Lunch Box Idea Share & Contest Winner Announced
Healthy Lunch Box Ideas / Kids Food

Lunch Box Idea Share & Contest Winner Announced

We received many wonderful healthy lunch box ideas over the last few weeks!  I have been utilizing  these new ideas for my kids and have posted them on the Lunch Box Loop – Healthy Lunch Box Ideas page for all to reference when we’re looking for a fresh, new idea.  I have also posted them here to grab your interest!  Our Lunch Box Idea Share is always going, simply visit our Lunch Box Loop – Healthy Lunch Box Ideas page and enter your healthy lunch box idea to share with our readers.  We appreciate your suggestions! (more…)

1 Comment
09/11/2011
Kids Food / Lunch Box / On the Go / Snacks

Foot Long Fruit Roll up – Recipe Update: Frozen Berries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Lunch box idea swap and Giveaway is still going strong.  Contest ends Saturday September 10th at 11:59pm PST, so be sure to get your ideas in on the contest page for a chance to win an Applegate prize package worth $40.00.

We’ve been making lots of these Foot Long Fruit Roll ups lately.  After my son asked, “Why don’t you make all the stuff on your blog for us more often?” I realized that in an effort to come up with new ideas, I had gotten away from the tried and true recipes my sons love. (more…)

79 Comments
09/04/2011
Lunchable vs. Lunch – Plus Don’t Miss a chance to win our Applegate Farms Giveaway
Kids Food / Lunch Box

Lunchable vs. Lunch – Plus Don’t Miss a chance to win our Applegate Farms Giveaway

“The Lunchable”.  What can I say about those two little words that emerge as the never ending thorn in my side every school year.  Those little compartmentalized boxes of “food” somehow creep into conversation and head the list of requests from my boys when planning school lunches.  My boys want to peel slices of pressed, chemical filled “meats and cheeses” out of their cute little compartments and stack them on crackers and call it lunch.  They want that because they see friends eating them at school.  Friends eat them at school because they’re easy to pack.  So what is a mom to do? (more…)

11 Comments
08/28/2011
Kids Food

Back-to-School – Lunch Box Ideas & Contest GIVEAWAY

Goodbye summer, we’ve had a ball.  We’ve enjoyed your long days, warm nights, delicious fruits and vegetables, and especially the extra time you’ve given us to spend enjoying our children.  We’ll miss you.

But back-to-school we go, and into a new year full of learning, fun and surprises.  With school comes for many of us, the dreaded lunch box planning.  Monotony can (and usually does) become an issue around school lunches at our house.  I am constantly trying to invent new ideas for inspired lunches and find myself in need of new ideas throughout the year. (more…)

54 Comments
08/21/2011
Dinner Table / Kids Food

Meatless Monday Family Style: Portobello Sliders

Our family has been trying to eat less meat.  With a husband who eats vegetarian, the cost of free range/organic/grass fed meats and poultry, and the known health benefits to a veggie-centric diet, we have committed ourselves to exploring new ways to make dinners without meat.  But centering meals around vegetables hasn’t been as appealing to the kids as a big, juicy burger – so this new venture has been a challenge. (more…)

6 Comments
08/14/2011
Kids Food / Sweet Treats

The Comfort of a Peanut Butter Pie

There are moments in life when the realization of how fragile we are shifts everything into perspective.  This past week, special friends of the family, Laura, Collene & Courtney Gaugh lost their loving husband/father, Bill Gaugh, a man not quite 49 years old.  Two days later I read that food writer, Jennifer Perillo, whose blog I follow, lost her young husband.  It is times like these that remind us to gather our loved ones close, and remember how important it is to cherish every second. (more…)

2 Comments
08/12/2011
Kids Food / Lunch Box / On the Go / Snacks

In a pickle – Sun Pickles to Make with the Kids

Pickles are a fun food.  They make our lips pucker, are delicious served icy cold and can even be found on a stick!  But when I looked into what’s in many of the jarred pickles, my lips puckered for another reason entirely…artificial colors & high fructose corn syrup – in the DILL pickles.  That’s right.  Many of our go-to brands are in need of a ingredient check. (more…)

7 Comments
08/07/2011
Kids Food / Snacks / Sweet Treats

Real Strawberry Lemonade

What is Strawberry Lemonade?  If we asked the restaurant where we had lunch last weekend, they would tell us it’s lemonade with three pumps of artificially flavored strawberry syrup.  Ugh.  After watching my son slurp down this horrible concoction, I knew I couldn’t let that be his lasting memory of Strawberry Lemonade.  I needed to give him a fresh alternative.

When we got home, I got to work with my kids in the kitchen.  We pulled a basket of strawberries from the fridge, picked some lemons from the tree in the backyard and started mixing.  This is not your average pump-of-strawberry-syrup Strawberry Lemonade.  This thirst quenching treat is chock full of organic strawberries and fresh squeezed lemonade. (more…)

2 Comments
08/03/2011
Fresh Squeezed Lemonade – Just a Pinch of Sugar
Kids Food / Snacks / Sweet Treats

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade – Just a Pinch of Sugar

With summer comes childhood memories of long afternoons running through sprinklers, playing quietly in secret forts underneath the thick shady branches of trees, and hours of endless planning  and construction of the perfect lemonade stand.  Do you also have memories of sitting at the end of a driveway, collecting dimes and the occasional quarter as you poured Dixie cups full of cool lemonade for neighbors and passers by?  I’m not sure how many times I actually followed through, but I certainly remember the planning and thought while underneath the shade of a tree – and I definitely remember drinking most of the profits.

Now that I have my own kids, I know those hours of lemonade stand planning are just around the corner.  But I don’t want to turn to the old frozen-lemonade-from-concentrate standby.  I want to make it fresh and natural.  For the cost of a half dozen lemons and a bit of sugar, you can make fresh squeezed lemonade with your children which will be a healthy part of a fun activity and memory with you. (more…)

2 Comments
07/31/2011