Meatless Meals Kids Will Love
You don't have to be a vegetarian to have heard the term "Meatless Monday". But does it work for families and children? Does it have to just be on Mondays? Why is making…
0 Comments
09/17/2014
Local Food Gets Convenient for Families
Local, “Real” Food is a gift we can give to our families. We’ve talked about ways to include the kids in Farmers Market shopping, we’ve taken a trip down “Blueberry Lane” to local U-pick farms, and we’ve brought our experiences back here to Out of the Box Food and talked about ways to involve our kids in preparing this Real, local food. By sharing the taste of fresh picked fruits and vegetables with our children, chances of their enjoying it grow exponentially. When they bite into a just-picked peach, or a tomato ripened on a vine down the road, they learn to appreciate the true flavor of “Real Food” not the prepackaged, delivery truck-aged flavor of most supermarket produce. True apples and oranges. (more…)
09/23/2012
Blueberry-Orange Scones & Giveaway Winner Announcement
I’ve got to tell you, over the last few weeks my kitchen has smelled heavenly! My boys and I have churned out lots of wholesome and delicious goodies, had many lovely conversations around the kitchen table about the benefits of whole grains, fruits & veggies, and enjoyed each others company over tall glasses of milk and warm treats straight from the oven. (more…)
02/05/2012
Dessert Turned Main Dish – Whole Wheat Strawberry Cake
One of the not-so-guilty pleasures of being a food blogger is the ability (and necessity) to set aside time to peruse many of the fabulous food blogs out there. Today I happened upon Fork Spoon Knife and Smitten Kitchen. What beautiful sites filled with mouth-watering food photography and delicious recipes. Both sites had photos of similar desserts that caught my eye. Fork Spoon Knife had one for a Strawberry Buttermilk Cake while Smitten Kitchen had photos of their Summer Strawberry Cake. In both sets of photos the strawberries peeked out of golden brown puffed cakes, just begging to be eaten. I knew then and there, that we would be the ones to eat them. I had strawberries and buttermilk just waiting in my fridge for a good use. But there was only one problem – we didn’t need dessert, we needed dinner. So what’s a mom to do? I upped the nutrition ante of course! (more…)
05/29/2011
Croutons – Top Salads with Butane or Bread?
Welcome back to an ingredient we’re beginning to recognize with dependable frequency – TBHQ. Yes, the ingredient that preserves food products by way of lighter fluid is back in the “mix”ed greens. This time it joins us in the form of a crunchy tidbit our children rely on to top a salad…the crouton. Croutons are by definition (according to dictionary.com), “A small piece of fried or toasted bread, sometimes seasoned, used as a garnish for soups, salads, and other dishes.” Bread, oil and seasoning. That’s it. Simple right? Not always. (more…)
05/22/2011
Inspiration from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
Thanks to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, I came up with something brilliant last week. Well, maybe not brilliant. Great? Oh alright. How about worth a try? I’d even go so far as to say that this new discovery should at least be tried by everyone with picky eaters. Want to know what it is?
Last week I participated one of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Twitter Competwitions. That’s right, no it’s not a type-o. Competwition. The team at Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution keeps coming up with great ways to get like-minded folks together to talk about fresh food and this is one of the events they host on Twitter. When my son asked what I was doing, I explained that I was submitting an entry for a recipe contest. The theme was salad. My son looked at me for a long moment then asked, “So what’s your recipe?” A bit surprised that he was interested in this salad recipe contest, I told him what I was planning to submit. He looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “I want to enter a recipe.” I began to type. (more…)
05/15/2011
Not Your “Mother’s” Oatmeal Cookies
Who doesn’t love cookies? I’m a big fan of the cookie and here’s a cookie that’s been around for almost one hundred years: Mother’s brand Oatmeal Cookies. Well the cookie itself hasn’t been around that long, (though with preservatives these days…) I digress. Mother’s brand cookies have been a staple on supermarket shelves for nearly one hundred years, yet their ingredients are anything but wholesome. (more…)
05/08/2011
“Secret” Ingredient Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a a lot of kids out there like avocados. They are a healthy, nutrient rich fruit (yes they are a fruit) that are often passed off as a vegetable in sandwiches, salads, and of course, guacamole. Seeing as Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner, I realized those easy prepackaged containers of guacamole would soon be flying off the supermarket shelf. (more…)
05/01/2011
Farmer’s Markets for Kids – A Magical Introduction to Fruits and Vegetables
Spring Break. For many of us those two words are synonymous with freedom: freedom from school, freedom from responsibility, freedom from winter, and freedom from the captive grasp of supermarket produce. That’s right, Farmers Markets are opening in towns across the country, and for those of us here on the west coast lucky enough to have year-round farmers markets, we are now able to enjoy the bounty of spring produce. (more…)
04/24/2011
Dinner and Dye – No More Red 3 or Red 40
Food dye. Well there’s the big red-blue-yellow and pink elephant in the room. Artificial food dyes are currently headliners on our food related news. A couple weeks ago Frito Lay announced they plan to give a more natural makeover to some of their snack products like Lay’s flavored Potato Chips, Tostitos, Multigrain SunChips and Rold Gold Pretzels. And a week later the FDA held hearings to evaluate a request to post warning labels on the labels of products containing these artificial colors. You can read three pertinent news articles on these topics here: (more…)
04/10/2011