The farmers market has been ripe with beets and strawberries. I love the rich colors of both the golden beets, and the deep red beets, but my kids are certainly NOT fans. Unable to resist these beauties, I found myself needing to figure out a way to use them that the kids would enjoy. (more…)
Crockpot Chicken Stock
Special Equipment: crockpot, quart freezer bags, fine mesh strainer/colander, medium bowl (more…)
Something magical happens when kids get involved in the kitchen. Vegetables become a little less horrible, whining for cheese puffs disappears, and picky eaters become a little less picky. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. (more…)
Fall is back and so is the craving for warm, Sunday morning breakfast treats. But before we hop into the car and head down to the local doughnut shop, or rip open a package of (gasp) Hostess Doughnuts, let’s take a look at what ingredients are actually in (full disclosure) my favorite treat.
Our society has been raised on the Value Meal. The question, “Would you like to add fries and a drink to make it a value meal” has been offered for years as the cheap solution to a “complete” meal. When did we start accepting the $5.00 “Value Meal” into our lives? Was it while we were zipping home after an afternoon of soccer practice, and piano lessons, tired and desperate to feed our families? Was it on the way home from a job which didn’t pay nearly enough? Was it with our friends in high school, turning our spending money into burgers and fries? Or was it even earlier, in the back seat of our parents cars, as a treat for good behavior, or a job well done? The value meal has been around for too long, and today, September 17th, Slow Food USA has challenged our society to take back the value meal and return to the value of fresh, healthy food. (more…)
It’s summer! Across the country, state and county fairs are offering loads of delicious processed foods on sticks. Foods that kids love (and I hate to admit, some of us adults too). Today as my boys and I strolled through the brightly colored booths at the Ventura County Fair, we inhaled the decadence of fried fair treats, creating memories of summer. These are the memories we will eventually go back to on cold November afternoons, encouraging us to take out a box of frozen corn dogs in order to recapture the experience. Hey, why not? Frozen corn dogs are easy, inexpensive, delicious, and some brands are even made with healthy turkey dogs, right? But it’s what lies within the box, underneath the list of thirty seven, no thirty eight ingredients that should snap us back from our sweet memories of summer and encourage us to look for food outside of the box.
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…)
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…)
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…)
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…)