Croutons – Top Salads with Butane or Bread?
Dinner Table / Healthy Lunch Box Ideas / Kids Food / Lunch Box

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…)

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05/22/2011
Inspiration from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
Dinner Table / For Kids By Kids / Kids Food / Lunch Box

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…)

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05/15/2011
Not Your “Mother’s” Oatmeal Cookies
Kids Food / On the Go / Snacks / Sweet Treats

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…)

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05/08/2011
“Secret” Ingredient Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box / Snacks

“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…)

3 Comments
05/01/2011
Dinner and Dye – No More Red 3 or Red 40
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

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…)

10 Comments
04/10/2011
The Scary Seven: Foods the Experts Avoid
Kids Food

The Scary Seven: Foods the Experts Avoid

Some of you may have seen this article before.  It has floated around Facebook and been passed along in emails.  But in case you haven’t, it’s an article that needs to be read.  According to an article in PREVENTION magazine, there are seven foods that individuals at the forefront of food safety avoid eating.  These foods are as follows: (more…)

4 Comments
04/03/2011
Let’s Talk Turkey: Does Deli Turkey Need Nitrites?
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Let’s Talk Turkey: Does Deli Turkey Need Nitrites?

The answer is NO.  Repeat after me, No nitrites, no nitrites, NO NITRITES!!!  Okay, I just had a flash back to my old cheerleading days.

Turkey deli meat is one of those things that I never really thought too much about.  It’s always been the lean deli protein that came sliced, smoked, honeyed or roasted and when piled on whole wheat bread with mustard and veggies became my healthy lunch.  Or was it?  During this Out of the Box Food journey I’ve been looking more carefully at everything, and that needed to include turkey.  I tended to choose turkey over ham because it was supposed to be healthier, right?  Well, I’m learning that it’s not just about the product itself, but how the product is cured and what might be added to it that makes the difference. (more…)

5 Comments
03/27/2011
Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Broth
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Broth

How many times do you find yourself cleaning out the produce drawer of your fridge and kicking yourself for not actually using those veggies you were certain you’d use, “this time”?  It happens to me a lot.  I overbuy the beautiful produce I see at the farmer’s market, use only half a bunch of celery or undoubtedly leave half an onion sitting wistfully softening in the drawer.  Don’t beat yourself up.  You can use those leftover veggies to replace something you’d normally buy at the market, but without all the added sodium.  Something you can use to make soup, risotto, mashed potatoes, sauces…the possibilities are endless.  Vegetable broth. (more…)

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03/13/2011
Chicken Broth: What’s in a Can?
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Chicken Broth: What’s in a Can?

I can’t tell you how many of the recipes I make call for chicken stock or broth.  It’s an ingredient I use more often than I can keep track of, yet I was unaware what I was actually adding to my dishes every time I cracked open a can or poured generously from a carton.  Sodium.  And lots of it. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that individuals consume less than 1500mg of sodium per day (that is just over 1/2 tsp of salt).  Yet some varieties of packaged chicken stock and broth contain more than 850mg sodium per serving! (more…)

5 Comments
03/06/2011
Healthy School Lunch: A Hard Sell to Kids?
Dinner Table / Kids Food / Lunch Box

Healthy School Lunch: A Hard Sell to Kids?

An article came out this week in the Chicago Tribune telling the story of drastic changes made to the Chicago Public Schools’ hot lunch program and the less than stellar response to the changes.  The article entitled, “You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can’t make them eat“, reaffirmed the importance of what we do at Out of the Box Food:  make fresh food palatable to kids.   Now, I am a believer of kids eating real food, not just kid food like macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets (even if they are made from scratch or without added chemicals).  But realistically, as this Chicago Tribune article states, we need a middle ground.  A transition.  We have to reach those kids who think they only like macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets.  Since the goal is to get them to actually learn to like fresh, I’d rather see a child tuck into a bowl of fresh macaroni and cheese made with fiber-full macaroni, fresh cheese and milk then have them stare blankly into a bowl of Quinoa and Kale.  At least to begin with.  Let them first learn to like fresh. (more…)

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02/27/2011