One thing that is constantly lingering in my mind, throughout the day, is what we are going to eat for dinner, what to make for breakfast the next morning, and what to pack for my daughter’s lunch.  I mean eating is one of the pleasures that we have in life.  After awhile, we start to run out of things to cook for our family, and meals start to become redundant.  My husband is a professional chef and yes, even our family has repeat meals, probably because I’m in charge of our household meals.  Since I am always trying to come up with new creative meals, I wanted to share some of my favorite recipes.  I found a lot of these recipes online and converted it and tweeked it to my taste.

Breakfast: Cashew Butter French Toast

INGREDIENTS

• 4 (1 inch thick) slices of Country White Bread
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• Earth Balance or oil for frying
• Maple syrup
• Cashew Butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Slice bread crosswise so that each slice is about 1-inch thick. Cut larger slices into halves or thirds, if desired. Set aside.
2. In a shallow mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and soymilk.
3. Quickly dip slices (do not soak) in egg mixture and cook until golden brown on both sides.
4. Soften the cashew butter in the microwave oven. Put it on one side of the toast and serve with warm maple syrup.

Lunch: My Daughter’s favorite PB & Apple Sandwich

INGREDIENTS

• 2 slices whole wheat bread
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter, or to taste
• 1 small apple – peeled, cored and shredded

• 1 (8 ounce) package spaghetti
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 4 (4 ounce) salmon fillets
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

DIRECTIONS

1. Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the spaghetti, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 12 minutes. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water. Drain well in a colander set in the sink.
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Place onion and garlic in the skillet in an even layer then lay salmon fillets on top. Place a lid on the skillet and cook the salmon until it flakes easily and the onions are tender. Flake all of the salmon. Season with salt and pepper, then reduce the heat to medium. Toss the spaghetti, tomatoes, and basil with the salmon. Stir in some of the pasta water if the pasta becomes dry.

Now get your aprons on and start cooking!  Hope these recipes can be enjoyable to your family as it is for mine. For other healthy tips, recipes, and information, visit http://www.momlogic.com/eating_right_kids/.

(Disclosure Notice: I have been hired by Warner Brothers to participate in the Looney Tunes Eating Right Kids Program.)

Shopping with an energetic toddler and a newborn is a difficult task at hand.  The second we walk into the grocery store, we are greeted by the produce department. With vibrant colors galore, my daughter grabs at everything she can lay her hands on.  In order to make my shopping experience a more manageable one, I had to figure out a way that I could keep my daughter under control, while I was also taking care of the needs of my newborn.

Since I always make our trips to the Farmers Market an educational one, I decided to carry that over to the grocery stores.  Instead of letting my daughter get loose, to grab at everything in sight, she can pick one thing and tell me about it. For example, she will pick up the baby carrots and say,”These are orange and they are good for my eyes.” Then she gets to move on to the next food item. After awhile, you will notice that you are learning more about what your child knows, and also educating them on some new things.  Since its interactive and very visual, it becomes a fun experience for both you and your child.

Making a grocery trip into an educational adventure, I have also learned a couple things in keeping our meals healthy.  It reminds me of what is healthy and what is not.  From there, I may pick a potato over packaged potato chips or brown rice over white rice.  Little subtle changes make the biggest difference in our daily lives.

My daughter loves grocery shopping because she loves to talk about food items and she also likes to ask a lot of questions.  Ever since we have incorporated the learning aspect of grocery shopping, my daughter has been interested in helping me cook in any way she can.  Moreover, since she helps with the cooking, she is more interested in eating what’s on her plate, rather than running to the freezer and asking for some ice cream.

Grocery can be fun, you just have to make it your own.  You have to see what works for your child and from there, make it a fun learning experience. For other healthy tips, recipes, and information, visit http://www.momlogic.com/eating_right_kids/. Momlogic’s nutrition expert, Haylie Pomroy will be answering reader questions about nutrition. You are welcome to submit your questions to her and she will post answers starting this week.

(Disclosure Notice: I have been hired by Warner Brothers to participate in the Looney Tunes Eating Right Kids Program.)

Sometimes being parents, we feel in control as well as out of control, when it comes to our children’s diets.  We want our children to take in all five food groups and make sure they get enough nutrients to perform well at school.  We want to make sure that they make smart choices independently without having us hovering over them as they make simple but impactful life decisions. A lot of times, we prepare a healthy breakfast and dinner, but the mystery lies in the lunchroom? Did they eat my healthy turkey sandwich with apple or did they run to the lunch line opting for a greasy cheese pizza and some oil soaked fries?

I know growing up and having my own adolescent days sitting in a school’s lunchroom, I didn’t always eat the most healthiest.  My mom did a good job in raising us to eat healthy foods, but when you see pizza, fries, garlic bread, chocolate cake, hot dogs, hamburgers, and other not so healthy foods, sometimes it’s hard to resist.  I distinctly remember in my junior high days, my mom would pack me a sandwich filled with avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and some turkey.  However, when it was lunchtime, I was first to run into the line to pay my 50 cents for a garlic bread. Eating with your peers and in a setting other than your home does pose some challenges to healthy eating.

Since my daughter is in preschool, she takes a packed lunched everyday.  Although she eats a good breakfast and dinner, her lunch has been my main concern on a daily basis.  One good thing is that when she doesn’t eat something or does not finish it, the school sends it right back home.  I am able to see what she ate and what she didn’t.  From there, I go back to the drawing boards and tweak her lunch.  I found what works is to incorporate one of her favorite snacks with each lunch.  I just take it in strides. She now eats half of her sandwich versus not eating any of it at all, by including one of her favorite snacks.

Some of my daughter’s favorite snacks are carrots with ranch dip, strawberries, grapes, multigrain crackers with peanut butter, potato chips, and goldfish.  As you can tell, my daughter’s favorite snacks range from the healthy to not so healthy.  I don’t completely eliminate any of her snacks.  My daughter knows that when she does get her potato chips or goldfish, she has to eat her turkey avocado sandwich.  She also knows that when I give her mac and cheese, she will have to give a beet salad a try.  It’s a matter of balancing and making it work for you and your child.  Substitution is also great when giving higher fat foods, such as using low fat/non fat chedder cheese for mac and cheese.

Healthy eating is a lifestyle and you and your child can make choices and collaborate to come up with the most fitting lunch for them.  It takes patience and team work, but at the end of the day, you have a healthy child who is picking up good habits in making smart conscious choices.

Momlogic’s nutrition expert, Haylie Pomroy will be answering reader questions about nutrition.  You are welcome to submit your questions to her and she will post answers starting the week of September 14th.  You can submit questions to eatingright@wb.com.  For other healthy tips, recipes, and information, visit http://www.momlogic.com/eating_right_kids/.

(Disclosure Notice: I have been hired by Warner Brothers to participate in the Looney Tunes Eating Right Kids Program.)

Growing up, I was raised in a pretty healthy household. I did have the occasional junk food when it was appropriate, such as friend’s birthday parties, family gatherings, etc.. However, having children of my own, I realized that I ate healthy because my parents ate healthy, and that’s all I knew since the time I was born.  With that in mind, I knew I had to be a good example for my children. I can’t tell my children to healthy when I am filling up on junk.  Our children follow our lead, and we definitely have to set a good example because they will eat what we eat.

Shockingly, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, and the number of overweight and obese children in 10 to 17 year olds are at or above 30 percent in 30 states. With that being said, most of these children grow up to become obese adults with all sorts of weight related health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure.  Being a parent myself, this worries me greatly because what my children eat can be greatly affected by what their peers eat.  For example, if my daughter is eating a whole wheat avocado sandwich with blueberries and her friends are eating chicken nuggets with cheetos, she might feel like an outsider and want to convert her eating habits.

When trying to teach my children about healthy eating choices, I lead by example.  I found that to be the easiest because my 3 year old, looks up to me, and she mimics my every move.  If I eat grapes, she wants to eat it.  When I indulge in a cupcake, she is right there by my side.  My family and I shop fresh.  We go to our local farmers market to buy our fruits and vegetables.  While we do our shopping, my daughter walks around sampling all of California’s finest.

When my daughter was just eating within the confines of our household, she ate really healthy with the occasional snacks that would be brought by grandparents and our own friends.  We did not have any problems trying to get her to eat healthy because all we had were healthy foods.  However, once she went to preschool, it was a different story.  She wanted to eat what her friends were eating.  What’s sad was that most of them were eating non-healthy foods.  Of course, I had to figure out ways to feed her healthy (refer back to post on August 25th), but more importantly I had to ask her why and listen.

One day, when we went to the farmer’s market, we made it an educational day.  Everytime I would buy something, I would explain what sort of benefit it would have on our health.  For example, when we bought carrots, I said it was for our eyes and for our vision.  With every vegetable and fruit, my daughter was being educated and she was having fun.  After that trip, she started to make associations between food items and her health.  Eating should be fun, and by teaching her by example, she can understand what sort of impact healthy eating has on her health.

For me, leading by example and showing the impact that food has on health, has taught my daughter to make healthy eating choices.  I don’t shun junk food, but I try to steer my daughter to a healthier alternative.  If she wants a bag of potato chips, I have her get the baked chips, and if she wants chocolate chips cookies, we get ones that are not completely fat ridden.  Showing her that she can eat those snacks and still maintain a healthy eating habit is really important in showing her choices and options.

Sometimes making healthy choices is not as simple as 1-2-3. If you have any questions, advice, or want to get some healthy recipes, please visit http://www.momlogic.com/eating_right_kids/.

(Disclosure Notice: I have been hired by Warner Brothers to participate in the Looney Tunes Eating Right Kids Program.)

Making sure your family eats healthy can be as easy or hard as you make it.  I try to simplify everything because it makes me want to eat healthy.  Stressing over daily meals and it’s nutritional values can lead to discouragement and an all out strike on healthy food. When I go grocery shopping, I make sure I buy fruits, veggies, some sort of protein, and grain.  I don’t buy around recipes because for me, I generally cannot follow recipes and anything too time consuming means it will never be made!

With all that being said, I definitely go through a lot of challenges when it comes to healthy eating. My husband and I eat on the healthier side, and we occasionally indulge in the non-healthier choices as well.  However, the problem lies with our beautiful 3 year old princess.  When she was younger she would eat so healthy.  I literally thought she was going to be a raw foodist.  She would eat freshly bought uncooked corn, right out of the husk.  She ate organic blueberries, raw jicama, lettuce leaves, anything and everything that was connected to healthy eating. That being said, earlier this year she was introduced to a thing called “preschool.” I am pretty sure this is where a lot of you moms can relate to my challenges.

Once she started preschool, I continued to pack her a very healthy lunch.  There was always one component from each food group.  For example, I would have strawberries, peanut butter sandwich (my daughter does not like jelly), and baby carrots.  I prefer filling up her water bottle with filtered water from our house.  Her lunch started out like that and then eventually everyday she would bring back a part of her lunch that was not eaten. Last week, I got her lunch back, just the way I had packed it, nothing had been eaten.  Of course, as a mother, I freaked out.  I know how energetic my daughter is and to think that she had only eaten “nothing” gives me a reason for concern. I asked her why she did not eat her lunch and she would just tell me she didn’t like it.  So I asked her what her friends at school brought and she said that they brought a turkey or cheese sandwich, goldfish, potato chips, and juice.  For me, the added junk food with the sandwich does not sound healthy.  So I did an experiment and packed her a turkey sandwich, a pack of goldfish, and some juice.  When she brought back her lunch, she still didn’t eat her sandwich, but what she did finish were her pack of goldfish and the juice. Go figure!

Carrots with Fat Free Ranch Dip

I went back to the drawing boards.  So I took the healthier lunch that I usually packed her, got some cookie cutters, and then shaped her sandwich like hearts and stars.  I also got a package of baby carrots that had Bugs Bunny on it (can be found at Safeway stores, which includes Vons, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Dominick’s, Genuardi’s and Carrs).  This time around I got her lunch bag and she ate everything.  Needless to say, it’s been challenging, but I guess it’s trial and error. If you want information on healthy recipes and more, please visit http://www.momlogic.com/eating_right_kids/.  Safeway is also offering a discount with the Club Card at your local participating store.

“Tasty Tip”- What are your favorite ways to get kids to eat their fruits and veggies?

(Disclosure Notice: I have been hired by Warner Brothers to participate in the Looney Tunes Eating Right Kids Program.)