Get Interactive With Your Kids!

Studies have shown that children learn best when they interact with things and ideas to promote mental activity. This helps them preserve new learning and incorporate it with what they already know. These websites below are a great way for parents and their children to explore and have fun while learning about nutrition and help encourage children to be active and eat a variety of healthy foods. They are kid-friendly and have fun games that children, especially elementary students, will enjoy!

Nutrition Explorations (http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/kids.php)

This is a great website for children to play games while learning more about nutritious foods. The games are different for lower and upper elementary students.  From these games, children can learn to identify and classify foods into the five food groups, create combination foods, and identify the health benefits of each food group.

This website is part of the Fuel Up to Play 60 Movement sponsored by the National Dairy Council and NFL.

Nutrition Fun for Kids (http://nutritionforkids.com/kidactivities.htm)

This website is full of activities/puzzles, ideas for “things to do,” and recipes. It also provides links to more helpful nutrition websites.

The rest of the websites are from an excellent children nutrition website called Super Kids Nutrition (http://www.superkidsnutrition.com/). It is a great website full of resources that helps convey important nutritional information in a fun and entertaining way.

Super Crew for Kids (http://www.superkidsnutrition.com/sckids/index.php)

This colorful website is great for kids of all ages to learn about nutrition in a fun way.  Activities include coloring pages, puzzles, and experiments that can be done with family. There are also activities in Spanish as well!

Kidnetic (http://www.kidnetic.com/)

This is a fun website that can help parents and their children learn about healthy eating and nutrition. There are games and activities that children can get involved with to expand their knowledge about nutrition. There are also articles about nutrition and physical fitness for parents and children to read. To make this website even more appealing, there are great recipes that are healthy and that children will love!

Nourish Interactive (http://www.nourishinteractive.com/)

This website provides parents and children with lesson plans and online interactive games about nutrition. It also provides coloring books and storybooks for the children. Also, there is an activity involving My Plate* to get children thinking about food groups. There is also a fabulous recipe section!

* For more information, please visit http://www.choosemyplate.gov/

KidsHealth (http://kidshealth.org/)

This website provides the latest health information for parents, kids, and teens. It includes interactive articles, recipes, and video clips. There is also information on illness and injuries and how the body works.

The Leafy Greens Council (http://www.leafy-greens.org/lessonplans.html)

This website is a great tool for teaching children about the nutritious advantage of green leaf vegetables using language arts, math, social studies, and science/health. The five dinosaur cartoon characters dressed in baseball uniforms makes this website very kid-friendly. Materials such as trading cards, posters, and book covers are available through this website.

Which interactive websites do you recommend for kids?

Congrats to Randi S.!!! You are the owner of this lovely Vintage Lighthouse Dress! You will be receiving an email from Shabby Apple shortly

Perfect for Spring & Summer, this sunny double layer dress sports an under-bodice of butter-yellow cotton voile with a bright white bow belt. Pleats at the collar and waist finish it with an expertly tailored appeal. This delightfully done-up dress will take you from the upper deck to an evening stroll around the lighthouse in no time.

If you haven’t had a chance to checkout Shabby Apple, here’s a little info: Shabby Apple is a vintage inspired online clothing boutique selling women’s dresses, casual dresses, skirts, and women’s apparel. Being a big fan of vintage inspired clothes, I immediately fell in love with so many of their dresses!

How to win: Become a fan of Shabby Apple’s facebook page & leave a comment on this post. One entry per reader please.  This giveaway will be open until Thursday. Good Luck

One of the questions I get asked the most is what type of camera I use to take my blog pictures and what photo editing software I use.

I shoot with a Canon Rebel xSi and most of my pics are shot with a 50mm f1.4 lens. All of my photo editing is done with either picnik or iphoto. I’ve had this camera for a couple of years now and am very happy with it. I am by no means an expert in photography and view my photo taking skills as an ongoing process. To help answer your photography questions, I thought I’d repost this guest post that Grace wrote for me back in April. She is a professional photographer and is the perfect person to answer your questions. Enjoy

Hello WeeklyBite readers! You can call me Grace but I respond most often to “MOM!!!” I am a retired naval officer, am married to a retired naval officer, and have two wonderful children who act like naval officers. I run a children’s portraiture and sports photography business as well as an editorial stock photography business. You can read all about my photography adventures here.

First, I’d like to thank Estela for having me on her site as a guest blogger.   I’ve also had the pleasure of photographing her while she was cooking up one of her delicious recipes, so I have first-hand knowledge of her techniques in capturing the wonderful food images you see throughout her site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to grow your food blog fan club, it is essential for your images to look as tasty as the recipes themselves sound.  Estela has combined mouth-watering recipes, excellent cooking instructions, and appealing images to create a blog that people want to visit again and again, and that is the ultimate goal.  Return visitors = solid fan base

So what basic techniques should you employ in your food photography?  Easy, just use KISS. Here are 5 basic rules to Keep It Simple Savory.

Rule #1  Keep it simple.

The images are about the food itself and not about the items on the kitchen counter, your kitchen cabinets, or hands holding the cooking utensils.  Unless you’re a hand model, keep your hands or fingers out of the picture.  To do this, get in close and crop tightly.  By filling the frame with the ingredient(s) or final dish you’ll eliminate all the distractions.

Rule #2  Keep your lens wide open.

Even modestly priced digital point and shoot cameras allow the photographer some creative control.  I’m talking about one setting in particular, the aperture priority setting,  seen as “Av” or “A” on your camera’s main control dial.  Set it to “Av”, open the lens as wide as possible – f/2.8 or f/4.0 or if your camera allows it, as wide as f/1.4 .  The lower the number, the wider the aperture (the baffles inside the lens) opens up.  This will give your images with a narrow focal point accompanied by pleasing bokeh for the rest of the image.  Bokeh is a fancy Japanese word for the blurry or out-of-focus part of the picture.   Set your camera to it’s widest setting f/1.4 or f/2.8 and experiment until you get a pleasing image that suits your taste or suits the food you are trying to photograph.  The camera will automatically dial in the remaining settings for you.  If you don’t have “Av” or “A” setting, try using the portrait setting which is usually indicated by an icon of a person’s side profile view.

You can’t help but look at the froth on this milkshake.  The background material compliments the color of the milkshake but doesn’t distract from the focal point since it is pleasingly out-of-focus.  The straws lead your eyes down to the drink.  Don’t you just want to drink it up right out of the picture?

Rule #3  Keep the food in natural light.

Unless it’s absolutely necessary, complete power outage with no moon visible, or you’re a professional food stylist and photographer, turn off that pop-up flash!  Estela is a master at this.  Not once while I was watching her photograph the food and ingredients did she use the pop-up flash.

Estela has a window that casts a soothing fill light from behind and slightly to the side of her food prep area which helps accentuate the texture of the ingredient she is using.  Overhead light, although slightly warmer than the daylight streaming in, just adds color to her images.

The light sweeping from the back left adds shape and texture to these eggs.

Natural lighting allows you to see and almost feel the texture of each of these ingredients.

Rule #4 Keep it off center and use shapes to enhance visual interest.

Split the camera viewfinder into thirds horizontally and vertically and place the focal point of the image in one of the four corners where the lines intersect.

Rule #5  Keep it colorful- nothing says yummy more than color.

Who doesn’t look at a bright red strawberry, a fresh green apple or a colorful leafy salad and immediately think healthy and tasty?

Add color if there is none.  Estela has a collection of small fabric remnants that she uses under the bowls, plates, and ingredients to add color to an otherwise dull colored dish or set of ingredients.

This applesauce is naturally monochromatic.  Here she adds visual interest with a flowery fabric swatch beneath adding a classic appeal to an otherwise bland photo.

That’s it!  Five simple ingredients to enhance your food imagery.  You don’t need a fancy-shmancy camera to put these rules into effect.  Follow even one or two of these and you’ll see marked improvement in your food photography and you can apply them to anything else you may want to photograph, even children.  Estela applies these as well when taking pictures of M but it’s impossible to take a bad photograph of M even on a bad hair day.

A couple nights ago we had soup night. There was a slight chill in the air and with my desperation to make Fall appear in Southern California, I jumped at the chance to make something warm and comforting.

I went to the grocery store to gather the necessary ingredients and didn’t realize I forgot to buy egg noodles until I got home. All we had was spaghetti noodles. I gave M the job of breaking the spaghetti noodles into small pieces. It was the perfect little job for her.

This soup was our post trick-or-treat meal.

It was a hit with the entire family. I made some of this bread to eat on the side.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sliced celery
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 3 cups cooked chicken (shredded) I used rotisserie chicken
• 1/2 box spaghetti noodles broken up into smaller pieces
• 1/4 cup flour
• salt & pepper to taste

To a large pot, add your chicken broth, 1/2 cup milk, celery, carrots, and onion. Cook for 30 minutes over medium heat. Add your chicken and noodles and cook for about 10 minutes just until the noodles are cooked. In a separate bowl, mix your flour and 1/2 cup milk until smooth. Add flour mixture to your soup and stir until mixed through. Cook for an additional 7 minutes over medium-high heat.

Enjoy!

If you just happen to have unsweetened coconut milk and shredded coconut collecting dust in your kitchen like I did, then this is the perfect smoothie for you or your kiddo. Or, if you just love the flavor combo of lime & coconut, then this smoothie is for you.

It’s no secret that M loves her smoothies, so any chance I get I try to make her one. This one is super simple to make.

All you need is at least one lime, vanilla yogurt, unsweetened lite coconut milk, shredded coconut, honey, and ice cubes.

Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

This recipe makes the perfect little kiddie portion. You can double the recipe for a larger one.

Lime in the Coconut Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened lite coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons shredded coconut
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
• 1 cup of ice (more depending of the thickness you like)
• 1-2 tablespoons honey

Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Serve in a cute cup & enjoy

What New Moms Need More Than Anything

When I became a mom in 2006, I had no idea what I was in for.  I didn’t stock up on frozen food or think twice about how I would feed myself once the baby came.  I just came home with an out-of-control appetite with no time or energy to prepare anything — and a husband that was just as tired.

Then one day a friend brought us a meatloaf.  I was like, “this is the best gift ever!.” The leftovers lasted for days, and it was perfect for the quickie lunch every new mom needs.

When I joined a moms’ group in Los Angeles when my daughter was 3 months old, I heard about their new meal for moms program.  Whenever a new mom had a baby, people had the chance to sign up to bring meals.  I knew instantly this was a brilliant idea.

New moms (and repeat ones) need meals.  What a concept.

Paying it forward

When I moved to San Diego and joined a new moms’ group, I started the meal programs for the moms having second babies.  It was great and everyone loved it.

Then my time came when I had my second baby.  My husband and I ate the first meal like we had been starved for weeks.  We got 2 meals a week for 2 months.  Heaven.

Now, I make it habit to offer the new moms I know a meal.

Don’t take no for an answer

I met Estela online as a fellow RD blogger.  She emailed me when she found out she was moving to San Diego.  We met up a couple of times and then she had the baby.

I saw her with cute little LK and M at our local Farmer’s Market.  I asked her if she needed food and she said she was fine.

When I got home I realized asking was the wrong thing to do.  Even though Estela is an awesome cook, she still has days, I’m sure, when meal preparation is the last thing she wants to do.  So I sent her an email telling her I was bringing a meal.  End of story.

And I added the bonus guest blog as I know that keeping up a blog with a new baby isn’t easy either.

What to bring?

I think casseroles and Italian-type dishes work well.  You want something that will provide leftovers and taste good when it’s reheated.

I also think hearty meals are important as new moms, usually breastfeeding, are burning a ton-o calories.  You need food that sticks which is why I made Estella meat Lasagna.  If you can, add a side salad and something for the first kid is good, like cut up fruit.  And don’t forget to store the meal in disposable dishes.  New mom’s minds are mush and shouldn’t be relied on to return anything.

Another perk to bringing new moms meals is you get a chance to see the new baby.  If you are a mom yourself, you’ll get flooded with memories of having a brand new baby in the house.  If you don’t have kids, it will give you a glimpse into what you can expect.

Either way, nothing feels better than helping a new mom.  Seeing the smile on her face — with one less thing to do — is enough to know you did the best thing possible.

And I know that no matter how busy I get, it’s never as bad as those first 3 months after having a baby.

So tell me, do you bring meals to friends who just had babies?  And if you do, what do you usually make?

We’ve been doing a lot projects around the house lately and the baseboards in the kitchen were on that list. Underneath our kitchen cabinets was this not so pretty wallpaper.  Yikes! Luckily we have some cute kitchen cabinets to cover it up.

While Mr. Weekly Bite has been doing projects around the house, I’ve been doing some housekeeping on Weekly Bite. Between selling our house in Virginia, being pregnant, buying a house in San Diego, moving our family across the country, and giving birth to a healthy baby girl, Weekly Bite has been sorely neglected. So, this week I’ll be taking some time away from the blog to catch up. I’ve got over ten months of recipes that need to be archived and hundreds of newsletter subscribers that need to be entered into the Weekly Bite database. My poor website is in desperate need of some updates.

I hope to pop in later in the week, but if not, I’ll be back on Monday refreshed, with a updated website

Are they any changes you’d like to see, or anything you would like to see more of?

Have a great week and I’ll see you on Monday

The day before I gave birth to LK, Mr. Weekly Bite went on a mass grocery shopping trip. He did the same thing just before I had M. He comes home with all sorts of food. Vacuum packed tuna, canned chicken, boxes of mac-n-cheese, frozen burritos, canned vegetables, etc… He’s shops like we are being held in some sort of underground shelter. His heart is in the right place, but I’m just baffled at the items he comes home with.

This time around was no different. He came home with all the basics plus more… including prepackaged, pre-made, jello. Not just any jello. It was fruit flavored gelatin that is stored at room temperature.

It’s been ages since I had jello… but doesn’t it have to be refrigerated?!

M did have a couple of those jello cups, and like every kid… she loved them.

This raisin quinoa pudding is my way of making up for those jello cups. I served it for breakfast the other day and kept my fingers crossed that she would like it.

Low and behold, my little adventurous eater devoured it! This is fast becoming one of her favorite breakfast meals.

This tastes great both warm and cold.

Golden Raisin Quinoa Pudding

• 3 cups skim or 2% milk (sub with almond, or coconut milk)
• 3 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar (or whatever sugar you have on hand)
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup gold raisins

Place the quinoa in a strainer and rinse with cold water for a few seconds. Combine the milk, water, sugar, salt, cinnamon and vanilla in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the quinoa and stir. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring every few minutes to avoid sticking. Remove from heat and stir in raisins. Let cool to room temperature or in the fridge.

A few weeks back we hung these curtains over the sliding doors. They are from IKEA and we love them They dress the room up just enough for us.

Here’s the kicker… this isn’t the first pair that we’ve hung. If you’re familiar with IKEA, you know their curtains come super long and with fabric tape so you can easily hem them to fit your window. Mr. Weekly Bite hung the curtain rod (also from IKEA) and I meticulously measured and hemmed the curtains. I ironed the finished products. Giddy with excitement, Mr. Weekly Bite hung the curtains up and one was over 2 inches shorter than the other. I was crushed.

Long story short… the curtains originally were two different lengths. I should have measured from the top down. I measured the curtains from the bottom.  Boo

Having learned my lesson, I went back to IKEA and purchased a new pair. This time (thanks to my mom) we got it right! We love them.

I held onto my irregular lemon curtains because I wanted to try my hand at sewing a valance curtain for the nursery & M’s room. After searching online for an easy pattern, I found this very cute & simple tutorial from Joni of Lay Baby Lay.

Oh, I am not much of a sewer either. I have a simple sewing machine from Target and my biggest project to date has been sewing throw pillows. I told Mr. Weekly Bite I was going to sew curtains. His response: Really?! Don’t you need help for that?

Ummm… thanks for the confidence?

Moving forward, I measured the windows, bought some fabric border (black for the nursery, coral for M’s room) and sewed away.

Close to 2 hours later, the nursery valance was done! Yay

I was so happy with the result!

Mr. Weekly Bite was shocked! (in a good way ) He loved it too!

The next day I sewed the valance for M’s room.

Her response:

Sooo Cuuuute Mommy!

I would have sewed something different for M’s room… but this is as far as my sewing talent goes

Maybe sometime in the future I’ll have the guts to try something different. For now… I’m super happy with result