My parents were around in full force this summer. It was a huge help to me but it also meant my kids were exposed to a whole host of foods that mommy does not want them eating. Let’s see, there was the day that Kenya
innocently told me that my father bought him “some” gum at the car wash (sugar free Trident with Aspartame to be exact). We later found Chloe playing unusually quietly and chewing something. Next to her were 15 empty gum wrappers. When we asked her where everything went that was in the wrappers she said, “in my tummy”. Then there were the times my dad let Kenya order “a drink in a red can that was really sweet with bubbles in it,” but of course Kenya was told to not say anything to me. Are you starting to see a pattern here with my dad and his knowledge
of what is and is not ok to feed kids?

Or how about the day that I made these Blueberry Cheesecake Bites and Kenya said, “Grandpa took me to the Cheesecake Factory. I love cheesecake.” Now, I have nothing against cheesecake — it was one of my favorite desserts as a kid — but I get cavities just thinking about the mounds of sugar that most recipes call for. This version is different and has become one of my kids’ new favorite sweet treats. Since they are bite-sized, contain no refined sugar, have tons of fresh blueberries and even a whole wheat and oat crust, I feel a lot better offering these to my kids for dessert than a lot of the alternatives.

Blueberry Cheesecake Bites (makes 20-25 bites)

Oat Crust:

1 Cup Old Fashioned Oats
1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Light Brown Sugar
6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, chilled

Filling:

4 oz Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 Large Egg, at room temperature
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup Sour Cream
1/3 Cup Light Brown Sugar
1 Cup Fresh Blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 300 F.
2. To make the crust, place the first 3 ingredients in a food processor and pulse to chop oats.
3. Add the butter and pulse to combine.
4. Press the crust on the bottom of a parchment-lined 8 x 8 baking dish and flatten evenly with your hands. Bake for 10 minutes to set, then allow to cool.
5. Lower the oven temperature to 250 F.
6. To make the filling, place the first 5 ingredients in a bowl and beat to combine.
7. Fold in the blueberries.
8. Pour the batter on top of the crust and bake for 1 hour.
9. Cool and then chill until ready to serve.
10. Cut into squares and serve.*

*To get clean squares, wipe your knife between each slice.

As many of you know, we’re big on dips in our house. I find that if you put out a big platter of veggies next to a yummy dip for plunging into, the variety of vegetables you can get into kids’ little bodies increases by….well, a lot! Case in point was the day that I made this Avocado Honey Dip. Chloe had just woken up from her nap and was sitting with me at the kitchen counter while I was concocting this creamy spread. She asked if she could try some, so I made her a little plate with baby carrots, sugar snap peas and pretzels. Chloe dipped a few times and then, in the time that it took me to turn around to grab something and turn back, she had her little arm wrapped around the mixing bowl and the spatula I had used to stir it in her mouth. Eventually I surrendered and let her finish it all.

There’s nothing worse than sending your child to school with a lunch box packed full of fresh veggies only to have them come back home exactly the way you sent them: uneaten. My advice? Add some of this dip and see if it adds to your kid’s fun of wanting to munch and crunch on the good stuff that goes with it!

Avocado Honey Dip (makes 1 cup)

1 Avocado, peeled and pitted
1/4 Cup Whipped Cream Cheese
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp Honey

1. Place all of the ingredients in a bowl and mash together.
2. Serve with cut up veggies, crackers, pretzels or even as a spread on toast.

I was scouring some of my cookbooks recently trying to find a peanut butter and jelly popsicle. Oh yeah, I said it PB & J pop. Nothing. Ziltch. How was that possible. Ok, maybe there’s one out there, but I didn’t find it and I couldn’t get the thought of making them out of my head.

Cut to me finding a box of 100 Dixie cups in the bathroom cabinet that day. When did I buy these? They must have been there for over a year, but I not a single one had been used. Ahh ha.. I could make the PB & J popsicles in them!

I headed down to the kitchen mixing a little of this and a little of that until I came up with what seemed like the perfect mixture and began layering and then freezing the popsicles.

Cut to Kenya opening the freezer when I was looking an hour later and accidentally dumping the tray of cups over and watching my little experiment poured all of the freezer (if you’ve ever tried cleaning peanut butter out of a freezer I’m sure you can imagine this wasn’t a ton of fun). But after we made another batch and let them freeze (check out the image at the end of this post) you had two kids (and a mom) who happily devoured a batch of PB & J pops loving every last bite.

PB & J Pops (Makes 4 pops)

1/2 Cup Peanut Butter, smooth
2 Tbsp Honey
1 Cup Milk, divided (any type of milk will work)
1/2 Cup Your Favorite Fruit Preserves (I used Raspberry)

1. Combine the peanut butter, honey and 1/2 cup of milk in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
2. Whisk the preserves and the remaining milk in a separate bowl to combine.
3. Pour both mixtures into 2 separate liquid measuring cups for easy pouring.
4. Pour 2 tbsp of the peanut butter mixture into each Dixie cup, followed by 3 tbsp of the fruit preserves mixture.
5. Freeze for 30 minutes.
6. Pour the remaining peanut butter mixture on top. Pok a popsicle stick in the middle of the cups.
7. Freeze for at least 6 hours or more.
8. Serve.

Do you have any idea how much money you spend on granola and/or nutritional bars for your kids? Take a minute and add it up; I would bet it’s more than you think. Before you say “they’re convenient”, trust me, I get it. On those busy mornings when you don’t have time for breakfast, there’s nothing easier than tossing a bar into your child’s lunch box and another one into your purse, but a majority of the brands on the market are not as healthy as their manufacturers would lead you to believe. Plus, they are made with ingredients I can’t even begin to pronounce.

About 8 years ago, I got so fed up with what my husband was spending on bars to take to work with him, I devoted myself to figuring out how to make them myself. I worked so hard at it, I even flirted with starting my own bar business! These Chocolate Chip Granola Bars are unbelievably delicious and, if you wrap them individually, just as easy to grab when you’re on-the-go as the ones you buy at the market (plus, you’ll have no problem pronouncing all of the ingredients in these). But the best part? This recipe makes 30 bars. Most pre-packaged bars will run you a dollar or more. That would come out to about $30 (!) compared to the less than $4 it costs to make this recipe (and don’t forget the time you’ll also save not having to go to the grocery).

If you can’t bear giving your kids chocolate chips first thing in the morning (my husband always gets tweaked when he sees the kids eating these at 8am), you can easily replace them with naturally sweet dried fruit like cranberries, cherries or raisins. My feeling is if my kids are going to have chocolate at all I would rather it be at the beginning of the day than right before they go to bed.

Chewy and crunchy with toasted oats and a sweet surprise in every bite, these Chocolate Chip Granola Bars are a must for your back to school rotation!

Chocolate Chip Granola Bars (makes about 30 bars)

4 Cups Old Fashioned Oats
1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Shredded Unsweetened Coconut
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Chocolate Chips*
1/2 Tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 Cup Canola Oil
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Honey

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients.
4. Pour the wet ingredients over the oat mixture and stir to combine.
5. Place granola mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet and shape into a rectangle, about 13 x 9 x 1 inch thick.
6. Bake for 40 minutes.
7. Allow to cool for 10 minutes then cut into 3 x 1 inch bars.**
8. Serve.

* You can substitute raisins or other dried fruit for the chocolate chips.
** Individually wrapped, the bars will remain fresh for several weeks.

One of the greatest things about having a mother-in-law who is a veteran preschool teacher is that she has an encyclopedic knowledge of children’s books. She has always been able to effortlessly suggest to us amazing titles that contain wonderful morals and lessons, but are first and foremost a ton of fun to read.

One of the first books we got for Kenya based on her recommendation was “If You Give a Mouse A Cookie” and it’s still a favorite of both my kids. Even though it appears to be a chocolate chip cookie that the mouse is eating in the book (and there’s also a biscotti), we like to talk about what other cookies that we think the mouse might enjoy, going back and forth with our favorites. Raisin Oatmeal, Graham Cracker, Peanut Butter, Gingersnaps….wait, Gingersnaps? The kids had no idea what I was talking about. How could that be? Had I really never exposed them to the crispy, delicious taste of a gingersnap?! Armed with a big bag of whole wheat flour and iron packed molasses, I set out to right that horrible wrong.

These cookies are so much fun to make with the kids, but make sure to close your cookie jar lid because even a little mouse will want to get it’s paws on these!

Ginger Snap Cookies (Makes 32 cookies)

1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature
1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp Molasses
1 Large Egg
1 Tsp Fresh Ginger, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Place the first four ingredients in a bowl and combine.
3. Place the butter and sugar in a standing mixer or bowl and beat on low until fluffy.
4. Add the egg, molasses and ginger and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.
5. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined.
6. Using a cookie scooper, drop 1 tbsp of cookie batter onto a Silpat or parchment lined baking sheet 2 inches apart from each other and bake for 12 minutes for soft cookies or 15 minutes for crispy cookies.
7. Cool and serve.

One of my favorite treats that my grandmother used to make us when we went over to her house to play were her bran muffins. She liked to serve them warm and must have always timed it so they would come out of the oven right as we arrived. I will never forget the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread that would hit you the moment you opened her front door.

I know what you must be thinking: What kind of kid looks forward to bran muffins? Aren’t bran muffins kind of boring and not very kid friendly? Some bran muffins certainly do reside in the “blah” category, but my grandmother’s were sweet and had an almost nutty quality about them.

Sadly, I don’t have my grandmother’s recipe, but I still wanted to recreate that food memory from my childhood. I played around a bunch until I came up with this version, which I think is pretty close to my grandmother’s. To give my muffins a little extra zing, I added one of my kids’ favorite dried fruits, cranberries, for both color and taste.

When I bake these, the smell in my kitchen takes me back to when I was kid and the taste is just as delicious as my memories. This recipe will make you think twice about ever calling bran muffins boring again — they are anything but!

Cranberry Bran Muffins (makes about 40 mini or 15 regular muffins)

1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Cup Wheat Bran
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Cups Buttermilk
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Large Eggs
1/2 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Oil
1 Cup Dried Cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients except for the cranberries.
4. Slowly combine the dry ingredients into the wet, and then stir in the cranberries.
5. Pour batter into greased mini muffin cups about 2/3 of the way up and bake for 15 minutes (or 2/3 of the way up into regular size muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes).
6. Cool and serve.

Besides shopping at the farmers’ market for the food we eat during the week, we also like to stop when we get there and get breakfast from the prepared food vendors. For years we have been partial to pupusas, but in recent days, we’ve been switching things up a bit.

One of our newest obsessions are the multi-grain muffins from Valerie Confections, a local bakery. They set up the most beautiful display of baked goods and it is impossible to resist stopping by to check everything out, let alone not buy something. Pastries, cookies, chocolates, hand pies and — the inspiration for today’s recipe — beautiful little muffins packed with millet and pieces of dried apricot. My kids and husband adore them.

I’ve tried to pry the ingredient list out of one of the owners on more than one occasion. He will only hint as to what is inside these baked marvels, and even the few ingredients he would share are more likely found in a professional bakery than in a home kitchen. So, I finally stopped grilling him and got to work on developing my own muffin that would work for the rest of us.

These sweet, delicious gems are truly a treat. They may not be exactly what we buy at the farmers’ market, but if you saw the crumbs left on my family’s plates after I served them the first batch I made, you’d swear I got pretty darn close!

Millet Apricot Muffins (Makes 12 Regular Muffins)

1/2 Cup Millet
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk
1 Large Egg
2/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Ripe Bananas, mashed
3/4 Cup Dried Apricots, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Place millet on a baking sheet and toast for 5-6 minutes. Remove and toss the millet to make sure it is toasted evenly and toast an additional 5-6 more minutes. Set aside and allow to cool.
3. Raise the oven temperature to 375 F.
4. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in the toasted millet.
5. In a separate bowl or standing mixer, beat the butter and sugar until combined, about 1 minute. Add the egg and beat for another minute.
6. Add the mashed bananas, vanilla extract and buttermilk and beat until combined.
7. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix in the chopped apricots until just combined.
8. Grease muffin tins and fill cups 2/3 full with batter.
9. Bake for 20 minutes if using regular muffin tins (or until a toothpick comes out clean) or 14 minutes if using mini muffin tins (or until a toothpick comes out clean).
10. Cool muffins for 5 minutes in their tins, remove and continue to cool.
11. Serve.

There is the sweetest, homemade sno-cone stand at our farmers’ market called Sno-con AMOR where the owner (and Kenya’s newest love), Lauda, serves up the most incredible traditional Raspados (Mexican Snow Cones). With homemade syrups in flavors like walnut, coconut and mojito (I almost want to drop to the ground with embarrassment every time Chloe screams, “MORE MOJITO” in a crowd full of parents), these are nothing like the artificially sweetened and colored sno-cones you may be used to seeing. Lauda uses only the freshest, all natural ingredients to produce her frozen works of art.

Recently Lauda has been featuring watermelon-cinnamon as a flavor and it is heavenly. The first time she offered me a taste I was skeptical. Cinnamon and watermelon sounded like quite an unusual combo, but it took just one bite and I was knocked out. So knocked out in fact, that I had to replicate it at home. Given that the kids only see Lauda on Sunday, having granita (very similar to sno-cones) for them at home the remaining six days of the week made me very popular with them indeed.

And no, your eyes aren’t fooling you. That’s yellow watermelon pictured above. The kids can’t get enough of it when it is in season, so I used it to make this cinnamon spiked watermelon granita that tastes almost as good as Lauda’s sno-cones.

Whether you decide to make this with red or yellow watermelon, it’s a super sweet summer time treat that’s filled with AMOR!

Watermelon Granita (Serves 6-8)

5 Cups Watermelon Chunks
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/3 Cup Sugar

1. Place all of the ingredients in a blender and puree.
2. Place the puree in an 8×8 inch Pyrex dish and put in the freezer for 1 hour.
3. Remove from the freezer and scrape with a fork to break up pieces.
4. Place back into freezer for 1 hour.
5. Remove from the freezer and scrape with a fork to break up pieces.
6. Repeat this process one or two more times over several hours until the
granita is similar in consistency to shaved ice.
7. Serve (cover the dish with tin foil to keep the rest in the freezer).

I’ve always thought that until kids are 4 or so, birthday parties are more for the parents than the actual celebrant. I mean, do you know any kid who remembers any of their birthdays before that age? I personally don’t, but that’s never stopped me from having parties for my kids every year. When Kenya turned 3 we threw a big one for him. Since we knew he’d have little to no memory of it, we tried to think of a way to give the celebration more purpose. Instead of asking the invitees for gifts, we suggested people bring a new book to donate to our local children’s hospital. The hospital staff was so grateful, we continued doing it yearly in honor of both our kids birthdays. When Kenya turned 4, he got to deliver his birthday books to the hospital himself and really understood how fun and fulfilling it is to give books to those who might not have access to them.

Last year I learned about an incredible non-profit organization called Milk & Bookies that teaches young children how great it feels to give back while celebrating the love of a good book. It promotes both literacy and service learning by providing kids the opportunity to select, purchase and inscribe books that are then donated to their less fortunate peers. Milk & Bookies even helps you make the process easy by sending you a big box full of materials for your party so all your little guests can inscribe their books and get all kinds of great things in return, like great “I Donated” stickers to wear, bookmarks and more. I think it’s just about the coolest organization ever!

When we received our Milk & Bookies box, we also decided to make cookies to commemorate one of Kenya and Chloe’s favorite books, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”. This is my variation on the traditional oatmeal raisin cookie which uses naturally sweet honey instead of sugar and is packed with so many tender sweet raisins I give them top billing and call it a Raisin Oatmeal Cookie.

The next time you’re throwing a birthday for your little one and don’t feel like having your house filled with more plastic toys that will just get played with once or twice and forgotten, empower your child and do this for their birthday — and of course make a batch of these unbelievably delicious cookies!

Raisin Oatmeal Cookies (makes 3 dozen)

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature
1/2 Cup Honey
1 Large Egg, room temperature
2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Old Fashioned Oats
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 Cup Dried Raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Place the butter and honey in a bowl or standing mixer and beat for 1 minute.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat for another minute on medium speed or until smooth.
4. In a separate bowl, mix to combine the flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
5. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix to incorporate.
6. Stir in the raisins then drop 1 tbsp of dough for each cookie onto a Silpat or parchment-lined baking sheet.
7. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
8. Cool and serve.

There’s something about tapioca pudding that seems so kid-like to me. Not that adults don’t also love this creamy, coconut flavored pudding, but the act of plunging your spoon deep down into the bottom of the cup and pulling up some sweet, juicy strawberries to accompany the tapioca on top — all in the same bite — carries with it an anticipation that I associate almost completely with how excited I used to get as a kid to savor my desserts. This dish irresistable to me. In fact, typing this is making me so hungry I think I need to stop and have some! I guess I’m still just a kid at heart.

Fruit on the Bottom Tapioca (Serves 4)

1 Cup Strawberries, stemmed and chopped fine
1 13 oz Can Unsweetened Coconut Milk, about 1 3/4 cups
3/4 Cups Water
1/3 Cup Tapioca (not quick cooking)
3 Tbsp Sugar

1. Bring the coconut milk, water and tapioca to a boil.
2. Reduce to a low simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the sugar and cook for another 5 minutes.
4. Divide the chopped strawberries between 4 glass cups and pour tapioca over the strawberries.
5. Chill for one hour and serve.