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!