If you have kids who won’t eat their veggies, one of the best things you can do is hide vegetables in sauces, meats and other dishes. They’ll never know that this tasty mac and cheese recipe harbors a car of carrots! Recipes and image provided by Mealtime.org.
In addition to the base recipe, this mac and cheese dish has three recipe variations for adventurous eaters — Pasta Florentine adds some garlic, spinach and Parmesan cheese; there’s a hint of spicy brown mustard in the Ham and Cheese variation; and Shrimp Parmesan is enhanced with a can of baby shrimp and the …read more

I have heard many people complain that they can’t get their children to eat the “green stuff”? There could be a lot of reasons for this, which we will discuss here and hopefully add a few fun ways to introduce them to your children. Ready?
Get a Name
First, if you are calling veggies, or vegetables “green stuff” your children may not like them. I mean who wants to eat something that sounds disgusting? Try calling them “Veggies” instead of vegetables, it sounds slightly better. It doesn’t sound like you already hate them and are just trying to get them to eat …read more

My friend Sheila was distraught that her son Ned hated vegetables. He wouldn’t touch a single leafy green, and not even brightly colored peppers interested him. When she asked him why he didn’t like vegetables, she was surprised by his response. It wasn’t “They taste icky.” It wasn’t “They’re gross!” Do you know what he said? “You don’t eat them. Why should I?”
True, she hated vegetables. And she expressed this in their household openly, not willing to touch any dish with vegetables because she hated how they tasted. Little did she know her four-year-old was absorbing this all, and took …read more

I think my vegetable garden is almost done for the season, tonight we have a frost alert so I gathered up most of the vegetables that are tender to the cold. I picked most of the peppers, the last of the tomatoes, a couple eggplant, and some watermelon that are just getting full size.

My tomatoes were a bit of a disappointment this year. I had 18 different varieties, some did well, but most did not. I think it’s because our summer was cool, and it never did get very warm.
The peppers on the other hand were in overdrive!  I’ve given …read more

Gardening is often promoted as an inexpensive activity, but in truth it’s not always easy to garden on the cheap. That said there are some areas where you can cut gardening costs big time.

Save your old seeds (check to see if they still work).
Compost for homemade soil – even if your yard is small you can compost. In fact, you can compost indoors if you want.
Don’t buy new – garden tools, gardening books, pots, and so on. Most gardening supplies can be easily found at thrift stores. You can also borrow from or share garden tools with friends. It’s also …read more

Vamp up the usual boiled baby carrots with an orange juice glaze sweetened by a little bit of sugar. It’s something to entice to kids to eat more vegetables with their dinner. Even I as an adult think boiled carrots seasoned with only salt and pepper are boring sometimes so a glaze from time to time wouldn’t hurt.

INGREDIENTS:
half a bag of baby carrots
water for boiling
1/4 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup of water
2 tbsp of butter
2 tbsp of sugar
In one pot, boil the water and baby carrots until they’re fork-tender. Drain the water off and set aside.
In another pot, …read more

While trying to come up with different alternatives to peanut butter and jelly or balogna sandwiches this week, I started thinking about ways I could phase out my kids’ favorite “side dish” — chips!

For me, chips have always been the default go-to for sandwiches or lunch in general, but as the new school year approaches I’ve been trying to re-think and re-plan what goes into my kids’ lunch boxes. Sure, they’ll still get a small bag of chips now and then, but I’m going substitute one of the below ideas several times a week as well!
~ Fresh fruit and vegetables. …read more

This colorful and delicious green beans and cherry tomatoes salad was inspired by Food Network’s Giada De Laurentiis green beans salad recipe. While she also had wax beans (yellow) for an added color, I only used green beans and cherry tomatoes to keep it simple for the kids. The dressing is not hard to make either.
INGREDIENTS:
a bundle of green beans
a pack of red cherry tomatoes
water for boiling
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
sprinkle of red pepper flakes
1 tsp of honey
a drizzle of sesame oil just for taste
sprinkle of dried oregano
sprinkle of dried basil
Boil the water. Add …read more

Today’s seemingly random food holiday is Eat All Your Veggies Day. I would dare say that like many people, I’ve grown to love vegetables. As a kid I wasn’t a huge fan, though I did like things like carrot sticks, or celery with peanut butter (which I got sick from eating too many and haven’t been able to have since!).

It’s hit or miss with my own kids. My youngest loves all vegetables — she sits by the veggie tray at birthday parties eating the raw cauliflower, cucumbers, broccoli and tomatoes. Her twin, however, will only what she absolutely has to …read more

Yesterday we stopped off at our local Farmer’s Market and had a ton of fun. The kids have never been to one of these, I did once when I was in my early twenties but I’ve never lived near an area that did it ever since that time. So hearing they had one in town until the end of May meant we had to at least check it out. I imagined all those fresh fruits and veggies but didn’t expect everything.
When we told the kids where we were going we were asked questions such as:
“Will we see cows? What about …read more