Healthy Family Hangout

Good Monday morning!  The sun is shining in through the windows on this beautiful start to the first full week of fall.... a great morning for a waffle breakfast!   My kids love waffles!  They also love raisin bread!  Last week while recipe hunting I stumbled upon this neat twist on a waffle breakfast that incorporates both... "Raisin Waffle Toast".  It was a very simple fix that took just minutes to prepare and put on the table.  Raisin Waffle Toast 3 eggs 3 tbsp milk 2 tbsp packed brown sugar 1/4 tsp vanilla extract 6-8 slices raisin bread Heat waffle iron.  Whisk together eggs, milk, brown sugar and vanilla in a shallow dish.  Dip raisin bread into egg mix.  Place in waffle iron, close and grill until golden and baked through. I served the waffle toast with an easy raspberry smoothie.  Christian has a smoothie every morning for breakfast.  It's a great way to get his servings of fruit and diary in one glass.   ...

Today I went to the Torbay Farmers Market with my family to buy vegetables.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  When we got there I saw a farmer with vegetables that were in baskets and plastic bins.  Before we bought the veggies we had some fun. We went inside and looked around.  Mom and dad sampled the sweet and sour turnip & carrot relish.  They liked it and bought a jar.  I waited until we got home to taste it.  It smelled sour.  I tasted it and it was too, too sour!  I think they put too much vinegar and not enough sugar.  Look at my face it looks sour just like the relish.  I look funny. While we were still at the market we went and had some lunch.  We ate healthy all week and today I had a treat.  The men had a little food trailer with pizza cones, chips, and candy bars.  It had a microwave and speakers too.  I had a BBQ chicken pizza cone.  It was cool!  The pizza dough was shaped as an ice ...

This morning for breakfast we decided to try a new smoothie recipe.  We were skeptical because it called for equal parts of milk and water, but we gave it a try anyway. The actual recipe called for 1/3 cup of strawberries and 1/3 cup of raspberries, but Christian had already decided that he wanted to use the frozen mixed berries that were in the freezer.  It was the perfect opportunity to throw in a quick summertime math lesson with fractions.  So he learned that 1/3 + 1/3 = 2/3.  I'm happy anytime we can sneak in math and make it practical and fun.  Cooking is obviously something that Christian is very interested in so I will be sure to start to try to incorporate more math learning into his cooking experiments.  This could be a fun learning and not boring and forced.  Wish me luck!! The kids liked the smoothie and drank it all gone, but Christian said that he liked smoothies better with all milk instead.  He thought that the smoothie was too...

I am absolutely positively in L-O-V-E with Millard's homemade BBQ sauces.  He is not ready to share his recipe just yet, but it has become a staple in our house.  We no longer buy bottle sauces at the grocery store and who knows... maybe one day you'll see Millard's sauces bottled and on the shelf of your favorite store!  :) Earlier in July we had bbq chicken with the Jack bbq sauce slathered all over it.  The chicken was grilled off first and then the sauce was added during the last few minutes.  It was served with some greens and corn on the cob.   Again the greens were seasoned with crushed red peppers and the corn on the cob was boiled first and then placed on the grill to char a little.   Mmm... Mmm... it was a delicious meal!  All it was missing was a slice of corn bread.

Christian was watching a competition cooking show on Food Network with us one night and one of the contestants made a smashed meatball sandwich.  And that was it... Christian had to make one too!  Millard made some homemade rolls.    Christian washed and dried the lettuce.   Here's Alexander showing the pre-made homemade meatballs that we had sitting in the freezer We cooked the meatballs and cut them in half, assembled the sandwich and then placed it all on our Wolfgang Puck Panini Press and smashed it down.  The sandwiches turned out bigger than we planned so we ended up just eating half a sandwich eat with a side salad and putting the rest in the fridge for leftovers. 

Earlier this summer Christian saw the Food Network magazine at the grocery store and just had to buy it.  The front cover showed picture of gourmet hotdogs that looked absolutely delicious.   We know that hotdogs are not the healthiest of things to eat, but we opt for chicken, low sodium dogs and limit to one dog only.  Moderation is the key.  Plus it's tough when trying to keep your child on a healthy diet.  You have to bend a little so that he doesn't feel too restricted.  The recipe called for "cojita cheese".  We searched and searched but could not find any so we substituted with "feta".  We shot a youtube video when Christian was making this hotdog and you will probably notice that the avocado was diced and sitting in a bowl of water.  I had read that doing this allows you to cut the avocado in advance, preventing it from turning that yucky brown.  You will also notice in the video a little slip up of one of the ingredients bei...

In this Youtube cooking show Christian made a Raspberry Smoothie.  It gets a little hard to hear at one point when he turns on the blender and attempts to talk over the noise, but he did awesome!