Strawberry Salsa with Cinnamon Chips
It’s strawberry season. Here’s a recipe that’s sure to please! This is a sweet and minty take on salsa, using fruit. Strawberries serve as the base, and your favorite fruit ingredients can be added to make the taste more vibrant and the appearance more colorful. I made this with my Kids Cooking class and we even added starfruits and mangoes, which was extra YUM!! The chips can be made using your favorite whole wheat tortillas. Use the smallest dusting of cinnamon and sugar to add a little flavor...
Read MoreKiwi Strawberry Pizza
This is a VERY simple recipe that incorporates fresh fruit, dairy, and whole grains to make quick snack. This can easily serve main dish for a school lunch but it’s also sweet enough to be a dessert. I love recipes that serve many purposes. Resist the urge to add sweeteners to your puree. If you have nice sweet strawberries, you should not have to have anything. Note the recipe makes several servings, but you may only need one or two at a time. Baby Food Shortcut: If cut into tiny little peices this...
Read MoreBaked Stuffed Apples
I got this recipe from Rachael Ray’s cookbook “Yum-O!” which is a family cookbook that benefits her nonprofit organization Yum-O! Recently ,I got to meet Rachael Ray and interview her about her nonprofit activities which focus on childhood nutrition and healthly eating. She shared her secrets about feeding kids, signed my copy of her Yum-O! cookbook, and even gave a shout out to The Doctor Yum Project on her website! I love this recipe for her “Mom’s Baked Apples”. I made...
Read MoreChocolate Chip Cookie Pie (Vegan and Gluten-Free)
In our quest to keep improving our diet, our family has markedly cut down the sugar we consume (and I try to counsel my patients to do the same). But I have a confession. I LOVE chocolate (it’s a problem my whole family has!) As someone who eat a mostly healthy and increasingly vegetarian diet, I still like to enjoy desserts from time to time and don’t mind indulging in small portions of a rich dessert. However, I have found that with desserts I can find ways to make healthy substitutions (adding...
Read MoreDate Nut Pinwheel Cookies
These date nut pinwheels are a family favorite that we have been making at the holidays for as long as I can remember. These are SUPER delicious right out of the oven, but they also can be stored for several days in a airtight container. They are definitely NOT low fat or low in sugar, but much of the sweetness comes from naturally sweet dates. The dates and nuts make them a bit more nutrient rich that your average Christmas cookie. Kids enjoy the swirl pattern that emerges when you slice the roll of dough into...
Read MorePumpkin Apple Flax Muffin (Gluten Free)
I have lately observed the increase in demand for gluten-free recipes. Gluten is the protein found in wheat, barley and rye. More and more people are being diagnosed with gluten sensitivity, but want to be able to eat some of the recipes they love. I adapted this muffin recipe from one I found on bigeatstinykitchen.com. It uses almond flour instead of wheat flour. Almond flour is pretty pricey, but can be made using blanched almonds and a food processor for a bit less money. I made a few modifications to this...
Read MoreCanning Homemade Applesauce
Apple season is upon us! Making applesauce is a great way to use all those apples you pick at the orchards. Kids love applesauce, but so many of the store-bought varieties of applesauce have loads of added sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup. Making your own means that you control the sugar. Use naturally sweet varieties of apples and you won’t need any sugar at all! Over the weekend we went to our favorite fruit grower at the farmers market and told her we want to make applesauce. She suggested we...
Read MoreFresh Melon Salsa
I recently make this recipe with our kids cooking class. The kids really loved it, and got to work on their knife skills as they chopped all the ingredients. This is a perfect recipe when melons are in season. I served this with tortilla chips and cassava chips (made from a root also known as “yuca”). Blue corn tortillas work well with this salsa and look really pretty against the orange melon. Salsa is a great way to get in some veggies (or fruit, in this case) and is a healthier choice than a...
Read MorePeach Jam
Recently I took the kids to a local peach orchard where we picked the most beautiful, scumptious peaches. In my quest to learn about canning, I decided we would make peach jam to preserve a little bit of summer. I’ve made freezer jam with my mom since I was a kid, and there is nothing like homemade jam, especially on top of a slice of warm, fresh bread. Yum!! Canning is not that hard as long as you have a little time and a few basic tools. We used pint sized jars. Today we made three batches at once which...
Read MoreCanning Homemade Salsa
One of my goals this summer was to learn how to can a few simple produce items. Canning is a great way to preserve the abundance great summer produce, without relying on food in metal cans, which may have Bisphenol A, a compound added to the lining of cans. (There are widely varying opinions about BPA, but some researchers point to its endocrine-disrupting effects, especially in early fetal and childhood development). This recipe uses vinegar to help with preservation so a simple water bath canning does the job...
Read MoreBarbeque Kale Chips
Kale is one of the most SUPER of the superfoods. If you think spinach is good for you, wait until you check out the stats on kale! With about 3 times the calcium, almost 4 times the vitamin A and 9 times the vitamin C per cup compared to spinach, kale is a nutritional powerhouse. We had tons of it in our garden (until recently when the heat and some bugs took it out), so I started making kale chips regularly. These chips are strangely crispy and addictive, but how can you mind, especially knowing how...
Read MoreMango Strawberry Yogurt Cake
My kids (age 9 and 5) made this cake ALL BY THEMSELVES! I just read another great book on French parenting called Bringing up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman. This American author describes her experience raising children in Paris and the observations on the French way of parenting. She describes a culture and government that sets parents up for success in many ways and a calm, authoritative way of raising children that seems second nature to many French parents. Like Karen Le Billon’s book French Kids...
Read MoreYummy Summer Rolls
My sister and I have always loved making summer rolls for family gatherings. They are fresh, easy, and healthy. Recently my friend Cheryl inspired me to make these again when she brought a beautiful dish of summer rolls she had created for a party. I love making these because there is a lot of room to improvise with your favorite summer veggies. This recipe is vegetarian, but you could easily use shrimp, pork, or chicken along with the vegetables. These are also fun to make with kids. They can easily help...
Read MoreEnjoy A Few Girl Scout Cookies with Balance
It’s that time of the year. The Girl Scouts are out selling cookies! The Girl Scouts have an eighty year-old cookie tradition that has blossomed into a seven hundred million dollar business. In fact, the Girl Scout cookie business is the largest girl-run business in America! How do we let our kids (and ourselves) enjoy these special treats at this time of year without going overboard? The reality right now is that one-third of the population of children I see in my practice (and around the nation) is...
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