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How we stopped eating off the kids' plates!

When you’re running after the kids, whose list of approved foods seems to change hourly, it’s very easy to end up eating off of the kid plate.

We know, you don’t relish it. It’s often more of a sigh and mindless grazing paired with a well-intentioned desire not to waste food. 

It can be hard to resist! That mac and cheese is pretty tasty! The problem is often that all those little bites of slobbery mashed up nuggets or slices of pizza with only one bite taken out of it add up to a lot of unintentional food (and calories!) instead of real meals.

Parents need healthy and nutritious meals in order keep up with kids, so making full meals a priority is important.

It seems like catch-22, so we decided to try out the two-bin option. We keep an empty food storage container in the fridge, and when the kids have food on their plate, and we are moving on to the next activity, we decide – compost or fridge. The older kids have to put their own uneaten food in compost or fridge as well, which helps them see what they’re wasting and teaches them to perhaps choose smaller portions next time. Half-eaten string cheese? Fridge. Couple of chicken sausage pieces? Fridge. Bread crusts? Compost.

This helps us avoid mindless eating as parents, and our rule for leftover kid food is “put it a veggie on it.” That’s it, pull out the container at the end of the day and you can turn that kid food into adult versions. The cheese stick goes into a grilled cheese with kale pesto on thick crusty bread. We have a big salad for dinner with some leftover nuggets and Caesar dressing, or eat the rest of the mac and cheese atop a big plate of roasted broccoli and mushrooms with some real Parmesan. Now we don’t feel guilty about throwing food away, and we can ensure that as grownups we are eating balanced meals. 

The compost either get’s picked up by your garbage man or you put it into soil in your garden!

Secret Veggie Cheese Crackers!

Homemade Cheddar Crackers!

When you’re on the go and trying to keep kids fed and occupied while running errands, waiting in line, or in a high chair, one of the go-to’s for moms everywhere are cheesey crackers. They might be shaped like fish, rabbits, or little squares, and boy do they do the trick! Downside is they aren’t cheap, and they often have loads of sodium, oil, preservatives, and dyes.

Well we decided to create our own and in classic Peas of Mind fashion, we added veggies! Just a little pumpkin puree we had on hand (though you could use carrot or sweet potato) gives the crackers an extra boost of vitamins that we can feel good about.

We created an easy, quick, cheddar cracker recipe with just a few whole ingredients. Instead of oil we used real butter; we shredded some sharp cheddar cheese and we used whole-wheat flour. The dough freezes beautifully, or you can cut them into your desired shapes and freeze them on a baking sheet. Once the little shapes are frozen, simple bag them up and they’re all ready to bake whenever you want them!

Equipment : Food processor, oven at 350^o F

Ingredients :

2.5 cups whole-wheat flour

1 cup pumpkin puree

8 oz grated cheddar cheese

4 tbsp unsalted butter

1 tsp salt

Add all ingredients to the food processor and pulse until it forms a dough. Chill the dough in a plastic wrapped disc for 1 hour. Roll out the dough as thin as possible (less than 1/8^th inch thick) between two lightly floured pieces of parchment. Take the top parchment off and leave the bottom parchment in place. Cut the dough into a grid using the tip of a pairing knife (to look like the classic cheese-it). Place the piece of parchment with your cut shapes on a sheet tray and put into the freezer for 5-7 minutes (this makes the crackers a breeze to simply flip over onto a fresh sheet of parchment). Line a sheet pan with parchment and flip dough onto the tray. Bake at 350^o F degrees for 10 minutes, then watch closely as they go from perfect to…well done and remove from the oven when slightly browned. Let cool to crisp up! Keep in the fridge for up to 7 days.

The Zest Is Up to You!

Zest first!

Well, we really should have mentioned this at the beginning of citrus season, in early winter, but we didn’t even think of it. Before you peel that orange, lemon, or lime, take an extra moment and zest it!

By zesting and freezing the zest, you’ll get much more out of your fruit dollars. The zest freezes very well, and it will make life easier the next time a muffin recipe calls for a tablespoon of fresh orange zest or a when a little lemon zest would really brighten up that pasta!  

There are two ways to freeze zest – first, you can put a teaspoon or so into ice cube trays, fill with water, freeze, and then bag the cubes. When you’re ready to use the zest, just defrost or run a bit of warm water over the cube and the zest is recipe-ready!

Alternatively, you can simply use a microplane and zest right into a Ziploc bag (use a different one for lemons, limes, etc. of course) and freeze it this way, adding to it as you have zest. With this method you do run the risk of the color oxidizing slightly freezer burn, but it hardly impacts the flavor of the frozen zest, which remains remarkably fresh and intact. The preservation of flavor is likely due to the fact that the XX of the rind comes from its oils, so they will hold nicely for months in freezer, but do try to use them up in three or so.

Once you’ve zested a fruit, it will still hold a few more days just fine until it’s time for a lunchbox. On the other hand, if you bought that lemon or lime solely for the zest in a recipe, not to worry, simple squeeze-and-freeze! Pour the lemon juice in an ice cube tray and use in lemonade this summer or use blood orange juice in a smoothie or dessert.

Now that you know, you’ll get twice as much out of every citrus fruit you buy!