Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 30, 2012 3 Comments
No bake, nut-free cookies that kids can cook! Paired with a sweet touch of honey and wholesome
oats, these protein power bites are the new lunchbox regulars at our house.
“But the best ‘wich that I ever had was
A peanut butter sandwich made with jam
Yum yum yummy yum yum!”
Raffi’s wisdom runs deep, and never more than when it comes
to peanut butter. A staple in most kids lunchboxes, that creamy creation is the
go-to, normally no-fail solution for moms struggling to get their kids to eat
lunch at school – me included! So when our school went nut-free, I had to find
an equally unequivocal lunchtime companion. The recommendation from teachers
and allergy-experienced parents: sunbutter.
Feature Recipe: No Bake Sunbutter Bites from The Scramble
Remember the joys of baking your very own cupcake creations
under the heat of a lightbulb in the Easy Bake Oven? My love for baking started
early, and though I still have a high-school-crush-style love of the sport,
busy mom syndrome has set in and I don’t often have time for whipping up
homemade creations. I’m always on the hunt for tasty, easy, healthy recipes my
kids can cook, so when I stumbled on No Bake Peanut Butter cookies from The
Scramble I jumped on it. Quick and easy to make, I decided to take these
bewitching bake-free bites for a spin, using sunbutter instead of peanut butter
to create a healthy, nut-free lunchtime snack.
Crunch a Color Kids
Vote: 2 Thumbs Up! Best in class!
What we liked: These
mini-morsels were so easy and fast, we decided to make two batches: one with
sunbutter and the other with peanut butter. Unlike on a sandwich, it was tough
to tell the difference between the peanut butter and the sunbutter bites in our
blind taste test. Whether it was because of the hint of honey, or the wholesome
crunchiness of oats, this recipe resulted in a healthy treat that will become a
regular feature on our lunchtime and afterschool snack menu. Next time we’ll try
adding raisins or cranberries to the mix! A nice added bonus -- go ahead and enjoy the batter.
Want a prize for
trying something new? Tell me which new
food you’d like your kids to try and enter to win a 3-month subscription to The
Scramble. Life just got a little easier!
Next up: Curry
A cozy curry with piping hot vegetables and a side of Naan
is a winter-time recipe I love. My kids normally shy away from this wonderful,
Indian-inspired dish. But when they meet Slow Cooker Curry from The Family
Dinner they may change their minds. Our next new food of the week: curry.
Craving more new recipes
to try? Catch up on last week’s recipe: Spinach Cake Muffins.
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a
mom of two children and the creator of Crunch a Color™ -- the
award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution, FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch
her picky eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters playing the
game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52NewFoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure
and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 28, 2012 0 Comments
Planted firmly toe to
toe, it was a piercing stare down contest of epic proportions. Two unrelenting,
iron wills: Spinach vs. my picky eater. What’s a mom to do?
Dark, leafy and overflowing with wholesome healthiness,
spinach has long been the holy grail of healthy eating. Popeye cried, “I'm
strong to the finich, ‘cause I eats me spinach!” to coax children into eating spinach to channel
superhero strength. But not my picky eater! First, the polite pass, “No thank
you, not today.” Second, the more direct, “My taste buds and spinach aren’t
friends.” Culminating in the uniquely Seussian, “Not in a car, not in a tree, not
on a train, Mom, let me be!”
To succeed, I needed a game changer: a crafty, colorful
creation my picky eater could have fun cooking. There’s one person I know who
could pull that off: Catherine McCord of Weelicious.
Feature Recipe: Spinach
Cake Muffins
Weelicious is a gold mine of tasty, easy, healthy recipes
you and your kids can cook. Catherine has done the heavy lifting for us busy
moms and figured out how to make healthy eating easy and fun. She’s woven beets
into pancakes, gone wild for wheat berry, and in this case, spun spinach into
healthy muffins. In my house, no one is going to turn down a piping hot muffin
and with fewer than 10 ingredients and ready to bake in less than 10 minutes I
decided I'd take Spinach Cake Muffins for a spin.
Crunch a Color Kids
Vote: 2 Thumbs Up! It’s my turn with the food processor!
What we liked: Any
recipe that involves a Cuisinart is sure to be a winner with kids. What’s more
fun than loading a bushel full of ingredients into a big bowl and flipping the
switch to blend it into a blur? Instant entertainment. We also had a blast
guessing the “magic” ingredient. We baked up a batch, shared it with friends,
and challenged, “Guess the magic ingredient!” Green tea, melon, peas, mint chip
ice cream and avocado were some of the speculations. With each bite, a new guess. So
much fun! These mighty muffins are tasty, healthy and easy: the trifecta of
healthy eating. A great lunchbox snack or power breakfast partner, Spinach Cake
Muffins will be a regular in our kitchen this year.
Watch Catherine and her helper Chloe whip up these tasty treats in this adorable Weelicious video:
Do your kids like
spinach? What are some of your favorite folate-fortified recipes? Share your comments!
Next up: Sunbutter
When our school went nut-free, I sighed a long, tired sigh.
What would I do without those cute, crustless PB&J sandwiches? Sunbutter, a
peanut butter alternative made from sunflower seeds, was recommended. But on a
sandwich it made my kids simply long for the real McCoy. Thanks to the amazing
Aviva Goldfarb at The Scramble, I may have found the solution. Next up: No Bake
Sunbutter Bites.
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a
mom of two children and the creator of Crunch a Color™ -- the
award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution, FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch
her picky eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters playing the
game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52NewFoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure
and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 23, 2012 2 Comments
Gung Hay Fat Choy! Many mouth-watering foods are part of the Chinese New Year celebration, but
Mandarin Oranges always top our list of favorites. Ambassadors of prosperity
and good luck, Mandarin Oranges are the perfect food to ring in a New Year filled with healthy eating adventures!
Don’t you find that the best things in life are the simplest
things? Mandarin Oranges rank in the top quartile for simple pleasures in my
book. Perfectly sized
for little hands and packed with happiness (and vitamin C), they are easy
lunchbox companions, super snacks, and delectable for dessert. For playful food
artists like my daughter, Mandarin Oranges always make an easy and beautiful
feature food. Though lovable on
their own, we decided to venture out and try a new twist on one of our all-time
favorite foods.
Feature Recipe: Avocado
and Orange Salad with Hazelnuts
I love salads – when someone else makes them for me. My
salads are predictably boring, so I adore when someone brings a spirited salad
to share and I’m always on the lookout for interesting, easy salad recipes. Natalie Perry's Avocado and Orange Salad with Hazelnuts fits the bill. True to Natalie’s warning, my
food adventurers were not fond of the dressing, so I let them whip up a
healthy concoction that would be pleasing to their palates. They used a base of olive
oil, added a splash of orange and lemon juices, and a touch of honey.
Delicious!
Crunch a Color’s Citrus Dressing
¼c olive oil
2 Tbsps orange juice
Juice from one lemon
1 Tbsp of honey
Salt to taste Place all ingredients in a jar. Shake. Pour. Enjoy!(Tip: heat the honey for a few seconds in the microwave to make it mix more easily)
Crunch a Color Kids
Vote: 2 Thumbs Up! We’ll definitely try this again.
What we liked:The toasted hazelnuts were the surprise contender in this new food
contest. Their wonderful aroma and nutty flavor were incredibly inviting. Instead
of chopping the nuts, I placed them in a Ziplock bag and let my daughter hammer
them with a rolling pin. Less stressful for me and great fun for her! Despite
my best effort, though, my kids didn’t try the salad greens. Instead, I made a taster plate of the individual elements -- avocados,
Mandarin Orange slices, and hazelnuts – and let the kids dip the fixings into
their homemade dressing. They enjoyed savoring their citrus creation alongside
some of their familiar favorites. I call that a success!
Healthy Eating: Week 4,
Spinach
If my kids aren’t fond of salad greens, how am I going to
get them to try spinach? With Martian Muffins, that’s how! This week we’re
taking on the Big Daddy of healthy greens: Spinach! Thanks to Spinach Cake
Muffins from weelicious (aka Martian Muffins), my picky eaters may have met
their match.
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a
mom of two children and the creator of Crunch a Color™ -- the
award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat healthy meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution, FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch
her picky eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters playing the
game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52NewFoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure
and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on January 04, 2012 0 Comments
Healthy
Eating will top countless New Year’s resolution lists this year. The Crunch a
Color kids decided to take on this challenge in a new way: 52 weeks, 52 new foods (#52NewFoods). I
hope you and your picky eaters will join us on this yearlong adventure of
eating healthy and trying new, kid-friendly, easy recipes. Jamie Oliver will
feature our culinary journey -- it’s a New Year’s food revolution!
Crisp air and sunlight sparkling on the Golden Gate Bridge
served as a perfect backdrop to our family outing. The fresh market was buzzing
with curious customers sampling and savoring delicious treats from local
artisans and farmers. It was New Year’s Day and a visit to the farmer’s market
in San Francisco was top on my list for starting 2012 on the right track. The
goal: Try a new healthy food every week. 52 weeks, 52 new foods. A healthy
eating adventure for my whole family.
Eating healthy will top many lists of New Year’s resolutions
this year, my family included. Instead of focusing on what we can’t have, I am
challenging my family to find and try healthy new foods to expand our
repertoire of favorites. Putting the children in charge of this culinary adventure
is the key to success: when they choose, they are more likely to enjoy. Each
week I will write about a new food that my family will try. Whether it’s an
entirely new healthy food, like the Jujube’s we sampled at the market that
sunny Sunday in San Francisco, or old favorites prepared in a new way, my
family and I will try a healthy food and recipe from aspiring Jamie Oliver Food
Revolution chefs each week.
Week #1: Onion You may be thinking, “Onion, is that really
new to you?” Well, it’s certainly not new to me but my picky eater runs a fast
mile when she spots them on her plate. My jaw dropped when I spotted her gobbling
up a delicately pan-fried onion pancake at the market. She even ventured to try
a belly-warming, homemade organic fennel and cipollini onion soup. Maybe it was
the new twist on a familiar food that got her past her picky palate? Or maybe
it was because she got to choose what she would try from a magnificent array of
artisanal creations? Whatever the reason, this staple of healthy eating will be
our starting point this year.
Featured Recipe: Out of the Box Food's Vegetable Beef Soup With loads of leftovers from bountiful holiday celebrations,
I decided Out of the Box Food’s healthy take on Vegetable Beef Soupwould be the perfect place to start, where onions form the
foundation of this hearty dish. Kim Gerber does an outstanding job turning some
of America’s favorite dishes into healthy, easy recipes that your whole family
will enjoy. I hope you’ll join me this week in trying Kim’s recipe. Scout out an
unusual onion (or two) to feature in your creation and be sure to share your
stories and favorite recipes. Let me know if you've got a great recipe that you'd like me to try. I’ll report back on our experiment next week!
About the author: Jennifer Tyler Lee is a mom of two
children and the creator of Crunch a Color™
-- the award-winning game that makes healthy eating fun. Like most parents, she
struggled to get her kids to eat healthy, balanced meals, so she decided to
make it into a healthy
eating game and she’s giving back to support Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,
FoodCorps, and Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard. Watch her picky
eaters tell the story of how they turned into healthy eaters
playing the game. Follow @crunchacolor and #52newfoods to tune into Crunch a Color's healthy eating adventure and Jennifer’s tips and kid-friendly, easy recipes.
Posted by Jennifer Lee on December 28, 2011 2 Comments
Crunch a Color™ was featured this week on CTV's Morning Live. Parent Tested, Parent Approved's Sharon Vinderine featured a lineup of products that parents (and kids!) have put to the test and voted top on their list. Picky eaters, you've met your match!
“But the best ‘wich that I ever had was
Remember the joys of baking your very own cupcake creations
under the heat of a lightbulb in the Easy Bake Oven? My love for baking started
early, and though I still have a high-school-crush-style love of the sport,
busy mom syndrome has set in and I don’t often have time for whipping up
homemade creations. I’m always on the hunt for tasty, easy, healthy recipes my
kids can cook, so when I stumbled on 
What we liked: These
mini-morsels were so easy and fast, we decided to make two batches: one with
sunbutter and the other with peanut butter. Unlike on a sandwich, it was tough
to tell the difference between the peanut butter and the sunbutter bites in our
blind taste test. Whether it was because of the hint of honey, or the wholesome
crunchiness of oats, this recipe resulted in a healthy treat that will become a
regular feature on our lunchtime and afterschool snack menu. Next time we’ll try
adding raisins or cranberries to the mix! A nice added bonus -- go ahead and enjoy the batter.
A cozy curry with piping hot vegetables and a side of Naan
is a winter-time recipe I love. My kids normally shy away from this wonderful,
Indian-inspired dish. But when they meet Slow Cooker Curry from The Family
Dinner they may change their minds. Our next new food of the week: curry.
Dark, leafy and overflowing with wholesome healthiness,
spinach has long been the holy grail of healthy eating. Popeye cried, “I'm
strong to the finich, ‘cause I eats me spinach!” to coax children into eating spinach to channel
superhero strength. But not my picky eater! First, the polite pass, “No thank
you, not today.” Second, the more direct, “My taste buds and spinach aren’t
friends.” Culminating in the uniquely Seussian, “Not in a car, not in a tree, not
on a train, Mom, let me be!” 
Weelicious is a gold mine of tasty, easy, healthy recipes
you and your kids can cook. Catherine has done the heavy lifting for us busy
moms and figured out how to make healthy eating easy and fun. She’s woven beets
into pancakes, gone wild for wheat berry, and in this case, spun spinach into
healthy muffins. In my house, no one is going to turn down a piping hot muffin
and with fewer than 10 ingredients and ready to bake in less than 10 minutes I
decided I'd take Spinach Cake Muffins for a spin. 
What we liked: Any
recipe that involves a Cuisinart is sure to be a winner with kids. What’s more
fun than loading a bushel full of ingredients into a big bowl and flipping the
switch to blend it into a blur? Instant entertainment. We also had a blast
guessing the “magic” ingredient. We baked up a batch, shared it with friends,
and challenged, “Guess the magic ingredient!” Green tea, melon, peas, mint chip
ice cream and avocado were some of the speculations. With each bite, a new guess. So
much fun! These mighty muffins are tasty, healthy and easy: the trifecta of
healthy eating. A great lunchbox snack or power breakfast partner, Spinach Cake
Muffins will be a regular in our kitchen this year. 
When our school went nut-free, I sighed a long, tired sigh.
What would I do without those cute, crustless PB&J sandwiches? Sunbutter, a
peanut butter alternative made from sunflower seeds, was recommended. But on a
sandwich it made my kids simply long for the real McCoy. Thanks to the amazing
Aviva Goldfarb at The Scramble, I may have found the solution. Next up: No Bake
Sunbutter Bites. 
Don’t you find that the best things in life are the simplest
things? Mandarin Oranges rank in the top quartile for simple pleasures in my
book. Perfectly sized
for little hands and packed with happiness (and vitamin C), they are easy
lunchbox companions, super snacks, and delectable for dessert. For playful food
artists like my daughter, Mandarin Oranges always make an easy and beautiful
feature food. 
I love salads – when someone else makes them for me. My
salads are predictably boring, so I adore when someone brings a spirited salad
to share and I’m always on the lookout for interesting, easy salad recipes. Natalie Perry's 
What we liked: 
If my kids aren’t fond of salad greens, how am I going to
get them to try spinach? With Martian Muffins, that’s how! This week we’re
taking on the Big Daddy of healthy greens: Spinach! Thanks to 
Crisp air and sunlight sparkling on the Golden Gate Bridge
served as a perfect backdrop to our family outing. The fresh market was buzzing
with curious customers sampling and savoring delicious treats from local
artisans and farmers. It was New Year’s Day and a visit to the farmer’s market
in San Francisco was top on my list for starting 2012 on the right track. The
goal: Try a new healthy food every week. 52 weeks, 52 new foods. A healthy
eating adventure for my whole family.
