Energy Bites & Tacos

So the school schedule has been tricky, trying to eat healthy on a much more rushed schedule.  Lucky for us we had some leftovers which helped with the tighter schedule.

Breakfast--Left over Oatmeal
Lunch--We aren't focusing too hard on this one yet, it is whatever we can quickly pack or a school lunch.  Eventually this will be an area of concentration, but not quite yet.
Snack--  Energy Bites

This is a recipe my mom gave to me and it is quite yummy and on the healthier side.  My kids really liked this.

1 c. oatmeal
1 c. toasted coconut flakes
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until throroughly mixed.  Let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.  Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you would like.  Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.  Makes about 20-25 balls.

Dinner--Taco
Toppings:  Cheese, Olives, onions, red peppers, avocados, lettuce, tomatoes, lettuce
Rules:  Kids could choose two things that they did not want to eat on their salad.  Everything else they had to take at least three pieces of.    Since the peppers and onions are the least favorite, most opted to take the avocado (something they normally would never eat).  Knight also tried tomatoes, which he does not like normally and said that something funny had happened to his taste buds and they were normally gross but he liked them today!  Yes!!! I think my evil methods must be working.

Read More

Last Day of Christmas Break

Okay, almost off of Christmas break, and the last day that we have some extra time to focus on meals, tomorrow we will be in the back to school rush so we will have to see how that goes.

Breakfast--Oatmeal

We always add some brown sugar and the kids like blueberries mixed in.  We were out of blueberries so they got a choice of either peaches or blackberries today. 

My kids love oatmeal cooked like this.  I still had left over millet cooked this exact way, so I threw in a cup into the batch and nobody noticed they were getting an extra little dose of millet in there.  It worked wonderfully.

Lunch--Sandwiches

I had some bread left over that needed to be used up so we just had some turkey sandwiches.  The kicker this time was that they had to have either tomato or lettuce on their sandwich.   Some chose tomato, others lettuce, and a couple like Blade chose both:)

I also wanted them to have a real vegetable.  So I cut up some fresh zucchini and told them that if they ate the four pieces of zucchini they got, they could have the potato chips that they had been eying since I brought them home from the grocery store.  This was incredibly motivating and every single person ate their zucchini!  Yea!!!!!  We had to get a bit creative with Eve, but even my non-vegetable-eating girl ate every piece of  her zucchini, even if it meant getting a small piece of chip for each small bite of zucchini and a big chip for each big bite.  I know some people would think this was sinful to bribe vegetable eating with potato chips, but at the point in the game that we are at, it worked beautifully.  I am hoping that the.y will become accustomed to these tastes and eventually like them and choose them over less healthy alternatives.  We will see if it works this way.

Dinner--Lemon Garlic Chicken over potatoes, cheesy broccoli

http://www.food.com/recipe/amazing-baked-lemon-garlic-chicken-thighs-and-potatoes-346661

I don't know if I would call it amazing, but the chicken was eaten a lot better than the potatoes.  Because I had some Velveta cheese sauce on the steamed Broccoli, it went over pretty well. Again it is through the small and simple steps that we can meet our ultimate goal.  I made 2 lbs of frozen broccoli and almost all of it was eaten, so I am feeling pretty good, even if it meant we had to cancel out some of our Alkaline benefits by adding Velveta:)

Read More

Birthday Meals and Apple Crisp

Sunday--

We might call Sunday a bit of a break, because we had a few birthday meals that we missed back in crazy December.  So if you are looking for Alkaline, your won't find a whole ton of it hear, but we tried a bit.  So the goal of the day was to have breakfast pizza for breakfast....but we were running a bit behind schedule, so it became lunch.

Breakfast--Cereal--Which is always Rice Chex or Corn Chex, as these are some of the healthier gluten-free cereals.

Lunch--Breakfast Pizza 

I am going to post the recipe for our awesome gluten free pizza crust along with the link, in case I ever lose my copy of the recipe and the link changes:)  http://www.livingwithout.com/issues/4_16/gluten_free_presto_pizza_crust-2651-1.html
8 ingredients | 25 minutes

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Presto Pizza Crust

SERVES 2 TO 3 (8 SLICES)
Anything goes with this basic pizza crust. Enjoy traditional toppings of tomato sauce and dairy-free shredded cheese or make it Hawaiian with slices of prosciutto and pineapple. Measure out ingredients ahead of time to speed preparation time.
1½ cups gluten-free All-Purpose Flour Blend (preferably with some high- protein flour)
2 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons xanthan gum (if not included in flour blend)
¾ teaspoon salt (if not included in flour blend)
¾ cup warm water (110°–115°F)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine flour blend, yeast, sugar, xanthan gum and salt. Add liquids and beat 2 to 3 minutes until dough forms.
2. Lightly oil a 12-inch pizza pan.
3. Transfer dough to center of prepared pan. Cover with an oiled sheet of plastic wrap. Using the palm of your hand, press the dough to flatten and fill the pan. Dough should be about ¼-inch thick.
4. Leave the plastic wrap over the dough and let it rise 10 to 20 minutes.*
5. While dough rises, preheat oven to 425°F.
6. Remove plastic. Cover dough with your favorite gluten-free tomato sauce and toppings.
7. Place pizza in preheated oven and bake 12 to 14 minutes on lowest rack until cheese melts and crust browns at edges. If crust is thick, bake 20 minutes.
*TIP The longer the dough rises, the thicker the crust will be.

Each slice of crust contains 105 calories, 2g total fat, 0g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 0mg cholesterol, 223mg sodium, 19g carbohydrate, 1g fiber, 2g protein.

Food editor Beth Hillson (glutenfreemakeovers.com) is author of Gluten-Free Makeovers, available at LivingWithout.com.

While looking for my flour recipe I used (which I couldn't find online, I found this great site on healthy gluten free flours to mix together to make a power flour.  I think I will post that link to look into later, when I have more time.  http://www.livingwithout.com/issues/4_16/power_flour-2653-1.html.  I think my flour recipe I used was something like:
1 1/2 cups sorghum
1 c. brown rice
1 c. tapioca flour
1 c. cornstarch


We topped  our breakfast pizza with scrambled sausage, eggs, and added some mushrooms on part of it to make me feel a little better about our Alkaline goals:)

Results:  Everybody was super excited about this meal!!!!

Dinner:  Frozen pizza
I know, I know, but it was a birthday meal request.  Yuck, right?  We just used a premade Udi's gluten free crust and mad a special little pizza with spaghetti sauce, pepperoni, and cheese for Knight.

Results
Again, everybody received this with great joy.

Desserts:  Apple Crisp
I used a Rachel Ray recipe my friend was telling me about for a healthy Peach Crisp that used Quinoa.   I had apples, so that is what I used.  It was a bit cinnamony, and half of my kids did not like it, but I think it has good potential.  It tasted healthy, but I think if I took my usual oat crumble topping and mixed some of the quinoa and flax seed in, we could have a real winner. 

Read More

Sick Days--Green Smoothies, Chicken Pot Pie, and Brown Gravy

The last few days have been a whirlwind, leaving me very little time for blogging.  However, our quest to become an alkaline family has continued, although, I am realizing very quickly that this is going to be a much longer and slower journey than I had originally thought.  The alkaline foods have been quite heavily protested, and I just don't feel like I can make each meal a tortuous event for my family.  So I have been trying to go more main stream with alkaline things being thrown in heavily.  I am still happy that we are eating much better than we used to be, and the vegetable is no longer the after thought that gets forgotten in the dinner rush, so I think we are still doing okay. 

Well, after my last post about eating the fish and surprised that some of my kids actually ate it, the worst thing of all happened....we got a stomach bug and my oldest two girls got sick that night.  Do they contribute it to being January and the fact that everybody around us is sick?  No!  They insist it was the fish and swear it did not come up good and they would never, ever, ever in their entire life eat fish again.  So all gains in that area are lost, and I think I will have to do some pretty heavy bribing the next time fish is on the menu.

So that led me to a new dilemma.  What on earth do we eat that is good for upset stomachs, gluten-free and alkaline?  I thought I came up with a pretty good menu and the kids seemed to be satisfied and I was satisfied that it had vegis in it. 

Breakfast--Green Smoothie
We actually have these quite frequently and my kids like them most of the time.  We have a pretty standard recipe that we like.

4 cups fresh greens (we generally do spinach or kale, although my kids like the spinach better)
2 cups Orange Juice
2 cups frozen fruit
1 banana

Blend until smooth and enjoy.  We just throw everything into the food processor and it takes two batches to feed my crew. 

Hints that helped my kids eat green smoothies:
1.  Blueberries--It changes the color from green to purple and they like it much better this way, it is amazing how color can affect them so much.
2.  Straws--Everything is better with straws.  This makes it something special instead of just a normal drink.
3.  We also have been known to call it ice cream, and the little ones find this particularly exciting.

Lunch--Chicken Pot Pie over toast

OK, so I agree, the picture doesn't look appealing, but it is tasty.  We just made toast (and gluten free for Knight) then spooned it over the toast like gravy.  It was just right for upset tummies and most of the kids didn't complain too badly but they definitely thought the toast was the best part.

Choice:  They could put the chicken pot pie on the side or on top of the toast.  If on the side, they could dip the toast in it or eat it by itself.

This is a really great recipe.  http://www.food.com/recipe/delicious-chicken-pot-pie-10744
We substitute the flour with half that amount of cornstarch to make it gluten free and of course mix it in with some reserved cold chicken broth to add in at the end.  I also add some frozen peas, and this time I added some frozen corn because I needed to use it up.  We never put it in a pie crust, sometimes I will make gluten free biscuits to go on top, or put mashed potatoes and cheese on top, or do like we did today where we serve it over toast.  I like it any way.

Dinner:

Still keeping the upset tummies in mind, we just made a great big bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and then tried a new way to eat spinach.  I used a new gluten-free gravy recipe that was quite delicious  http://www.food.com/recipe/gluten-free-brown-gravy-279601
I liked it because it added vegies to our meal without the kids even knowing.  It seemed like it would be a lot of extra work, but it really wasn't because I just made that first and let it cook while I was making everything else.  Everybody seemed pretty happy with it.

The spinach was not a success at all.  I tried a lemon garlic spinach to go along especially well with our alkaline theme, but I think the problem was the recipe called for the juice of 1/2 of the lemon, but my lemon was particularly large, so it was way too lemony.  I ate a bunch, but it was difficult.  I think it has potential and next time I will limit the lemon juice to a couple of teaspoons and see if that makes it better.  http://www.food.com/recipe/spinach-saute-with-brown-butter-garlic-110043

By the end of the day, everybody was feeling better and relatively happy with the food choices of the day and I had found a good new healthy recipe for gravy, so we will call it successful.

Read More

Alkaline Overload...What NOT to do!

Days like today are what make people give up on their New Years resolutions, and the reason I started this blog, so I had some motivation to keep going.  I am not sure whether the disaster came from me being over zealous with the alkaline and trying too many different new foods in one day or the fact that I still need to go grocery shopping, making our options for healthy meals quite limited.   

Breakfast:  We decided to try millet and followed a recipe very similar to the way we make our oatmeal (which my kids love).  I decided to sweeten my with Brown sugar, instead of the maple syrup for now, because I already know that my kids do not like the maple syrup as well when we use that in our oatmeal.  Here is the recipe I used, http://www.food.com/recipe/millet-porridge-65734 and I think the recipe in itself is very good, we just were not used to the Millet.  It was really the texture that got us, as I thought the taste itself was quite good.  I left the raisins on the side, as I have a few children who are not fans of raisins to begin with. 

 

Response, was not very good. 

 Jade (10) and I both liked, it and would eat it again, but agreed the texture would take a bit getting used to.

The rest thought drowning it in regular syrup would make it better, and some were able to finish it that way.  When asked what they thought of it, they said to never make it again.

 

Lunch: Potato Soup

 

I knew the results of this going in, but I love potato soup and so does Joy (11) and Eve (3).  The rest....not so much.  Jade (10) ate it, although it is not her favorite, and the boys ate it only because there was no other option, but did some complaining along the way.



 

 

Dinner, now I was really scrambling for something  healthy.  I found some marinated Tilapia in the freezer that my brother had suggested I buy one time.  I was wanting to eat healthier and thought we would give it a try.  Yet it has sat in my freezer waiting for me to get brave enough to try fish...as my family DOES NOT eat fish.  So I thought, well that is pretty healthy, why not try it tonight?  I also made a side dish with, you guessed it . . . millet.  I thought maybe it just needed to be made a different way so my kids would like it.  But in hindsight, I think it was a little too soon to try Millet again:) So I made a cheesy casserole  http://www.food.com/recipe/herbed-cheese-millet-casserole-320488.  I also pulled out the cooked carrots from yesterday and made a brown sugar, ginger sauce to go over them http://www.food.com/recipe/24k-carrots-152441 (thinking that this would make them more tempting for the people who did not like them yesterday) and pulled out the leftover salad to satisfy the picky eaters. 

 

 

Results:

Ummm, not so good.

Tae (9) got a sudden headache and decided he was too sick to eat (not sure if this was real or imagined)

Jade, Joy, Blade (4) liked the fish alright.  Knight (6) liked it okay until he heard it was fish and then decided maybe he didn't like it anymore. My husband and I forced ourselves to eat the fish, although it was difficult as we don't particularly like fish, although this was particularly well seasoned. Eve (3) wouldn't even allow the fish on her plate.

 

Fancy cooked carrots--Nobody was a fan of these and Jade who depised them yesterday said, "You thought it would make them better to add sugar to these?"  I thought they were pretty tasty, but both Blade and Joy who liked them yesterday plain, did not like them sweet.   Note to self, the plain carrots actually went over better than the sweet one.

 

Millet casserole-- I thought this was decent tasting, slightly salty, but good.  Again, the texture got most of my family and was a no go for most of them. All the beautiful cheese on top did not even  convince them to eat it.  Jade said, "This is breakfast again with cheese added to it!"  I guess I can't disguise millet even cooked in a completely different way. 

 

The salad was a welcomed sight for many who quickly grabbed some lettuce so they didn't have to eat the other offerings.

 

So all in all, I have a lot of kids who weren't very happy with the meals of the day.  So it is a good reminder I can't move too fast.  Up the vegis and keep things moving in a positive direction, but slow and steady will definitely win this race. 

 

I went grocery shopping tonight, because a bad storm is due to move in and I knew I definitely didn't want to wait a couple more days.  All in all, I think I did pretty good.  I got lots of greens and vegetables, but then a threw in a couple of old favorites, just to keep moral up.  So at some point we will eat some frozen pizza and have some potato chips and dip, but as long as all those vegetables in my fridge don't rot, we will be doing well.  Tomorrow is another day and we will try again, although I already  promised breakfast pizza (since we missed a couple of birthday breakfasts and we have to make them up.) Maybe I'll feed them a green smoothie with it, so that it can count as something alkaline.  Slow and steady, slow and steady, we will get this figured out eventually.



Read More

Secret to Getting Kids to Eat Stir-Fry

So instead of going grocery shopping, I decided to start this blog....which means the only Alkaline-type food I had available for dinner tonight was Stir-fry!  This would be an easy meal for most of my kids and even requested as a birthday meal by Jade.  But it wasn't always a meal that my kids liked, we had to use our secret to make it an acceptable meal. But first things first, here was our meal.

Contents: Stir Fry, Brown Rice, Honey Dew






We switched to brown rice quite some time ago, so my kids don't even expect white rice any more.  If your kids refuse to eat stir fry, you might try to start them with the white rice, then gradually switch over to brown rice.  I had a friend that would actually make two different pans of rice. One brown rice and one white rice (because you can't cook them together without catastrophic results) and then mix them together to serve them to her kids.  So here the ultimate goal is brown rice, but start with whatever you have to in order to get them to eat the vegetables.

So how did I get my picky kids to eat stir fry?
1.  I have a recipe that we like; it is sweet so the kids like it.  http://www.food.com/recipe/chinese-brown-sauce-chicken-58347 We just use a little chicken and then add the frozen stir-fry vegetables and particularly like the ones that have the little corn cobs and snow peas in them. 
2. They get the choice to have the stir fry mixture separate or on top of the rice.  I truly believe having a choice is a key to most meals.
3.  They get to eat the honey dew only if they eat their stir fry and rice..Mean, I know, but a few of my children need that motivation:)
All of that is good and helps, but the true secret.......drum roll please.......

CHOPSTICKS!!!  We have a nice set because my husband lived in Korea for a couple years, but any old chopsticks will do.  However, they can only use the chopsticks if they are eating their   food.  The motivation this provides is incredible.  Notice how everybody had to have their picture eating with the chopsticks?

      Having some Chopstick fun!

Read More

First Alkaline Meal

Our first attempt at an Alkaline meal.  I desperately needed to go to the grocery store, and was short on time.  So I used the rest of the vegetables in my refrigerator to create a chicken salad.  I know this isn't the most kid friendly meal, but given the ingredients on hand, this is what we got.  I have a couple of good salad eaters in my family, but most would prefer something else.   However, they all love boiled eggs, so we threw that in there too.  Here was our first attempt at an Alkaline meal.

 

Food:  Steamed carrots (with a little salt), Lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, celery, lemon garlic chicken, boiled eggs, ranch dressing (totally not alkaline, but we are not ready to eliminate this yet!)

 

.....And here were our ground rules, as I knew this would not be readily accepted by all.  But kids are all about choice and feeling like they have some say in the things that they do. So there were lots of options here. Also these rules were for parents and children alike.  Kids aren't going to eat healthier if you don't.

Ground Rules:
1.  Big kids had to have at least 1/2 cup lettuce, little kids 1/4 cup lettuce (yes we actually measured it). 
 2.  Each kid had to choose at least three of the vegetables to put on their salad (Which means that they didn't have to eat their two least favorite ones)
3.  Chicken and eggs were optional (But they all like these, so I knew they would all have at least 1)
4.  Everybody had to try at least 1 steamed carrot.

Steamed Carrot Results:
Joy (11) who hates fresh carrots and refuses to eat them, learned she loves steamed carrots, Blade (4) also loved them. Jade (10). Tae (9), and Knight (6), did not like steam carrots, but dutifully ate at least one bite.  Eve (3) got it to her mouth and possibly a nibble and decided it was not for her.

Salad Results:
Jade (10) and Knight (6) ate their salad, not their favorite, but they liked the eggs. 
Tae (9) ate his salad toppings, then stuffed the lettuce in separately just to make it be gone.  There were no rules on how it had to be combined, so this counts. 
Joy (11) and Blade (4) have always been big salad eaters and loved it and got seconds. 
Eve (3)  did not like the salad or the looks of the salad and did not want it on her plate.  She had the option of the 1/2 cup or the 1/4 cup and she choose neither, but then decided it could sit on the plate and it was better to get the 1/4 cup since it was indeed smaller.  Choosing 3 vegetables, about killed her, but we got three on the plate.  She happily ate two eggs, yet refused to even taste the salad (even when we mixed eggs in).  We tried saying she could just eat three bites and even bribing with a couple Smarties, but it was a no-go.   I told her I would video tape her eating it, as she is normally all about videos, but all to no avail.  So we compromised on no more eggs if she wouldn't eat the salad and a short rest time after lunch. We knew this would be a long journey and I will actually call this a success as normally we can't even get it on her plate:)

Read More

Blog Beginnings

So a little history to begin with.  When I got married, I listed cooking as a hobby of mine, as I enjoyed finding new recipes and excitement of trying something different.  However, cooking quickly moved to the bottom of the list when it became a thing I had to do three times a day for a family of hungry people.  As a mother of six young children, it became daunting to try to find something that everybody would eat and I think a meal rarely goes by where everybody is happy with the food choices.  Although having a healthy diet has always been important to be, it became such a daunting and unrewarding task to try to cook healthy meals that everybody would eat, that it quickly moved to bottom of my priorities and the quicker convenient foods took charge.

To make things more challenging, one of my children was diagnosed with a gluten allergy when he was four years old. Our food world quickly turned upside down, and I spent the next three months trying to find something for us to eat, as all of our usual food choices and particular favorite foods such as pizza and macaroni and cheese were laden with gluten.  The store had some incredibly expensive substitutes, but not realistic when I was trying to feed a family of eight on a tight food budget.  The one thing I knew, was if I was to keep my son from extreme tantrums and behavior issues and keep him from breaking out into horrific week-long hives all over his entire body, I had to remove gluten...and with a four-year-old, it had to be completely out of the house, as he just didn't understand why he couldn't eat the same thing everybody else had.  

And so began our journey to becoming gluten free along with a search  for a healthy lifestyle.  I was appalled at how so many of the gluten free substitutes, even if I made it from scratch, had starches such as tapioca flour, corn starch, or rice flour, all things that are just one step above sugar in my book. Now, my son is older and understands why he can't eat gluten, so although we eat much less gluten than before, we have reverted to some of our old ways, with gluten-free substitutes just for him.

I spent lots of time searching for a new way of eating.  I had run across the alkaline eating chart in the past and found it interesting, but over Christmas I began talking with my mom about Alkaline and realized that this was the healthy eating style I was really looking for. To me, this made so much sense.  It was eating in a way that was healthy but not extreme.  It did not complete alleviate any food groups, but was balanced with a heavy emphasis on vegetables.  I realized that the typical American diet of macaroni and cheese, cereal, and hamburgers was exactly opposite of what our bodies were designed to digest.  As Americans, the vast majority of our foods we consume are acidic and we deeply neglect the alkaline foods that put our body in a healthy state to be able to fight disease and sickness.  I love how the Alkaline diet uses a 60% alkaline food and 40% acidic food ratio.  That means we can eat all of our old favorites on special occasions or in moderation, but as a general rule we focus on our vegetables.  To me, that is both realistic and healthy and I think it is exactly what my family needs.

So this is a blog about my family's journey to becoming an Alkaline family.  As I searched the internet, I found lots of information on Alkaline, but hardly any on how to change kids used to eating a typical American fare over to an Alkaline diet.  I knew if I fed my kids the straight out Alkaline recipes I found on the internet, they would push it away and rather starve than eat the food before them.  This blog is our step by step transition to a healthy alkaline diet along with the pitfalls and successes we will achieve as we strive to keep our bodies healthy.  I will admit right away, that if you are looking for some place that follows all of the rules, you are in the wrong place.  We are beginners and trying to move over to the healthy Alkaline style, so I am sure there will be some exceptions especially here at the beginning.

Read More