It’s the third week of first grade at our house, and already my children are coming home with processed food requests from their friends lunch boxes. Yesterday it was for “those cups of white and brown pudding that everyone has”. Okay, guess we’re going to push pudding cups up on the list of Out of the Box Food explorations. (more…)
You know ’em, those long, sticky, peel-and-eat rolls of sweet chemicals your kids love? I just can’t bring myself to call them what they do on the package; “fruit” is just too far off what they actually are. Corn Syrup Roll-up could work. Or how about Artificial Color roll-up? To make matters worse, my kids don’t even want regular roll-ups in their lunch boxes anymore, they want the ones that stretch to nearly a foot long! So is it possible to make foot long real fruit roll-ups? You bet. (more…)
With school starting, I’ve been having a lot of conversations about what to put in our kid’s lunch boxes. This is a very popular topic at the moment. In fact, last week I participated in something called the Lunch Revolution Blog Party hosted on Notes From the Cookie Jar. The Lunch Revolution Blog Party was an opportunity for Food Bloggers to come together from far and wide, offering up their best Lunch Box ideas and recipes. Take a minute to go to Notes From the Cookie Jar and see some of the great ideas for yourself. Believe it or not, there are actually lots of delicious, fresh and EASY lunches out there that don’t involve peeling the top off a compartmentalized box of processed meat. It’s true. (more…)
It’s August and it’s hot. For me, August weekends are traditionally days for sprinklers and popsicles, sparkling pools and chilled watermelon. In fact, life feels pretty close to perfect from the perspective of a shady chaise lounge in August; watching my children play and listening as their laughter echo’s the joy of summer. Ahhh, the sweet month of August. (more…)
As I was preparing for a summer road trip this past week I caught myself humming the old Willie Nelson classic, “On the Road Again” and realized that before my family starting thinking Out of the Box about our food, “on the road” meant stops at fast food restaurants and mini marts for meals and snacks. But now that we’ve turned a “nu”tritious-leaf, I knew I needed to give some thought to what I would provide for my kids who would inevitably mark the hours with shouts of “Are we there yet?” and “I’m hungry.” Hmmm…gotta be prepared. Snacks.
Chocolate has been making a statement in my life a lot lately. No, it’s not by way of Rocky Road in front of The Bachelorette on Monday nights or through Fudge Pops out by the pool in the July heat. Chocolate is continuing to come up both in conversation and in articles I have come across about it’s many health benefits. I have added some articles of interest to the Relevant Reads page which I encourage you to check out. Chocolate in it’s purest form has loads of nutritional benefits. It’s bad rap has been handed to it by impersonators offering hints of chocolate flavor wrapped in corn syrup and sugar.