• Provide a healthy variety. You want your kids to eat right, but don’t force foods on kids, they often rebel just because…hey they’re kids.  However if you make tasty nutritious food available in your home and allow them to  choose what they want you will have a win-win situation.

• Avoid power struggles:-( You can’t control what other children eat. And, sad but true, you can’t control  what your child eats at a friend’s house. But, you can set the rules for your own home. Do set rules and don’t worry about what other kids eat, just your own.

• When shopping involve your children. If your kids are young enough that you take them shopping with you, explain why you are buying this or that. Let them see how and why you choose  certain items.  Let them a few selections of their own. If they make the wrong choices, reading the label out loud may make them think twice about the product.  Allow kids to help prepare meals so they see what goes into a healthy dinner. While making green salad, pop a few morsels in your mouth to show how delicious you think they are. Talk about where fruits and vegetables come from, if there is a farm nearby, even better, some farms welcome visitors.

• When possible eat together. As much as possible, schedule dinners so everyone in the family can eat together. If only five members of a six-member family is available, go for it, the sixth member may make more of an effort to join the family at dinner time. When eating together, serve healthy and tasty food, this may influence what your children eat at meals when not at your dinner table.

• Eating a meal is not a race to the finish.  You should not rush through your meal, nor should you allow child to do it. Engage family members in conversation. Have you noticed when you eat out with friends you find that you have spent two hours at lunch or dinner? Why? How? Conversation! If you normally serve soda or other sugary drinks, add water to the mix, place water on the table.  A reminder that water helps to clear the palate for the next course. You don’t have to tell them that drinking water will help to fill them and perhaps eat less. That will be our secret.

Yes. Grocery shopping can be good for your health, if you choose the right foods to buy. What foods are you putting in your food cart?

Fiber. Look for whole-grain breads and cereals, as well as dried beans and brown rice.

Green vegetables. The darker the better. Deeper greens signify a higher concentration of vitamins A, C, and E, along with folic acid, calcium, and other important nutrients.

Frozen produce. Check the label carefully. Some frozen fruits and vegetables contain as many nutrients as the fresh variety, especially produce that has been sitting out for a few days.

Pasta. This can give you a good dose of protein, iron, and B vitamins.

Check expire dates. Be sure to take time to check expiration dates on perishables such as bread, milk, yogurt, meats, etc.  You don’t want to get home and find that you have 2 days to eat something. Oh, that’s just a target date; not necessarily, the store may have had the product for some time.

Don’t Buy Bruised Fresh Products. Bruised and knicked produce shortens the time you can keep the item at home.  

Visit A Better Cook for recipes and more.

It’s almost summer and that means get the camera out and start snapping.  Weddings, cookouts, etc. it’s time to put your new digital camera to use and take some photos to share online with friends and family.

The site picnik.com makes sharing easy, fun and a bit crafty. You can use this site without downloading software that other sites need you to do to make their systems work with your pc. And, when your sister-in-law says, “Oh, how talented you are”, don’t tell her how easy it was add the frames and other cute editing touches to your photos, just say “thank you.”

For more information, please visit Picnik 

As always, read the find print.

I get a gem of a newsletter titled Living On A Dime and the owner has a Valentine’s gift for her readers. You can download her free e-book Valentine’s On A Dime .  She has given permission to post the e-book download page to our blogs, etc. so we can share the information with others.

As requested, please do not copy the e-book to pass on, instead, pass the link to your friends. http://www.livingonadime.com/ebooks/valentinespr.html Enjoy!

Are you frugal with food? If you are not sure, think about your relationship with your fridge. Do you save that last slice of meatloaf because it would be a shame to throw it away when you can crumble it in a little tomato sauce, onion and a few other ingredients for a quick sauce? Do you cube the small chicken breast to make a great chicken salad sandwich. If you answered yes, you are frugal. If your thought was it’s too little for such trouble, then read on.   

• All is not lost when you are left with  icky, sticky rice. Just put it in a large strainer run hot water over  it. If you don’t have a strainer, place the rice in a large bowl and add warm warm and stir gently to separate the grains.

• Make bread crumbs from stale bread. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees and put the stale bread in the oven for about 20 minutes to remove most of the remaining moisture. Then crumble to make large or small bread crumbs. Put crumbs in a zip lock bag until ready to use.

• DId you get a little heavy-handed while making stew or soup? A raw white potato can help to save your dinner.  Cut the potato in halve or quarters and add it to stew or soup, it will absorb some of the salt. If you tend to use the salt shaker to excess, use just a pinch to season  or leave unseasoned, and allow everyone to add his or her own salt.

And speaking of potatoes:

• If you have a cup or so of leftover mashed white potatoes, add an egg and some finely chopped onion to make potato patties. Just shape and saute in vegetable oil or margarine until brown on both sides.
• Form leftover mashed potatoes into balls around around cooked and browned ground beef, pork or a cube of cheddar cheese. Then cover roll in bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese or and broil until golden brown.