I am the Grand Rapids Healthy Food Examiner for Examiner.com

I've been on a search for a "job" where I could get paid for talking about healthy foods, restaurants, foods, recipes, etc. and I finally found one! I am the new Grand Rapids Healthy Food Examiner for Examiner.com.

You can visit my page here: tinyurl.com/healthyfoodexaminer.

So far, I've written five articles on school lunches, The Green Well Gastro Pub, my green smoothie recipe, my homemade nut butter recipe and am working on three more articles on VP Farms in Caledonia, Sisters Natural Foods in Byron Center, and a stay-at-home-mom blogger who makes most of her food from scratch.

If anyone has any restaurants, recipes, or other story ideas that relate to healthy food, please let me know! I'm always on the lookout for new story ideas

The above image is from VP Farms, located at 3422 - 76th Street in Caledonia. It's hundreds of tiny little basil plants - and they smell wonderful! If you get a chance to check this place out before the season's over - go for it! Everyone I've talked to there is extremely helpful.

It's A Wrap!

I constantly find it mentally draining to figure out what I'm going to feed my kids every night. My husband and I rarely ever eat at the same time as they do, and we almost always eat something different from the kids. For that matter, my husband and I usually eat something different from each other as well.

Trying to appeal to the whole family, I decided that a wrap was the ideal vehicle. I could prepare a variety of stuffings and we each could choose our own. The one pictured here is made with chicken cooked in my electric skillet (more on this FABULOUS piece of cookware later), mexican blend of cheese, low-fat vegetarian refried beans, and a salsa that I made out of blueberries, corn and tomatoes. It was a hit with my kids, and later that evening my husband and I had a more traditional burrito with chicken, hot sauce, refried beans and lettuce.

I've been really enjoying hitting the farmers markets in the area this summer, and picked up some excellent corn that I cut straight from the cob and put it into the salsa raw. The blueberries were also from the farmers market and the tomatoes were from my garden. I tossed everything in together and seasoned with a little sea salt. It was especially good with crunchy, salty tortilla chips.

Healthy Popcorn and Light Sabres

After a recent work trip, my husband came home with two light sabers (or "light savers" as Bodin calls them). We decided to watch the actual Star Wars series with the kids to see if they liked them. I prepared a batch of our favorite popcorn and we all settled in. Reese, in between handfulls of popcorn, kept asking: "Where's Luke? Where's Luke?" After some fights between the kids with the light sabers (Mine is the red one!!) we finally got through the first two movies, and they really liked them!

Both kids almost always want a snack before bedtime, so I try and find healthy ones that I don't feel guilty about sending them to bed with. For the life of me, I cannot remember where I found this recipe, but it's one that I've been making regularly for a few years now.

Brown-bag air-pop your kernels in the microwave. I just place 3-4 Tablespoons of kernels into a brown lunch bag and stick it in the microwave. No oils required!

Then, I take my oil sprayer (usually filled with grapeseed or olive oil) and spray the popcorn. Then, sprinkle with a bit of sea salt and nutritional yeast, and you have a great-tasting and healthy fiber-filled snack. My kids shove each other's hands out of the bowl to finger-scoop some of the excess flavorings; it's sooo good. Nutritional yeast is very good for you. Here's an excerpt from: http://www.efn.org/~sundance/NutritionalYeast.html:

"Nutritional yeast contains 18 amino acids (forming the complete protein) and 15 minerals. Being rich in the B-complax vitamins, it it vital in many ways and particularly good for stress reduction. The B-complex vitamins help make nutritional yeast such a valuable supplement, especially to the vegetarian."

You can get nutritional yeast at any health food store. It's very inexpensive and lasts for a long time. Happy popping!

First Tomato of the Season

I just wanted to share a photo of Reese pointing out the first tiny tomato of the season. I started a patio garden and everything is progressing nicely. I'm looking forward to explaining to my kids what's happening and incorporating these fresh ingredients into recipes.

Do I Look Like a Cool Dude?

I went grocery shopping the other day, and when Bodin got out of the car, he struck a pose and said to me, "Do I look like a cool dude like this, Mom? Will you take my picture?" After attracting the attention of my fellow shoppers by laughing so loudly, I whipped out my camera and took a picture. I have NO idea where he learned this (but probably from TV), but it was so cute. I squeezed him hard and told him he was my favorite boy. 

For lunch yesterday I made the kids something they ate at Festival '09 in downtown Grand Rapids. Now, at first this seems like a fairly unhealthy, indulgent and 'snacky' meal, but I realized that each ingredient isn't particularly offensive. It's a tortilla wrap with peanut butter, honey, sliced banana and chocolate chips. I used a mini LaTortilla, homemade peanut butter (I haven't bought Jiff in at least five years!), raw and organic honey, a banana and a sprinkle of chocolate chips. Roll it up and voila! The kids ate it up! 

Making homemade peanut butter is SO simple. Take a food processor and just grind up the peanuts until they are smooth and creamy. It takes about five minutes for about two cups of nuts for me. My favorite is cashew butter, which I usually add a bit of grapeseed oil to because it gets rather dry. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Ramped-Up Mac 'n Cheese

After golfing on Father's Day, we went out to an Italian restaurant afterward (see picture of Reese entertaining the group with her aDORable personality and heartbreakingly good looks). Knowing that any dinner choice I made there would be bad, I went for the pizza for Bodin and mac 'n cheese for Reese. Reese didn't have a single bite of hers, so we took it home. The next day, I doctored it up with some steamed broccoli and some baked chicken nuggets. Unfortunately, neither one really liked all three items together in one bowl.

But, remembering that it sometimes takes kids up to 10 times to try a food and like it, you bet I'm going to keep trying with this one!

The Green Smoothie

I'm starting to drink more and more green smoothies, made with fresh greens (spinach, beet greens, etc), frozen fruit, water, BoKU Superfood, rice protein powder and a little agave nectar. They are SO good for you, even though the taste takes a bit to get used to. Here's a picture of my morning's creation. 

My kids will drink these, too, especially if I doctor them up a bit, adding more fruit and less greens. We call it "Super Juice!" (yes, we always say it with an exclamation point) and tell them it makes them run fast. 

The Beach and the Farmers Market

My mom and I went to Oval Beach in Saugatuck today - it was SO hot the sand absolutely blistered our feet! But, it was a lot of fun. The concessions stand actually had homemade hummus and pita bread and carrots on the menu (for $7), so we all shared that. I fed the kids one of those horribly processed Smuckers crustless (what the crap is so bad about the crust!?) peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with some pretzels. They had an organic juice box as well. 

Feeling bad about the sandwich, I've decided to make dinner from scratch. We stopped at a new farmers market in Saugatuck and I picked up some potatoes, a spring lettuce mix, some strawberries and some sugar peas. 

I'm making almond/parmesan/oat crusted chicken breast served along with some homemade pesto using basil from our garden. As a side, I'm roasting the potatoes with some rosemary and garlic salt. For dessert, we're having fresh strawberry "cake" - made by placing the cut strawberries in my new pot and covering it with some organic cake mix. With the lid on and the heat turned on low, dessert will be ready in 15 minutes, and will keep warm for at least an hour. It turns into this cobbler-like gooey yummy mush of a dessert and everyone loves it. 

I'm excited to be back to this blog! Look for pictures of my meals and my kids to come shortly!

Stay-At-Home-Mothering and Lunches

Been a while since my last post. I'm now an official stay-at-home mom (although I do some freelancing on the side and am an Independent Distributor for Moxxor, which is a VERY potent omega-3 and antioxidant supplement - check out www.mymoxxor.com/julieh).

I love that I can control what my kids are eating during the day. While they were at daycare, I know that they were given snacks that wouldn't make my 'approval' list at all.

However, I'm not as creative as I'd like to be and am constantly trying to figure out what I want to feed my kids. Personally, I would love to become a vegetarian, so I've been avoiding chicken (already don't eat red meat, pork) somewhat. However, chicken is such a staple and a meal-rounder that it's hard to avoid.

Kids had grilled cheese with raisins today. I've been reading about the many wonderful healing properties of coconut oil, so I'm replacing butter and other oils with coconut oil. It's really good on a grilled cheese. Bodin likes to open up his sandwich and

stick the raisins inside, which makes it taste sort of like cinnamon bread. Reese did the same, but only because she likes to copy her brother.

Snow and winter are miserable; I can't wait for next summer. The kids will be a little older and easier to get out and about with. I want to visit farmer's markets to get them to try new fruits and veggies often. I'm always open to kid-friendly veggie/healthy recipes. My awesome aunt got me a subscription to Vegetarian Times last year and I'm going to sit down with all of my back issues and go through the recipes that I think they would like. Tough sell is going to be Justin. :)

Mad dashes and coconuts

This mothering gig is HARD! This past week (and upcoming week also) was a difficult one, work-wise. Lots of travel. Next week, I'm on the road every day, traveling at least an hour one way. Makes for long days. Last night, after making dinner for the kids (reheated homemade pizza), I completely forgot about making their lunches and it was a mad scramble in the morning to pull something together. Betcha can't guess what they got for lunch today! Yep, PIZZA!

Along with that, they each got a baggie of black, seedless grapes and a banana.

Prior to dinner last night, I decided to introduce the kids to an actual coconut. I got out a Phillip's head screwdriver and the hammer and took the kids outside in the grass. Bodin helped me pound three holes into the top of it, and I poured the milk into two cups. Bodin tried it and didn't like it. Reese tried hers and liked it. I gave her a refill and she dumped it all over my lap. Coconut milk is sticky!!

Here's a picture of our coconut.