Category: Raising Healthy Kids
My Spending Diet: Week Two
Alright, folks … Here we are at the end of Week Two of My Spending Diet. How’s it going? The Plan: No spending from Saturday until the following Saturday. Cash in wallet can only be used in a true emergency. What Happened: Planning-wise I did much better this week. At no point did I feel [...]
Cooking with Kids: Spinach Baked Ziti
Will spends so much time in the kitchen with me that sometimes it’s hard to decide what to talk about on Mondays. Sweets are always a favorite (for me, you, him …) but I love knowing that he’s learning to cook while we are cooking together is really special. Dishes like this one are things [...]
My Spending Diet: Week One
Let me run you through a normal week in my eating life: Saturday: Glance through cooking magazines, cookbooks and notebooks to try to decide what to make this week. Ignore all of it and make a rudimentary meal plan … write a grocery list, trying to remember everything I need. Go grocery shopping with the [...]
Focaccia Hamburger Buns Recipe
The test of anything good is how it’s received. For instance, if you give a speech but all anyone remembers is the guy who asked all the questions, then you probably didn’t do your job. The same holds true in cooking. If you make something and it gets pushed to the side or not mentioned [...]
Cooking with Kids: Pesto Turkey Meatballs with Pesto Pasta
As much as my kids love helping in the kitchen, I always stop short of letting them help with meat preparation. The thought of food-borne illness just makes me steer clear entirely. I mean, yes, they can wash their hands like I do, but should I really take the risk? Well, this weekend, I decided [...]
Raising a Healthy Family: Diabetes in Kids (And My Annual Survey)
NOTE: At the end of this post is the 2010 survey for Sarah’s Cucina Bella. Please take a minute to answer the questions. Thanks! Recently, I was researching for an article on diabetes in children, and I came across some statistics that really got me thinking. Roughly 186,300 people under the age of 17 have [...]
Cooking with Kids: Grocery Shopping as a Learning Tool
When I was a kid, I had an aha moment at dinner one night. See, my family always spelled out words and names when I wasn’t supposed to understand what they were saying. It’s a good technique … as long as your child doesn’t catch on. As I ate my bread and hid my peas [...]
Raising a Healthy Family: Develop Your Own Filter
As part of my job, I spend a lot of time interviewing people. Lately, that has meant conversations with chefs, authors of eating-related books, nutritionists … people who are trying to help Americans live better, healthier lives. I am so passionate about this that I even devote space here every Friday to share nuggets of [...]
Cooking with Kids: Make Your Own Couscous
One of the most brilliant gifts of motherhood is watching your kids develop their own personalities, likes and dislikes. I am blessed to mother two strong, brilliant, adventurous kids who don’t think anything is beyond their reach. It’s amazing. If you are a regular reader, you know that both of my kids adore cooking with [...]
Raising a Healthy Family: Teaching Kids about Food
Watching the Jamie Oliver TED talk the other day, tears came to my eyes. In the video, Jamie talks about how he visited a West Virginia school and the children couldn’t tell a potato from a pear from an eggplant. He showed clips of the kids earnestly guessing what veggies he was holding up. It [...]
