Healthy Family Hangout

Whole grain foods are heart healthy. They are high-fiber, high-protein foods. It's obvious we should include more in our daily diet. Making the switch should be easy enough, souldn`t it ? Choosing that grainy food at the grocery store relies simply on discipline so I guess it's not too difficult to toss the whole grain dry pasta into the shopping cart... but how does it taste? A little while back I had bought "Catelli Healthy Harvest Flax Omega-3 Spaghetti" and it sat in our pantry for weeks. This past Sunday I decided to give it a go. I used Ragu sauce and doctored it up with canned tomatoes, italiano seasoning and frozen veggies (carrots, celery, onion, peppers). The pasta took much longer to cook than the regular stuff, but there was no hurry to eat. My first piping hot bite tasted fine, but as it cooled down to a reasonable eating temperature I didn't like the taste. Christian however loved it! He mopped it up and darn well near licked the plate cle...

Christian is a big seafood fan. If it comes from the water - he will eat it! Mussels are one of his favorites. When he brought a good report card home just over a week ago we told him that we would celebrate on the weekend. Unfortunately we, like many other families, had been sucked into the fast food reward program. Not this time! That Friday after school myself, Christian, and his baby brother Alexander, stopped by the grocery store and bought 4 lbs of mussels to celebrate at home. :) Millard made a melody of mussels, shrimp, and sole. He added garlic, onion, celery and a can of plum tomatoes. It was delicious!! And much better than stuffing Christian with a Happy Meal.

Keeping up with healthy eating is not an easy task. We have been eating reasonably well, but it is tough to break old habits. I caved once in the past bit and grabbed Burger King for dinner for the family. This past Friday evening was beautiful and I really didn't feel like attempting some big meal. I had already had thaw ed some boneless, skinless chicken breast and thought that some sort of sandwich would be ideal. We had all the fixin's for a Greek Pita so that's what I did. I love my Wolfgang Puck Panini Maker and use it for almost everything including to grill chicken. I didn't add any seasoning... just threw them on two at a time. I got together all of the ingredients: Whole Wheat Pita Pockets, diced onion & tomato, sliced black olives, feta cheese and lettuce. For lettuce I always use my lettuce spinner that I bought at Costco some time ago. Christian absolutely loves when I call him to spin the lettuce out. It's like a toy to him. I also used...

This lunch was made a couple of weeks ago. I had done chicken legs in the slow cooker for dinner that night and Christian loved it. I have started making a little extra to have left overs for lunches the next day. I took the chicken off the bone and diced it up to put in a wrap. This time, surprisingly, Christian requested a little mayo on it. I put a very, very thin layer of mayo on the bread and some chicken and rolled it up. I always put a little plastic wrap around the bottom edge just to hold it together for him. I put some baby carrots on the side and he asked for me to pack a peach. We didn't have any peaches so we substituted with a nectarine.

Skewers are a great way to make a kid's meal more fun. Last summer I put near everything on a stick from fruit to brussel sprouts and Christian tried things that he otherwise normally wouldn't. The newest part of our adventure is to find fun, healthy kabob combinations for any meal. A little before St. Patrick's Day Millard brought home these little Shamrock Picks from the Dollar Store. I started using them right away. One night when sorting through the fridge I took a mix bag of leftovers and put together these tortellini-cheese cube-peperoni kabobs. Perhaps the peperoni was not the best of choices, but it was a very small amount so I think we should be ok. I found these neat little wooden skewers at a restaurant supply shop for $1.99/bag and I just had to get them. I made a kabob alternating grapes and cheese cubes... a big hit with Christian! It's so easy to kick up his lunchbox presentation and it takes very little extra time to string a few things on a st...

This is my first attempt of a healthy breakfast for Christian. I tried to follow the guidelines that I outlined in yesterday's post, but I did not have any whole wheat in the house. We have a stash of Eggo's in the freezer so I toasted one, cut in in half and put some ham on it. I served it with orange wedges and milk. Christian was totally impressed and kept thanking me for such a good breakfast. It was too cute. He barely touched his milk though. He rarely drinks anything first thing in the morning... even weekends. While he was eating though I realized that we will definitely need to start getting up a little earlier to allow for breakfast time. I don't know if it has anything to do with breakfast or not but Christian did not seem as hungry for snacks when he got home from school today. We'll see if this becomes a new trend next week.

Yesterday evening when prepping coleslaw for dinner I started to prep Christian's school lunch as well. I cut some matchstick carrots. It only took a couple of extra minutes to do it then while the cutting board was out. Then later I made him a ham & lettuce sandwich on a roll. Sure, whole wheat would've been better, but we only had white. I also washed some grapes and tossed them in.. Very simple, but after school today he said that he had a great lunch. I had to reconfirm that he ate from his lunch box and not from the school cafeteria. But he assured me that mommy had packed a great lunch. :)

I had left-over cucumber cut-out borders from earlier in the week still hiding in the fridge. Millard came up with the idea of cutting cheese in shapes to fit in like puzzle pieces. So that's what I did! We had a long block of cheese that really wasn't cookie-cutter friendly. Long story short... the picture illustrates the cheese pieces that were broken and unused. Added to my grocery list is a more co-operative cheese. Yes, that's raisins on the side. Raisins are a hit or miss with Christian. When I offer them it's a miss. When Nanny offers them they are the best thing since slice bread. So I don't know... we'll see if they get eaten today. Also I made a sandwich with some whole grain thins. I didn't have any lean meat left so had to use mock chicken. Perhaps not the best of choices, but it's winding down to the end of the week and well that's that.

Ok so I have to admit that breakfast at our household during school days had been very rushed and not so healthy. I would always let Christian pick out the oh so common cereal box that we all see advertised on TV. I'd pour a heap of sugary cereal with 2% milk into a bowl and set it on the table. I've obviously been slacking and taking the easy, unhealthy way out. Breakfast is referred to as the most important meal of the day, but somehow I don't think that a bowl full of sugar is what they are talking about. Breakfast is supposed to refuel my child and help boost his brain power for a busy day at school. Recently I've been making a better attempt to start Christian's day out with a healthier meal. I am keeping on my track of incorporating more fruits and because we have a super-sized box of cornflakes in the pantry I figured we'd have to use them up first. At a closer look at the labeling though I realized that the cornflakes aren't so bad compared to...

Every time we go grocery shopping Christian wants to buy ‘Lunchables’. I’ve usually let him pick out one or two, but last night I decided to make our own. I used a ‘Pampered Chef’ cutter and ‘Sociable’ crackers. It only took a few minutes to pick out 8 of the same shaped crackers and to cut the ham and cheese. Daddy helped too by prepping the carrots & celery. I used to give Christian ranch dip to go with his veggies, but he would leave the dip and eat the veggies plain. Works for me.