut balls
THESE HEALTHY SNACKS TOOK 10 MINUTES to make, even with my three “helpers” on hand. That’s not my favorite thing about these no bake balls though. With 4-5 ingredients and instructions like “roll”, even two-year-old Estelle could easily get in on the action. But, nope. That’s not the best part either. I love this new…
even healthier pumpkin spice mini muffins
THESE MUFFINS STARTED IT ALL. The first time I made our pumpkin spice mini-muffins in Rome, I knew we were on to something because the kids liked them, but I loved them. Finally a decadent tasting baked good that I didn’t have mixed feelings about. So we made spin-offs: carrot cake muffins, sweet potato muffins and more. But the original…
homemade cheddar cheese crackers
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. Why would anyone make crackers? They’re not exactly hard to find at the store. But the truth is, from fruit roll-ups to DIY Nutrigrain bars, a homemade version of any processed favorite (especially these) is always, always going to be healthier. And often cheaper. The one thing these are not…
homemade strawberry cereal bars with whole oats
I’VE TRIED TO MAKE BARS LIKE THESE BEFORE. A bunch of times. The results were too thick, too crumbly or just not flavorful enough. This time we got it right. Look out Nutrigrain bars, we’ve got a homemade version that’s fresher, less expensive and even yummier.
healthy apple spice quick bread
I DON’T KNOW WHO ATE MORE OF THIS, ME OR BABY GEORGE (or what that says about either of us). But what I do know is that we packed this apple spice loaf with as many good-for-you ingredients as we could, and it was still so delicious the older kids were asking about it long…
Honey-Sweetened Blueberry Muffins
JUST IN TIME FOR BLUEBERRY MUFFINS! I love summer food. All those berries, sweet peaches and juicy cherries are so easy to serve as snacks (minus the juicy cleanup) but there’s an even better side effect: When I see my three rascals lined up on the counter stools, eating all that fresh goodness I feel…
zucchini chocolate chip breakfast cookies
YEP, ZUCCHINI. Barbara Kingsolver wrote in her amazing book, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”, about the windfall of zucchini she had after planting her first garden. They had piles of the stuff everywhere, on every surface of the kitchen. That’s when her daughter decided to get drastic. Bake them into cookies, she said. And that’s just what…
homemade whole wheat apple bread
MUFFINS, YOU MAY HAVE MET YOUR MATCH. My mother-in-law sent us home from a recent Florida visit with a bread making machine, and boy have we been baking. I know it’s very 1996 to say it but, I love making bread in this thing! All you do is dump in ingredients, then wait. Um, I…
my 2 favorite recipes for kale chips
WE WERE LIVING IN ITALY WHEN IT ALL STARTED. The kale craze. I kept hearing about kale–how healthy kale was for kids, how skinny you’d be if you ate kale, how Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracy Anderson ate nothing but kale and look at how skinny they are. I couldn’t quite figure out how to say…
Chocolate Fudge Pops with Bananas & Avocado
WE HAD A LITTLE PREVIEW OF SUMMER for a while, and when the sun came out, we made these. To our chocolate-avocado-banana pudding, we added honey and milk then froze the whole thing in Popsicle molds. The taste is rich and creamy and the ingredients are only good for you.
no-sugar strawberry apple fruit roll-ups (a homemade fruit leather recipe)
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN PHOEBE’S FAVORITE food was a “bar”. Any bar, as long as it came in a crinkly package with neat edges. I don’t have a small factory set up in my kitchen (though sometimes it feels that way), so when it comes to competing with packaged snacks my strategy is this:…
kid-friendly crudite: personal veggie cups with dip
THANK YOU, PINTEREST. I loved this idea the moment I saw it. They did it for a party, I did it for dinner. Which meant my kids ate a bunch of vegetables for dinner. And they did it with smiles.
We have a Muffin Madness 2013 winner! The muffin recipe of the year is…
SO MANY DELICIOUS CHOICES, so few baking opportunities during nap time. Over the last few weeks, we tried something new in hopes of finding something new. New muffin recipes to be exact and with this six-pack we hit the jackpot.
3 low-sugar pudding ideas for kids
PUDDING, I’VE LEARNED, CAN MEAN MANY THINGS. Especially when you’re cooking low-sugar stuff for kids. Here are three recipes we’ve tried: one’s beloved, another so-so and one big ol’ miss.
Double chocolate zucchini muffins, a Muffin Madness contender
THERE’S A MUFFIN BRACKET GOING ON. It’s between Easy Peasy Organic’s sweet potato muffins and these double chocolate zucchini muffins from Mom’s Kitchen Handbook. Since we’ve already started hearing from you about the sweet potato muffins, we tried baking the zucchini first. After patiently waiting driving me crazy while the muffins baked and cooled off,…
Lower-sugar, lower-fat golden yam brownies (An Allrecipes.com makeover)
THIS REQUEST CAME IN FROM ALASKA. Tricia, who is a mom to three boys living waaay up north, sent me a link via Facebook to these decadent treats with a healthy sounding name, Golden Yam Brownies on Allrecipes. She asked if I could do a healthier makeover. “My family LOVES it but it’s loaded with…