Making Veggies and Fruits Easy to Eat

One of the biggest challenges for me has always been to make vegetables and fruits more attractive for kids to eat.
One of my more successful recipes is actually out of a really old Betty Crocker cookbook for kids called 'Ants on a Log'

Ants on a Log
Fill celery with peanut butter and stick raisins along the top. Can use cheese, cottage cheese, tuna, or egg salad as filler.
Then there are apple cookies. There is no dough in this recipe and this is one of those recipes that can help keep a fat kid's weight down.

Apple Cookies
Core whole apple and slice in circles. Fill core hole, or frost apple cookies, with peanut butter and raisins.
Of course the more food does not look like food the more appealing to akid it is as well. This is another Betty Crocker from the sixties type dish for kids.

Candle Salad
Tear and arrange lettuce on a plate. Top with a pineapple ring. Place banana (cut off ends) in the hole of the pineapple so it stands like a candle. Add a cherry or carrot curl for a flame
My kids love everything that is bad for them including French fries and cheesies. This dish is like a combination of both worlds and it is a lot healthier for them than junk food.

Cheesy Potato Sticks
Wash 1 1/2 lbs. potatoes thoroughly; do not peel. Cut lengthwise into quarters and then cut each quarter into thirds. Coat potatoes with 2 tbsp. melted margarine. Combine 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs, 1/3 cup parmesan cheese, 1/4 tsp. paprika, and 1/4 tsp. garlic powder. Roll potatoes in mixture. Place potatoes in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until crispy on the outside. Divide into six 1/2 cup portions and serve immediately.
One way I get my kids to consume potassium, which is good for their nerves and brain, is to serve them bananas in this tasty, fast and easy to prepare pudding.

Instant Banana Pudding
Mash 3 small ripe bananas completely (little ones don’t like lumps) with a fork in a small bowl or in a blender. Add 1 1/2 cups of applesauce. Stir in 2 tbsp. of vanilla yogurt. Place in small paper cups.

Yogurt Sundae
Place a tablespoon of vanilla yogurt into each of 6 clear plastic cups. Cover with a layer of Cheerios (or other low-fat cereal). Then cover with a layer off sliced bananas and strawberries. Repeat the layers until the ingredients are used up. Children can build their own parfaits.
I admit that the above recipe is more like a breakfast dish but it can do double duty as a desert too.

 


Fabric Deal of the Day

Healthy Sugar Substitutes

My kids have sweet tooths and so do I and my husband. Still we all know how sugar is supposed to be bad for you.
The first thing that you have to do is cut the level of refined sugar that you take on board every day. This means that you must cut right back on sugar rich foods such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, jellies and the like and if you currently ladle sugar all over your breakfast cereal in the morning, stop doing it right now.
In addition, if you take sugar with your tea or coffee, try to wean yourself off sweetening your drinks or if this is something that you cannot imagine doing, try a natural sweetener like stevia or sucanat as alternative.
The first of these natural sweeteners is somewhat controversial in that it is approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement but not as a sweetener. Nevertheless, even though it is a little expensive, the extreme sweetness of stevia means that a little goes an awful long way, so the cost per cup of tea or coffee is probably no different to cost of the sugar you are currently buying.
On the other hand, sucanat is a one-for-one direct replacement for processed sugar and as always, there are plenty of places on the net where you can obtain both of these substances.
The point about having too much sugar in your diet is that not only does all of that instant energy tend to get piled on as fat if it is not used, processed sugar is bad for your immune system and particularly for your skin. Consequently, if you consume too much processed sugar or products made from sugar, it is pretty much a given that you are going to suffer boils and other skin problems.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that you have to cut all sweet foods from your diet, but what you should do is replace the sweets that you used to use with natural sweet substances wherever possible. For example, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is an essential of any well-balanced diet, and if you want to boost your immune system, then you can replace some of the sweetness that you have lost with the sweetness of fruit.
Furthermore, there are lots of other entirely natural sweet substances that you can use to satisfy your sweet tooth. The sweet syrup that is commercially extracted from Agave comes in three different variations, ranging from a ‘light version' that has little traceable taste of the plant (just sweetness) to the version that carries a noticeable taste of the plant itself.
You then have reliable old standbys like maple syrup as well as less known but entirely natural sweeteners such as barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrate and sorghum syrup.
There is also honey with some varieties such as manuka honey from New Zealand having acknowledged antibacterial qualities as well as being stunningly sweet as well. Indeed, as you can read on the website, the antibacterial qualities of this particular honey are so pronounced that you can even apply it to wounds for its antibacterial qualities!