Fun Food Garnishes for Children

Hope Mason of Spiritual Books gave me the following ideas for garnishing food so that it is more interesting to children.  They make food more fun to look at and them more fun your food is the more likely your kid is to eat it. Use your cookie cutters for something other than making cookies.

Small cookie cutters can be used to press shapes (heart shaped for instance) out of carrots, cucumber coins, apple slices and any other vegetable that can be sliced thinly or flatly. 

Having trouble getting your kid to eat green or red peppers? To add a special touch to a pasta dish take a star shaped cookie cutter and press it into the flesh of slices of red or green pepper. Then place the stars on the plate of pasta to add visual interest. 

To make a vanilla or tapioca pudding more interesting consider drooling a spiral shape on the top of the pudding made out of some kind of fruit puree. Mango puree goes particularly well with tapioca pudding. Mango is also good for kids because it has lots of vitamin A in it. 

To give a glass rim an usual 'frosting' try dipping the wetting the rim of a glass and dipping it in Jell-O powder. This looks especially nice on cocktails. It can also tempt a kid to drink a glass of juice if the rim is sugared with a bright color of powdered Jell-O. 

To add charm to a drink, alcoholic or not, that has pineapple in it try rimming the glass with finely flaked coconut for a unique effect. This look also suits a bowl of chocolate pudding. 

Cucumber balls are a nice surprise in a salad and make a delicious departure from the ordinary. In order to make cucumber balls simply slice a cucumber in half and then use a melon baler to scoop out the contents into ball shapes (exactly the same way you would a melon. 

To make a strawberry fan, use a paring knife to slice thee strawberry from a point slightly below the top stem to the bottom. Continue making thin slits from one end of the strawberry to the other. Gently spread the segments of strawberry apart to create the strawberry fan. 

To make a tomato rose simply pick a tomato of any size. Make sure it is a gel variety like a Roma tomato. Take a very sharp knife and start peeling it like you would an apple. Keep peeling until you have the longest length possible and then coil the peel into a rose shape. Using pink, red and orange tomatoes can create a lovely bouquet for a centerpiece. 

To make carrot curls simply use a vegetable peeler to cut a long strip off of the carrot. Spear each curl with a toothpick and then chill them in hot water until they are ready to use Can't get a kid to drink his milk?  Try garnishing it with a red licorice stick and see what happens. Red licorice goes well with milk.

Should You Get a Breast Lift After Nursing?

 There are many reasons why a woman might consider having a breast lift. Some do it to simply enhance their natural assets but most mothers of a couple of children do it to get rid of post nursing sagging. Simply defined, a breast lift (or mastopexy) is a surgical procedure that temporarily raises, and reshapes sagging breasts. The reason the operation is considered temporary is that there is no surgical operation on earth that can permanently keep breasts safe from the forces of gravity. No matter what any of us do, we are going to age and eventually our breasts will drop. Keep in mind that a breast lift is not the same as getting breast implants. A breast lift raises and tightens the breast area but it does not add bulk or volume. Only a breast implant can raise your breast cup a size or two so this is not the surgery to get if you are looking for larger breasts.  This surgery can, however get rid of 'bologna' breasts. .  If your breasts are extremely long or large you may not be able to get an effective breast list. The fact is that not all breasts may not be able to be fully lifted and the more mass that the plastic surgeon has to deal with; the less likely the operation is to be fully successful. Plastic surgeons will also question your motivations for getting a breast lift because they know that this procedure may have varying results on different women. If you have a history of depression, obsessive compulsion or disorders to do with self-image or self-esteem you may not be a good candidate for this type of surgery. Keep your expectations realistic as the operation is not a magic bullet that will fix other problems, such as make a dead beat Dad pay his child support. You may also not be a good candidate for a mastopexy if you are expecting to have more children. Most women seek a breast lift because pregnancy and nursing have caused their breasts to lose volume and the skin to lose tension and elasticity. If you are planning to have more children, the results of the breast lift may be very temporary as your breasts will simply start sagging all over again during child rearing. A breast lift is considered to major, invasive surgery. If you are planning to have the operation plan on being out of commission for at least a month.  This alone can wreak havoc with a busy mom's schedule.   The surgery is also performed under general anesthesia. As with any surgery, a breast lift does have its risks. These include infection, bleeding and cardiac arrhythmia.  You are not a good candidate for this type of surgery if you are a smoker or have an autoimmune disease. It is also crucial to realize that all breast lifts leave wide seam like scars from the nipple to beneath the breast.  The operation can also leave you with unevenly positioned nipples and keep in mind too that it can also affect nursing if you plant to have kids in the future.