Quick Tip | No More Soggy Pizza!

I wanted to drop in and give you a great idea for reheating leftover pizza. No one (at least that I know!) likes soggy leftover pizza. Reheating it in the microwave makes it soggy, and heating up the oven to reheat one or two pieces is kind of wasteful on the electricity. I like to reheat pizza on the stove! Just put the pieces in a pan, cover with a lid, and set to medium. It takes about five minutes to have it ready! The lid traps in moisture, which helps the cheese melt and not get gummy! Super easy and virtually no clean up! What are some of your favorite quick tips? Share them below!

Getting Juiced Up | Adding Nutrition to Your Diet

While we work really hard to get the best nutrition possible into our boys, they are young still and can be a bit picky when it comes to vegetable eating. Our oldest is pretty good about it; he loves red bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, and he'll even eat salad on occasion. The youngest...not so much. He does like broccoli but that's about it.

Do you juice? It seems to be a big deal lately! We recently inherited a Jack Lalanne juicer and decided to give juicing a try so we can get some of those veggies into the boys. So far we really like it! Along with their daily multivitamin and probiotics, we think adding the veggie juices to their diet will really help round out their nutrition!

We've used several recipes, but have found that we just like to clean out the fridge and put a bunch of fruits and veggies together. We've been guilty in the past of not going through our produce quick enough and having to throw it away...not anymore!

For this juice, we used apples, oranges, spinach, ginger, carrots, lemon, and cucumber. It was tasty!

What are your favorite juice recipes? I'd love for you to share them in the comments or join my Facebook community group!

What's for Dinner | Fish Tacos and Tropical Cole Slaw

My husband outdid himself again last week! He made fish tacos with redfish, roasted sweet corn, avocado, tropical coleslaw, corn tortillas, and a yummy sauce to go on top! This is a homemade meal, using all real/clean foods, besides the tortillas. We love eating healthy...we just feel so much better when we 'right.'

He created the tropical coleslaw himself, and I HIGHLY suggest you try it! It's light, summery, and oh-so-yummy!

Here's his recipe. He wanted me to let you know that he didn't measure the ingredients exactly. This recipe is just a guesstimate on amounts. It's super easy to simply adjust to your flavor preferences!

Tropical Coleslaw

1/2 C each, julienne sliced:

• carrots
• red bell pepper
• zucchini
• red onion
• red cabbage
• mango

1 teas agave nectar
2 parts pineapple juice/1 part rice vinegar/ 1 part fresh lemon juice
1/4 C chopped fresh cilantro

Mix all together in a bowl, then season with chipotle chili powder and sea salt to taste. Serve chilled over fish tacos, or as a side item.

Let me know if you try it and how you like it!

Have you joined my Facebook community yet? I would LOVE to connect with you!

Food Dyes are EVERYWHERE

So after my post about being fooled by labels, I've been scouring the house looking for other items that contain dyes. Holy moly, they are everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

I continue to be shocked and annoyed at all the things dyes are in. Did you know that there is dye in your pre-made pie crusts in the grocery store? Yep, of all places. I guess it's to make it that pretty 'crust' color? Whatever.

You know what else? I'm starting to wonder if our oldest boy is sensitive to these dyes. (I can just see the group sigh and eye roll by certain members of my family.)

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not trying to diagnose him with any type of disorder/issue/problem. I'm also certainly not trying to get out of parenting him because sometimes it's really hard and I want to categorize him and excuse his behavior. Nope, not at all.

Our oldest is active, active, active. He's resistant to sleep. He can be whiny. He can be mean. He can drive me nuts.

Now, let me say this. He's an almost four year old boy. I fully understand that those traits are normal for a child this young. And if he didn't display those behaviors at times, I'd be worried.

However, we've noticed that after he eats certain things, like processed foods, or a lot of sugar, these 'traits' seem to come out more.

For example, recently after he had a smoothie made from yogurt with Red 40 and 15g of sugar he was off the wall. I know my child. It wasn't late in the day. He was rested. He just started acting like a crazy person. Hitting his brother (unprovoked), slamming toys into the wall, cabinets, floor. Jumping off his bookshelves. Not his normal active behavior.

So we are embarking on a mission to get rid of the dyes in their foods. Because, why not? We are really just concerned for the health and well-being of our kids. We don't see any reason for giving them food, drinks, or anything else that has unnecessary ingredients in them. Because, besides color, what is the point? Our food and baby wash really just doesn't need to be fun, exciting, and colorful all the time, does it?


Check out this interesting chart from the Feingold Association.  For me personally, it's gross to see all the additive, preservatives, and dyes that are added to our foods.

What the child growing up in the U.S. in the 1940's got:	What the child growing up in the U.S. today gets:
White toothpaste	Multi-colored toothpaste, perhaps with sparkles
Oatmeal	Sea Treasures Instant Oatmeal (turns milk blue)
Corn flakes	Fruity Pebbles
Toast & butter, jam	Pop Tarts
Cocoa made with natural ingredients	Cocoa made with artificial flavoring, & some with dyes.
Whipped cream	Cool Whip
No vitamins (or perhaps cod liver oil)	Flintstone vitamins with coloring & flavoring
White powder or bad-tasting liquid medicine	Bright pink, bubble-gum flavored chewable or liquid medicine
Sample school lunch: Meat loaf, freshly made mashed potatoes, vegetable. Milk, cupcake made from scratch.	Sample school lunch: Highly processed foods loaded with synthetic additives, no vegetable. Chocolate milk with artificial flavor.
Sample school beverage: Water from the drinking fountain	Sample school beverage: Soft drink with artificial color, flavor, caffeine, aspartame, etc.
Candy in the classroom a few times a year at class parties.	Candy (with synthetic additives) given frequently.

Let me say this: I grew up on a lot of these foods. Heck, sometimes we even buy them. I do love some Fruity Pebbles every now and then. But I know that if I eat too much of those kinds of foods, I feel gross. I feel bloated, my stomach hurts, I get a little cranky. I'm not talking about gorging myself on them. But if I have Fruity Pebbles for breakfast, a soda at lunch, and then maybe a processed dessert in the evening, then I go to bed miserable.

So why wouldn't if affect my kids, too?

Here's another very interesting article from Allergy Kids about one mom's experience with food dyes.

What do you think about all this? Do you think sensitivity/allergies to food dyes is a bunch of junk? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

What's for Dinner? Eggplant Caponata

So Eggplant Caponata is pretty much the only thing I can cook and not screw up. If you know me, you know that I can easily mess up toast. It's pathetic.

But Eggplant Caponata is so easy, that it's virtually screw up-less.

I'd never heard of it before until my sweet friend brought it over for dinner right after baby #2 was born. We fell in love with it and make it several times a month.

It's super healthy and so filling! We like to serve it over herbed couscous. Yum!

Here's the recipe...let me know if you try it how you like it!














Eggplant Caponata

A couple tablespoons over EVOO in a large pot. In that pot add:
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced

Let them saute for a few minutes.

Then, chop and add the following to the pot:
1 red bell pepper
1 Anaheim pepper
1 medium eggplant
A few handfuls of golden raisins
1/2 c coarsely chopped green olives
1/2 c coarsely chopped Kalamata olives
2 oz capers, drained
28 oz can of diced tomatoes
16 oz can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Once everything is in the pot, stir it up, cover and let simmer for about 15 min or until the eggplant is soft but not mushy.

Serve over couscous or polenta!

This freezes well too!

What's for Dinner - Veggie Tacos!

My sweet hubs, Matt, is seriously the best cook EVER. I'm not kidding. Family and friends who've eaten his meals will all agree. I'm a very lucky girl, because I despise cooking. I'm not good at it at all. I think it's partly because I really don't care about food. I eat (mostly) because I have to. If left to my own devices, I would eat cereal, yogurt, and PB&J sandwiches everyday. But if Matt's cooking, then I'll eat!

The past few months we've been eating grilled veggies several times a week. We (I mean Matt) grills up some zucchini from our garden, eggplant, bell peppers, red onion, and carrots. He makes a super yummy marinade for the veggies, pops them on the grill, and we've got a healthy, satisfying dinner!

Last week, he decided to kick it up a notch and make some ah-mazing veggies tacos. He grilled aforementioned veggies, made some sweet potato fries, whipped up a tasty sauce, and put it all on a homemade tortilla from Central Market.

Oh, my goodness. They are so, so yummy!

Here's the pics of the yummy goodness, followed by his recipe. I really want him to write a cookbook. It would totally sell. Anyone know how to get something like that started?

Enjoy!

Veggie Tacos
Eggplant sliced thick, otherwise it will be mushy
Zucchini
Carrots
Red onion
Asparagus
Or, any other veggies you like on the grill!
Veggie Marinade (recipe below)
Sweet potato fries (homemade or frozen...your choice!)
Avocado
Taco Sauce (recipe below)

Marinade for Veggies
1/3 C dark soy sauce
2 T honey
2 T cane syrup
1 teas chili sauce

Mix these ingredients, then add the following:
1/3 C (to start) canola oil.
Using a whisk, drizzle the canola oil into the mixture.  Whisk until the oil emulsifies and thickens. Add up to an extra 1/4 C if necessary.

1/2 teas sesame seed oil.

Pour mixture into large lidded container or plastic bag, add veggies (except sweet potatoes) and give them a good mix. The marinade just needs to cover the veggies, you don't need to let them sit for any length of time.

Taco Sauce
Chipolte chili pepper sauce (from canned chipolte chili's)
Fresh lime juice
1/4 c mayonaisse
1/2 clove fresh minced garlic
A few pinches of smoked paprika

Mix all ingredients to taste.


Place veggies on grill and cook to desired doneness.

Chop veggies to desired size and add to warm tortillas, drizzle on some yummy taco sauce, and ENJOY!

Let me know how you like them! We hope you love them as much as we do!