Baby Snack Time!

I must admit, I have been a little remiss of late posting ideas for baby food.  Now that my son is almost two (!), I have moved on to different meal ideas.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t have ideas for the babes though.  Don’t forget to look at the categories at the side for ideas and send me a note/comment if you have any baby food questions or ideas!

A great snack from 8 months on!

Brown Rice Balls are a great snack for babies, toddlers, kids and adults.

Easy to make, easy to eat, once your little one can grab food with his or her fingers, these are a go!

For older kids I serve these with tomato sauce for dipping.

The trick to making these is really based on the kind of rice you buy.  The only rice I have found that works for these is: Lundberg’s Brown Sweet Rice. This rice cooks up sweet and sticky.  Cook up the rice according to directions and with wet hands roll them into little balls.

No other rice will do!

Serve as is or with a dipping sauce of your choice!  This rice is also great if you are into making your own sushi.  Another thought I have had, but haven’t tried, is to put a little green pea in the middle of the rice ball.  Yum!

Blog Fave:  This week I have to tell you about www.weelicious.com.  I have been following Catherine’s blog since I have been making & blogging about my own baby food.   She has some great ideas, so check it out!

Planning Breakfast and Lunch

So I think I have covered planning dinners quite thoroughly, however there is something to be said about planning for healthy breakfasts and lunches.  I have posted recipes for pancakes, easy salads, etc.  Check them out by using the search function or category list.  Here are my tips & ideas for healthy breakfasts and lunches…

Breakfast - The most important meal of the day, especially for kids.  It gives them the energy to make it pleasantly until naptime.  If your little one is getting cranky, it is snack time!

• Simple breakfasts include: French Toast; a smoothie served with cereal; fruit with yogurt and toast, eggs and toast, muffin with smoothie
• Try and pair a protein (eggs, yogurt, cheese) with a carbohydrate (whole grains, fruit, vegetables).  This ensures that your child’s energy lasts a lot longer as the protein slows the absorption of the carbohydrate
• Save your weekend breakfast leftovers.  Wrap up pancakes and waffles and freeze them; they toast up beautifully in the morning.
• Make pancake batter up the night before and store it in the fridge over night.  It is easy to heat up the pan and cook them up in the morning.

• Try these recipes too… Pumpkin Pancakes…  Veggie-Cheese Pancakes… Laurie’s Famous Granola… Fruity Oats… Rice & Shine… Peachy Morning Muffins

Lunch – leftovers from dinner the night before make a great lunch, of course.  But what if you haven’t any leftovers?

• Suped-up Grilled Cheese – I have always loved the grilled cheese.  Make your child’s grilled cheese even better than before.  Use whole grain bread and real cheese, butter not margarine.  Try adding thinly sliced apples, slices of avocado or pesto.  Serve it with an organic ketchup (much lower in sugar) or dip it in tzatziki.
• Soup and Toast - sometimes find it hard to serve soup to anyone under 4; but put on a good bib and encourage your child to dip the toast in the soup.  Soup (especially homemade) is full of nutrients.
• Brown Rice Salad – this is my personal favourite, I take it to work all of the time.  My son seems to like it too!  Cook up brown rice the night before and let it cool overnight.  In the morning, or before lunch, finely chop up some veggies; whatever you can find in your fridge; broccoli, peppers, green beans, etc.  For little ones really chop them up small.  Add some homemade salad dressing and you have a great nutritious lunch.  By the way all the chic lunch spots are serving up these ‘bowls’ and charging a lot of money.  Make it yourself; it tastes just as good.  Here’s a link to some great salad dressings: http://domesticaffair.blogspot.com/2006/05/you-can-make-friends-with-salad.html

• Here are some of my favourite past recipes for lunch… Laurie’s Egg Rolls…Quinoa Cakes… Baby Mama Quesadilla…  Baby Mama Quinoa & Broccoli Salad…

The Martha Experiment

Last week I decided to try a meal-planning experiment with Martha Stewart.

I occasionally pickup her magazine ‘Everyday Food’ at the grocery store.  It is a small zine, temptingly placed by the cash register. I have always found that the recipes within are generally healthy, fresh and easy to prepare.  There is also sometimes a ‘Grocery Bag’ section.  This section has 5 recipes, a grocery list and list of prep activities for Sunday to make sure you are ready throughout the week to throw together some healthy, fresh meals.  I recommend you check it out!

Blog-Fave This Week:  Simple Mom – I like to think of this mom as the holistic spiritual version of Martha.  Her blog covers relationships, frugal living, whole foods, kids, money management, organizing, productivity & taking care of yourself.  Check out her blog simplemom.net

Last week I went online and perused the Weekly Dinner Planner section on the Martha Stewart website.  This is similar to the magazine.  There are 12 weeks worth of recipes and a grocery list for each week.  After much discussion, my husband and I chose the one-pot comfort week.  This week of menus promised few dishes to wash (great because our dishwasher aka husband, can only take so many!) and healthy meals.

So now that the week has passed the question is… did it work? I have to say… not really

Right from the get-go it was difficult to find a meal plan that we both liked.  So we made a few changes.

• We changed some ingredients to make it more of a whole grain meal – by using brown rice pasta and brown rice instead of white
• We added more vegetables.  I found the vegetable content low.  For example the Pork Tenderloin and Fennel meal was nice but we added broccoli and carrots to round it out a little
• The portion sizes were HUGE.  This was good because of the leftover situation, but some meals we just didn’t cook everything up and we still have a lot of groceries left in the fridge.  I just hope we can get through everything before it goes bad; I hate wasting food.

Here is the summary of each meal and whether it worked or not…

Monday: Spinach & Prosciutto Lasagna - Husband doesn’t like prosciutto, so it became a ground turkey lasagna.  This made it a lot more work to prepare.  On Sunday evening, I was cursing the amount of work to create lasagna, the prosciutto version would have been easier for sure.  By the way there are brown rice lasagna noodles that do not need to be cooked.  However my lasagna was excellent, and made for some good lunches.

Tuesday: Spicy Coconut Chicken Casserole – we couldn’t find the key ingredient (Thai Red Curry Paste), I have used it before but couldn’t find it this week.  Instead I made a chicken curry in the slow cooker using a recipe from http:crockpot365.blogspot.com.

Wednesday: Open-Faced Burgers with Horseradish Sauce & Green Beans - The burgers and green beans were good.  To be honest, I doubt the Martha burger recipe was used because my husband is an expert burger maker.  Nice idea for a mid-week meal though.

Thursday: Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Fennel and Garlic (+ Steamed Broccoli and Carrots) – Excellent!  I have never liked fennel before but I found the Roasted Fennel delicious!  I thought this worked out well.  It was easy to prepare, was tasty and we tried something new!  The only downside was the size, 2 tenderloin and 4 fennel bulbs?  Luckily we used our better judgement for this one and made it more proportional for our family.

Friday:  Quickest Mushroom-Barley Soup – never made it.  Friday is pizza night at our house and while I tried to sell the idea of pizza and soup it never sold, besides I didn’t feel like cooking it up on Friday night.  Perhaps another day.

My verdict?

I like the idea and actually this week we perused some recipes on www.mealsforyou.com and another system I am curious to try is www.plantoeat.com.  Both of these websites help you pick recipes and create a shopping list. Check them out!  And while Martha’s system didn’t work for us, I still love her recipes, they are simple, tasty and (with a few extra veggies) healthy.  I will always check out her site & magazines for ideas.

I have really found that planning meals is easy and worthwhile; be it the money saved or the lack of stress of wondering what to cook.  If you have found a system that works for you, I would love to hear it and share it!

The Vegan Lunch Box Review

Read my review of ‘The Vegan Lunchbox’ by Jennifer McCann. The author kept a blog where she photographed her son’s lunches for a year; this cookbook is a compilation of these meals and many more… Read my review at jae steele’s blog http://domesticaffair.blogspot.com/

How timely based on my current Meal Planning focus!  Thanks Jennifer for a helpful book for moms and thanks again jae for the opportunity to review for your blog!

Happy eating everyone!

New Year, New Newsletter

I have posted by first newsletter of the year!

My monthly newsletter comes out the Monday closest to the 15th of the month.  If you are interested in getting this in your inbox, send me a note: lkm.nutrition@gmail.com.

In the meantime read my 5 tips for making 2010 a healthier year!

HEY!  One of my favourite blogs simplemom.net is giving away copies of a great new book: Steady Days: A Journey Toward Intentional, Professional Motherhood Check it out!

Meal Planning

Blueberry Masala Muffin (recipe below!)

For the month of January, I thought I would focus on meal-planning.  Last week I talked about the basic guidelines for family meals that our family follows.  This week I will share a few things I have learned about meal planning.  Next week I’ll fill you in on my Martha Stewart experiment!

Meal Planning is helpful if you are a busy parent and are on a budget.  Figuring what you want to eat for the week then putting together a master shopping list was probably a normal practice for our mothers and grandmothers (Home Ec 101 perhaps?).  Today with all of the convenience foods and take-out some people don’t even think about it anymore.  Not to mention that many of us are working outside of the home or are busy driving kids from here to there.   Since I don’t like ‘convenience’ foods – with all of the packaging, processing and preservatives I don’t find these foods particularly ‘convenient’, and since I don’t have a microwave (! gasp!), and since I want my family to eat whole fresh foods, meal planning is my saving grace. *note: i’m definitely not the guru of meal planning, what i share below has worked for us… most of the time *

We use a white board for our meal planning

Writing It Down On Saturday, my husband and I discuss what we want to eat for the week.  We peruse recipes for something new or plan on some family favourites.  I then write down the ingredients we need, after checking my pantry, and create our master shopping list.  We write our meals on the white board because it helps us both know what to cook/prepare each night.

What meal?  What day? When planning the meals we consider who will be home when and if we have any commitments.  Generally Wednesday is Crock Pot night, but if I am going out on Tuesday night, that’s probably a better night for Crock Potting!

New Blog Fave: A Year of Slow Cooking… This mom cooked everyday for a year and shared her recipes.  Check it out!  http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

F.F.S A Fend for Self meal is usually once a week, often on the weekends.  We can always whip something up for our son, but usually there is a night when my husband & I don’t want the same thing, or to even cook, so we fend for ourselves from the leftovers in the fridge & cupboard.

Grocery Listing On the fridge I keep a list of disappearing staples, when I start to run out of pumpkin seeds, I write it down for next time.   This includes toilet paper, flour, anything.  When I put together our Master Shopping List I incorporate the missing staples.  I also determine (from the master list) if there is some fresh food that will need to be picked up mid-week.  I usually put that list on the white board with a magnet so I remember what fresh fruit & veg I need to pick up on Wednesday.

Bulk Baking We all like baked goods, so I like to bake up a double batch of muffins once a week.  I found one dozen just didn’t cut it around our house; if my husband and I each take one muffin to work everyday, that’s 10 right there, and my son LOVES my homemade muffins, so a double batch it is!  I freeze the muffins  and take some out every-other day.  Check out my recipe below for Blueberry Masala Muffins. This is a double batch & bakes one regular sized dozen and a dozen mini-muffins for the little guy.

If you have any tips for meal planning, I would love to hear what they are!  Good luck with the meals this week!

Blueberry Masala Muffins

This recipe is doubled to make a 12 regular sized muffins and 12 mini muffins.  You can easily half the ingredients for a single dozen.  This recipe is good for a child over 1-year who has been exposed to eggs.

• 1/2 C sunflower oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 C quick cook oats
• 1 C plain yogurt
• 1 C milk (cow, almond, rice or soy)
• 1 +1/3 C brown sugar
• 3 T honey
• 1 +1/2 C light spelt flour
• 1+1/2 C whole spelt flour
• 2 T baking powder
• 2 t baking soda
• 2 t garam masala (for description and/or subsitution go to the ingredients page)
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t salt
• 1+ 1/2 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• Sunflower seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 deg. F.

In a medium sized bowl combine, oil, eggs, quick oats, yogurt, milk, sugar and honey.  Set aside to allow the quick oats to absorb some of the liquid.

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, garam masala, cinnamon and salt.  Use a whisk to combine well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until all of hte liquid is absorbed, but do not over mix.  Add the blueberries at the end, to prevent the dough from turning purple.  Scoop into well-oiled muffin sheets.  Sprinkle with sunflower seeds.

Place in oven & bake until muffins are lightly browned and a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Mini-muffins approx. 10 minutes, regular muffins approx. 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Wednesday! Chicken Meatballs

Check out this vintage Crock Pot!

It’s a New Year and time to make some resolutions. Since I recently went back to my full-time job in September , I feel like the last four months I have continuously been ‘resolving’ to get more organized.  It is not easy!  Go 2010!

Meal planning is one of the most important things on my weekly to-do list and it works for me.  Buying our meat and fresh fruit & veggies on the weekend and then restocking up on some fresh fruit & veggies mid-week is working.  Making meals simple (meat + whole grain or starchy veg + steamed veggies), and doing a little prep work the night before also helps.  Our family meal goals are:

• Eat fish at least once a week
• Have a vegetarian meal once a week
• Make enough for lunches the next day
• Crock-Pot Wednesday!
• Pizza Friday! (click here for my pizza dough recipe – it can be made up ahead of time and frozen)

Why Crock Pot Wednesday? I find that mid-week I just don’t feel like preparing a meal.  It is so nice to come home to a complete meal in the slow cooker.  I also have more energy to do the final prep work or shopping for Thursday & Friday.  It is worth the extra prep energy it takes on Tuesday night to come home to an easy meal

The slow cooker is easy! While some recipes direct you to braise the meat first, I rarely do this since I want to save time.  You can put your meal together in the evening in the crockpot, keep it in the fridge overnight then put it in the cooker in the morning, turn it on and ‘Voila!’ you will return home from work with a healthy meal ready to go.  Do you have any great slow-cooker recipes?  I would love to hear what has worked for you!

The veggies are ground into the meatball increasing your family veg content!

Chicken Meatballs

This recipe is good for babies 10 months and older if you follow the gluten-free option.   Otherwise it is wise to wait until your child is one-year before adding wheat to the diet.

These chicken meatballs do involve cooking ahead of time to ensure that they do not dissolve in the sauce, and they are delicious.  This recipe makes enough to feed a family of four with lots left-over.  The meatballs can be served over whole-grain pasta, brown rice, quinoa or with a crusty whole wheat roll.

Night Before: Prepare the meatballs.  Form them and place them on a baking sheet.  Cover the sheet with plastic wrap & refrigerate overnight.

Day Of: Put the meatballs (minus plastic wrap!) in a 400 deg. oven for 20 minutes.  While baking, start the sauce on high.  When the meatballs have baked, put in the crock pot with the sauce & simmer all day on low.

Meatballs

• 12 PC Ancient Grain Crackers (or Brown Rice Crackers for gluten-free option)
• 2 carrots, peeled & chopped
• 1 small onion, peeled & cut into 6
• 1 head of broccoli
• 8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tsp basil
• 1 egg

Tomato Sauce

• 2 large cans of chopped Tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato paste
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

Directions

• In a food processor process the crackers until they are a fine powder.  Remove from processor and set aside in a small bowl.
• Add the carrots, onion and broccoli to the food processor and pulse until chopped fine.  Remove from processor and add to bowl with cracker crumbs
• Add the chicken to the processor and pulse until mostly pureed.  Add half the cracker-veggie mix and pulse until combined.  Add remaining cracker-veggies, basil and egg and pulse again until the chicken, crackers and veggies are well-combined.
• Using a large spoon, or your hands, make the meat mixture into meat balls.  Place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.  The chicken balls can be close together, but not touching.
• Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until morning
• Note: do not cook the chicken and then refrigerate.  It is safer and healthier to put the freshly cooked meatballs directly into a warm slow cooker.

For the Sauce

• Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker set at high heat.  Stir to ensure everything is well combined.
• Add the cooked meatballs
• Cook at high heat for 4 hours OR Cook for 8 hours on low heat.  Most slow cookers have a ‘warm’ setting once the slow cooker is finished, in case you do not get home as soon as you had hoped.

Last Post of the Year!

Happy Holidays!

I hope that you eat good food,

take some time for yourself,

and bring in the New Year with a nice glass of wine,

surrounded by people you love and who love you.

Happy Holiday Baking!

This holiday baking experiment was a success!

My newsletter has just been sent!  To read it go to: http://lkmnutrition.blogspot.com

In this month’s newsletter I share my tips for increasing the nutrition content of your favourite holiday treats.  This year I did my own experiment and had success with my Apple-Gingerbread Squares.  I took 2 recipes from an old Holiday Baking magazine, made a few changes and they turned out delicious!  Try these treats or experiment on your own!

What about kids and sugar over the holidays? This is a personal choice.  My personal goal is not to let my little guy have sugar until he is 2.  I don’t think he knows the difference, so why give it earlier than necessary?  If you have trouble with family respecting your choices, this may be the time you need to put your foot down as a parent.  For older kids it is important to teach them moderations, how to enjoy treats, and not to over-indulge.  This is a delicate balance difficult for all of us to learn.

Apple Gingerbread Squares

This is a slab pie style recipe.  Similar to a pie with a simple pastry and a great topping you make it in a 9×11 pan.  Cut into squares.  They freeze beautifully!

Pastry

• 2 + 1/4 C whole spelt flour
• 1/3 C sucanat or brown sugar
• 1 t cinnamon
• 3/4 t salt
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/4 t cloves
• 1/2 C cold unsalted butter or coconut oil, cut into 10 chunks
• 2 egg yolks
• 6 T cold water
• 1 t apple cider vinegar

In your food processor  combine the flour, salt, sugar and spices.  Pulse 2 – 3 times to combine.  Add the butter and pulse until the butter pieces are pea-sized and mixed throughout the flour.  In a small bowl beat the egg yolks with the water and vinegar.  Add to the flour mixture and pulse until a ball forms.  dup the dough onto a well floured surface and knead 2 – 3 times.  Shape it into a square flat lump that is about an inch thick.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put it into the fridge.

Topping

• 10 Cups mixed cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch slices (about 6 large apples)
• 1/2 C sucanat or brown sugar
• 1/3 C whole spelt flour
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 C quick cooking oats
• 2/3 C sucanat or brown sugar
• 1/2 C whole spelt flour
• 1/2 C cold butter or coconut oil

In a large bowl toss the apples with 1/2 C sugar, 1/3 C flour and cinnamon.  Set a side.

In a small bowl combine oats, 2/3 C sugar, 1/2 C flour and 1/2 C butter and mix with your fingers until the butter is spread throughout the mix and large crumbs form.

Preheat the oven to 375 deg.  Line a 9×11 bar pan with parchment paper.  Bring out your dough and using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is the same size & shape as the bar pan.    Fold the pastry in four and gently place the dough in the pan.  Unfold and using your fingers spread the dough to fill the pan.

Spread the apples on the dough.  Make sure every inch of dough is covered before doing a second layer.  Try to make sure the apples are spread evenly across the dough.  Sprinkle the oat topping across the top of the apples.

Place in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.  Let cool completely before cutting.  Cut into squares.  The first piece out of the pan may be a ’sacrifice’, enjoy it!

Fish is Delish!

Fish is delicious,

but I often get frustrated because it seems like I can only figure out a few boring ways to cook it.  Another ingredient I struggle with are greens like chard, kale and spinach.  I like them for their flavour and love them for their nutrition, but something about a pile of greens on a plate doesn’t seem very tempting to me…  So I recently experimented in the kitchen and came up with an amazing and easy dish, that went over really well with my little guy and big guy… and I’ll tell you the big guy resists the greens!  Check out the recipe below!

But before the recipe a few words about fish and babies. Fish is really, really good for you and in North America we generally do not get enough in our diet.  Try to have fish at least once a week.  Full of Omega fats; fish is brain food – which is very important for our growing little ones!

What about Mercury? Mercury is a problem in large fish like shark, swordfish and tuna, too much mercury can cause neurological problems, especially for young children. Go to the Environmental Working Group Safe Fish List. These guidelines are for pregnant women, but I think they are good to follow for our growing children as well.

When can you introduce fish? If you follow strict allergy guidelines, it is one year.  If you are from any cultural background where fish is a major part of your diet, you would probably say much earlier.

• If you, your partner or your other child has a fish allergy, wait until at least one year or 18 months before introducing fish
• If you have no concerns about fish allergies, you can introduce fish at 10 months.  This is generally a good time to introduce animal protein
• A word about shellfish… shellfish can be highly allergic, more so than fish.  Wait until one year before introducing shellfish.  Again if there is an allergy in your immediate family wait until 18 months.

Fish ‘n’ Greens

This easy recipe uses one pot on the stove.  You can use the fish  and greens recommended or try it with salmon or tilapia, kale or spinach.  Serve it with mashed potatoes or brown rice.

• 1 Tbsp olive oil + 1 Tbsp butter
• 2 large vidalia (sweet) onions, sliced
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 large fillet of steel head trout, cut into 3 or 4 pieces
• 1 large bunch of Swiss Chard
• 1/4 lemon
• 1/4 tsp dill
• Sea Salt and pepper
• 1/4 C feta cheese

In a large pot or dutch oven, heat the olive oil and butter.  Add the onions, shallot and garlic, add 1/4 tsp sea salt and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes until soft.  Place lid on pot, reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer for 10 minutes.  While the onions are simmering, wash the chard well.  Slice the chard leaves into large pieces and cut the bottom stems into 1 inch pieces.  Put the chopped stems in the pot.  Let simmer.  You can let these simmer for a minimum of 5 more minutes or a maximum of 30 minutes, the longer everything simmers the sweeter the onions will taste.  Place the fish, skin side down on top of the onions.  Squeeze the lemon over the fish and season with salt, pepper and dill.  Increase the heat to medium-high.  Place the chard leaves on top of the fish and put the lid on the pot.  Leave to simmer for 5 minutes.  The timing for cooking the fish will depend on the thickness of the fish.  The meal is done when the chard leaves have wilted and the fish flakes easily with a fork.   Put the greens on the plate, top with the fish and onions and sprinkle with feta cheese.