As a family with 3 busy kids, our after school rat race is insane.

Not only do I NOT have time to cook every night, half the time we don’t have time to ALL sit down together for dinner! But we work hard to have a few minutes of dinner eyeball time as often as possible.

{Did you know eating the dinner meal together as a family has been shown to prevent risky behaviors in teens? It’s true. They don’t know why. When a teen is gone for 10 and 12 hours at a stretch, that expectation to ‘check in’ for dinner apparently is a HUGE deterrent. —WebMD, CASA Study}

I was asked to share weeknight meal tips to help a busy family add quality time back in their song. (I cheated a bit here and asked my kids for ideas!)

Inspired by quick and easy Bertolli Meal Frozen Soups, we whipped up four fabulous family meal tips. (Who knew they make soups?! We already love their skillet meals!)

We tested two of the new Bertolli Soups — Roasted Chicken & Rotini and Tomato Florentine.

• TIP Number ONE:
  Divide and Conquer — Mom and Dad always need a few extra moments alone. Sit the kids in the kitchen and give mom and dad an ‘Italian Restaurant’ theme in the dining room. (Ask the kids to set the dining table all ‘special ‘n stuff’ for their ‘date’… mine were thrilled to help!)

• TIP Number TWO:
  Music Matters — Set up music the kids like in their space. My big(ish) kids are starting to like music that um.. we grownups don’t love so much. We set up the MP3 player in the kitchen for the night!

• TIP Number THREE:
  Dress Up The Meal — My kids are totally into anything they can create themselves. Potato bar, mini pizzas etc… so we ran with that theme: Soup Topping Bar! Sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, croutons…

• TIP Number FOUR:
  CUPCAKES for Dessert! — What is a fourteen year old for if not to make dessert?!  (Hint: have her make ‘em the night before.)

A Joyful Refrain…

Our Bertolli Soup-a-palooza night was a hit. Happy kids and recharged parents make for a fun family night in less than an hour’s prep time! What does your family do to add melody to your meals?

Bertolli compensated me to participate in the Weeknight Meal Special Challenge. Join Bertolli on Facebook or Twitter with hashtag: #BertolliMealSoup.

PS. Compensation or not.. you MUST taste the Tomato Florentine. Oh.Em.Gosh. SO Yummy.They didn’t make me say that. I swear.

I bought 20 pounds of tomatoes at the farmers market over the hill…

I had BIG plans for those babies. HUGE.
I’m talking homemade salsa. Bottled up all purty.

Only I didn’t have big TIME to complete the plans. All this STUFF keeps getting in the way. Kids. Driving… Kids…
Oh and a new freelance gig with SchoolFamily.com (kinda giddy about that one)!!

So I did the next the best thing.

I called up my BFFs and shouted out a mayday. (Okay I emailed them).

Their only instruction was to bring the kids and a bag of tortilla chips!
Instead of chopping and cooking and bottling and all that hard stuff, we simply chopped up all the ingredients for a Giant Vat of Pico De Gallo… and then the best part, we separately seasoned and spiced our own exactly the way we liked it.

Everyone took home a few pints of Salsa Fresca and left happy mommies.

Salsa Party… Ole!

I found a recipe on AllRecipes.com that started by blanching the tomatoes to remove the skins. I was all about that. So there are no skins in our salsa. After looking at a bunch of recipes I still had no idea how to bulk up for this much… so I guessed. (Wrongly on the jalapenos and the cilantro …but what are ya gonna do?)

Ingredients:

• 20 lbs Tomatoes (blanched, cooled in cold water, skins removed, chopped and drained a bit)
• 2 large white onions (food processor sliced and then chopped with a hand chopper)
• 1 large purple onion (same treatment as the whites)
• 2 bunches of cilantro (Yeah it wasn’t any where NEAR enough… duh needed at least one more bunch)
• 4 jalapenos (chopped very fine in a small food processor after removing seeds.. also NOT enough, and I’m a big baby when it comes to spice… but it needed way more)
• 4 limes (juicing 4 limes is more work than it looks BTW- someone suggested using my teeth to bite down to squeeze more juice out… DO NOT TRY THIS… it leave the NASTIEST taste in your mouth. I nearly died. SRSLY DON’T try it.. only it DID get out a lot more juice.. but DON’T TRY IT!!)
• Seasonings: We differed on what to use. I used Goya brand seasoning and garlic powder… just dumped till it tasted awesome. But most of the friends used boring old salt. I mean— where’s the JOY people?!

I asked my friends at AllRecipes how long fresh salsa would last and they said probably only 4-5 days in the fridge (I don’t really think freezing is an option.. mushy fresh salsa? YIKES.)

Haha.. I know the real answer.. it only lasts long enough to EAT it all!

What’s in YOUR Salsa?

Disclosure. I have no relationship with AllRecipes.com.
Except for the part where I ask them questions via Twitter and facebook, and they answer. They’re like a good Mother-In-Law that way.

It’s National Donut Day..! (Who spells it doughnut anyway?!)
And Talk about perfect Timing!

Careful.

Addiction Ahead.

These are the easiest things to whip up..
(And eat. All gone. Sorry about that.)

They remind me of fluffy Snickerdoodles.

Ingredients

• ½ C. Sugar
• ¼ C. Butter melted
• ½ c. milk (subst soy milk is fine!)
• 1 Tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 C. Flour

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a mini-muffin tin.
Mix sugar and butter in a bowl. Add baking powder, flour, milk and stir until just combined.
Fill muffin tins about ¾ full and bake for 15-20 minutes. (Turn up the heat on the oven to 375° to jumpstart the baking soda… a little science trick.) NOTE: no eggs! Interesting huh?

Topping

• ¼ C. Butter, melted
• ½ C. Sugar
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl. Keep the melted butter in a separate bowl. When the muffins are done, remove them from the pan. Dip the tops of the donuts in the melted butter and then roll in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Let them cool…..

Hahahaha.. as if you’ll be able to let them cool first. That’s a good one!

In fact. You should double the batch. I did and it only made about 30 muffins. 60 mini donuts would be much better.

Yeah. Quadruple it. I dare you.

Happy National Donut Day!

You are SO wishing you were at my house this week!

I mean. 2 CAKES.

Like THESE.

Where WERE you?

First, the Chocolate Layer Cake of Ultimate Awesome Strawberry Splendor.

The recipe I stole borrowed called it Eggless Chocolate Cake, but whatever.(Thanks to @Foodwhirl for pointing it out!)

My husband likes strawberry shortcake for his birthday.
Every year.
But I figure, this IS a cake.
It has a LOT of strawberries in/on it. It counts. The chocolate is a bonus this year.

Here’s what you do. Go follow the recipe from Passionate About Baking. (Or make a Betty Crocker, whatever.) But THIS recipe comes out not too sweet or overwhelming. The strawberries shine and the dark chocolate GANACHE (you must say that with a french accent btw, more like gaNAWSH) stands out as the big flavor that binds the whole thing.

A food writer I am not. But seriously, try the eggless thing. It uses vinegar/baking soda instead so you have a mini volcano on your hands. (Not really, but my 7yrold little boy loves that science-y crap.)

If I were doing it over the one thing I would change would be to cook 4 different cakes instead of trying to cut two cakes in half for the four layers. Not sure it would work better, but I would try. Her photos are much prettier than mine and all smoothy smooth on the sides. Yeah, I was just proud of my first attempt at the whole ganache/gaNAWSH thing, so there.

The strawberry filling is maybe the most amazing thing on the planet, at least the most amazing I’ve tasted THIS WEEK. And super duper easy. The hardest part in the recipe is figuring out what the heck 200 grams of strawberries looks like? HUH?

I just chopped up about 1 1/2 lbs of the things and said a strawberry prayer when I threw them into the pot with the balsamic vinegar and  a little sugar.

YEAH. I said BALSAMIC.
I know. That strange and wonderful thing that normally I like drinking a bit with some bread on the side. It’s Fabulous, trust me. You whip up some light whipping cream and mix into the cooled strawberry jam-like stuff.

If you feel like it, stop there. Eat the strawberry filling on scones or biscuits and pretend you are British at a tea party.

OR—

Spread it on the layers of cake.

And now the gaNAWSH.
I googled what 200 grams of chocolate means and google thinks that’s 7 ounces of dark chocolate. I agreed. I melted it with more cream and at first I didn’t think it was working. It was kind of still separated and not gaNOSH-y at all. But then a magical thing happened and it was smooth and creamy and dreamy.

I googled HOW to put a gaNAWSH on a cake and YouTube says just pour straight from the pan. Okay? I did it.

I was a beautiful site watching it flow all over the cake and down the sides of the cake (and off the plate and onto the counter). I looked back at the recipe.

Oh. She ‘reserved’ a bit for more decorations. Hmmm.

Nevermind. Throw some strawberries on top and call it a masterpiece.

Really, it was the most perfect, moist, strawberry-ific, and chocolate masterpiece.
I’m crying a little as I type this.

NOW to put the RAWR back in Birthday Cakes for 7yrolds

Each year my kids pick out and dream about and deliberate what we will make for their birthday cake.
Usually starting the day AFTER their birthday. Usually it goes through many revisions.

We’ve had iPods, ballerina slippers, igloos, castles and yes we make them ourselves.
Sometimes we give in and buy a store cake, but really?

Isn’t this so much more fun and memorable for the kids?

Tony the Tiger was chosen many moons ago from a book called: Classroom Treats.
And the list of ingredients is long. But the overall effort to make it: EASY!

Make a Betty Crocker: one round, 2 cupcakes. (Eat the rest of the batter or make a few extra cupcakes.)
Buy all these ingredients:

• Oreos
• M&Ms
• Red Licorice Stings
• Chocolate Sprinkles
• HoHos
• Pink Airhead Candy
• Frosting, dye it orange

Look closely at the picture and make a Tiger Face. (Eat all the leftover candy, it’s a birthday party after all!)

Next, post your photo on Facebook, and be prepared for HUNDREDS of people weighing in to tell you how awesome you are. Who knew Tiger cakes would get so much traffic? I’m making a hippopotamus next week.

But really, this was very easy. The hardest part was getting the little sprinkles into triangles around the cake.

What do your cakes look like?

This is your Stove Top Stuffing Team: ‘View from the Tabletop’ reporting from Southern Oregon.
Here on the dry side of the Cascades there seems to be a shortage of creative dishes served at family gatherings, church potlucks and even the poor folks at funerals.

• How can this be?
• How did it happen?
• Is America in jeopardy of falling behind foreign competitors in the dinner side dish dash?

We’re doing our best investigative journalism to get to the bottom of the pot-luck dish doldrums. We went straight to the trenches and interviewed 3 moms who are on the frontlines of this vicious cycle of boring side dishes.

First we spoke to “Donna”, a 38 year old mother of 3, (she asked that her name be changed).

“I was taught as a young girl that when asked to bring a side dish to a funeral the only proper option was ‘funeral potatoes’.  That’s it. A whole row of glass dishes filled with nothing but taters. First of all, just the name alone is terrible. When you’re at a funeral the last thing you want to eat is funeral potatoes! And isn’t America in the middle of an obesity crisis? Have you checked out the ingredients in a serving of funeral potatoes? Please don’t tell my mother but the next dish I take to a funeral luncheon will NOT be a potato dish.”

Next we spotted Bobby P. relaxing at a town park with a gathering of friends eating a pot luck style dinner. Sarah is 28 and recently graduated from the local technical college.

“I didn’t know what to bring. I stopped at the local grocery deli and bought a giant tub of potato salad. And there it sits all sad on the edge of the table. (I wish someone would put it out of it’s misery.) There’s a spoon sticking out as if someone thought about dishing it up, realized it had congealed to a single gloppy mass and left the spoon standing sentinel, guarding others from attempting the same mistake. But what can I do? I need ideas. I’m busy, I work all day and I don’t have time for a 2 hour prep to make a dish.”

Our last interview took place inside Rita L.’s home. Rita has been married for 52 years and she has 4 grown children.

“It’s just the two of us now. Most meals don’t even seem worth the effort. We each have dietary restrictions. My husband Jim has to watch his salt and cholesterol and I’m trying to lose weight. The problem is Jim believes he needs the EXACT SAME Sunday meal week after week! I can’t even tell you how tired I am of roast and potatoes week after week! A girl can only take so much. That’s over 2700 Sundays! People, I need help. I need MARRIAGE THERAPY!”

And there you have it folks, moms are bored, tired, and simply cranky. They need a fresh approach to side dishes.

Do you have alternatives for the pot luck potato doldrums? Are you willing to help these women and moms save their sanity (and perhaps Rita’s marriage)? Please, share your best ideas and side dish discoveries with the Stove Top Stuffing, ‘view from the tabletop’ team of reporters.

***BREAKING NEWS***

STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix is so “un-boring” it’s the “un-potato!”

• Try using Stove Top in your Meatloaf! (Use lower fat Turkey, Rita)
• Come up with your own Stove Top Mix Ins and surprise the pot-luck party! (Are you listening Bobby?)
• And seriously? Stove Top Cranberry Muffins? (Donna or whatever your name is, THIS IS FOR YOU.) Big thanks to Muffin Tin Mom for sharing.

The next time you see a creative side dish, a Stove Top Stuffing casserole or ANY side dish that skips the same boring mash, help a mom out, submit your idea right here in the ‘Tabletop Comments’. Because this is the #unpotatofest.

“Signing off from the stuffing report. Keep your eye on the crumbs!”

Stove Top is the Unpotato.
Check out more on this breaking story on the Stove Top Facebook page.

Disclaimer: the stuffing reporter is really me.. and one of the interviewees may or may not be my own experience. Do NOT tell my mother. This report has been sponsored by Technorati. They had no way of knowing how tired I am of funeral potatoes. And that’s the truth.

My heart and prayers go out to all the recent families who have dealt with a natural disaster lately.

Haiti, Chile, and now Japan. Is it a sign of the times or what? Plus it seems like every time I turn on the TV there is a report of flooding, or landslides or forest fires somewhere in the US.

I had a talk with my husband this week. We are planning our year’s supply of  food storage (it’s a Mormon thing, but you should check into it on ProvidentLiving.org). I kept thinking food storage isn’t really about planning for a massive disaster. It’s more of planning for a small scale disaster.

• A long blizzard.
• Unexpected job loss (is there any other kind?).
• Change in health insurance causing financial burden.
• Long term sickness or breadwinner death, etc.

If you have 6 months to a year’s supply of the main food items stored away that your family uses, those small scale ‘disasters’ won’t be so painful. For us this includes, frozen meat stored in an extra freezer. Plenty of canned items from beans to soups, pasta and sauces, oatmeal, cereal, toothpaste, and peanut-butter. A 50 gallon barrel of water and several 5 gallon bins of flour and sugar. What I’m missing here are fresh items like vegetables, milk and eggs.  I would have to budget for those items in a family hardship time.

We’ve talked about getting a generator, as well as hand cranked items like a can opener and wheat mill. (We’d need to find some wheat grains first though!)

But wow, when you start thinking about your HOME being destroyed in a hurricane or an earthquake. Gee… how much good will all those wiped away beans do you?

What’s a 72 Hour Kit?

Have you started the planning process for a serious disaster? We just plain suck at this. Where will you meet if you’re family is separated? Do you have money and documents stored somewhere away from your home that’s easy to access? For me, it’s all about medicine. My husband is a diabetic. We joke that if there is an earthquake my first and only job is to raid the nearest Rite Aid. Buy every bottle of insulin.

Mainly I refuse to really think about it. Head in the sand. All that.

But to begin with. I just want to get 3 days worth of supplies stored in enough backpacks for my whole family. We call this a 72 hour pack. Food, clothing, money, MEDICINE, all ready to grab and go if something happens. Maybe I’ll put in a few disks of family photos??

What have you done to prepare?

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Fall is in the air and Giant Zucchini make me happy.

I’ve been in a baking state of mind lately. First, Not quite home-made Pumpkin Cookies, with cream cheese frosting. Can I get a hallelujah!?

And the same week a zucchini growing friend told me my zukes were done. When I found out she had a big zucchini plant I asked/begged that if there were any that grew bigger than they wanted for immediate eating size, to please let them keep growing to HUGE status and save them for me.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

What do you do with giant overgrown zucchini?

My Fave zucchini recipes

• Zucchini Casserole (see recipe below) more like a rice quiche, brings me back to my childhood like nothing else.
• Chocolate Zucchini Bread (my fave recipe is from Penzey’s Spices- total blue ribbon winner)
• Battered Sliced Fried Zucchini (cooked on a griddle, not in grease) Especially good with garden fresh tomatoes sliced on top!
• Faux Apple Pie (You srsly cannot tell it’s zucchini slices instead of apple)

Today I’ll share my most favorite zucchini recipe. September is not complete without this dish at least once!

Zucchini Casserole/Quiche

Rice Layer:

• 4-5 cups cooked rice (I boil up 2 cups dry rice and whatever that makes goes in the dish)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, I use mild
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 tsp salt (I always add a bit more)

Mix the cheese into the hot rice, then add the eggs & salt (it’s usually cooled enough by then not to cook the eggs). Spray the bottom of a 9×13 pan and spread the rice mixture on the bottom of the pan.

Zucchini Layer:

• 1/2 of a large overgrown zucchini, shredded. Srsly I don’t measure. 4-6 cups. It always works!
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (staple of Mormon casseroles, what can I say?)
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
• 4 eggs, beaten

Mix all ingredients and spread over the rice mixture. Cook uncovered for 1 hour at 350°F. It may start to brown on top, if so cover with tin foil at 45 min. mark. When done the center is quite ‘set’.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with another cup of shredded cheese.

This is a vegetarian meal for us, we add more veggies on the side, and I love a slice of this leftover for lunch the next day with a spoonful of salsa (preferably fresh!).

Happy Zucchini Dreams.

Sometimes letting a kid own his mistake, knowing he will learn from it is the best policy.

From experience I can tell you it’s much harder on the parents! And then making the decision NOT to give him a second chance was even worse. But watching the progress a 6yrold makes after learning a very hard lesson, was worth all the tears.

It’s dinner time in the Rogers’ household. Surprise suprise there’s veggies as part of dinner! What a shock? Hello, we only have some sort of fruit or veggie with EVERY meal, so why is it my 6yrold has slowly gotten worse and worse about eating anything with crunch, or texture, or COLOR! It’s been driving me nuts for a long time now.

This particular night, the side dish was a simple frozen veggie/potato combo. The one thing he can’t stand, is potatoes. I’m talking, make him sit there til he eats one bite and then watch him gag back into his mouth. Not once… many times. (I’m mean that way.) After years of this we’ve all agreed: He hates potatoes. (Let’s not talk about how it pains me as a girl from Idaho that my kid especially hates homemade mashed taters and gravy!)

I decide not to inflict him with the potatoes this particular night. I can only take so many table gags. He has the option instead of 3 mini carrots. But the caveat is he has to eat every one of them (yes dipped in ranch!) in order to go out with the family for Family Home Evening (Mormon speak for a weekly family night almost always held on Monday nights). He whines, I cajole, and he takes a couple flea sized bites.

And then… it’s over? He comes walking out and says he’s ready for Baskin Robbins… huh? My mom-BS-O-meter goes off. I ask him: Did you throw the carrots in the garbage… “No” he sheepishly replies…. (his body language has already given him away). I ask him: if I look in the garbage right now, would I find all your carrots? … Hesitation…. “No”…

I start talking very slowly, and in my most quiet, You-are-in-big-trouble voice.

I make it very clear I will be staying home with him, while the rest of the family heads out for a treat. Little boy crocodile tears start up, and… the rest of the night is pretty much ruined. I send him to his room, he cries more.

And then.

He gets a wonderful idea. A brilliant 6yrold plan. He tells me: “Mom, I will get 3 new carrots and eat them!  Then we can all go out okay?”

What should I do?

What would you do?

Remember, it’s been months. He’s getting worse and worse. Eating less and less diverse foods. If I give in, it feels like the only reason he’ll be eating those stupid carrots is to get ice cream! Seems like a TERRIBLE reason to me?? And when I tell him (still in my quiet mom empathetic voice) “sorry little man, you made your choice, you don’t get a second chance here”, THIS is when all hell brakes loose, and his world has officially crashed down around him. There is no joy in Mudville.

You get the picture. The rest of the night is destroyed. Family night has been canceled. He was still quite distraught when he went to sleep.

BUT.

The next night, guess what we had for dinner? ZUCCHINI casserole. Guess who helped stir and pour and make it? YUP. The boy child. Guess who ate his textured, green, many flavors at once dinner? First I’ll tell you my dang older kids were the ones complaining! OY. But the 6yrold?? HE ATE ZUCCHINI.

Amen. Worth every tear.

Photo of TK taken by the amazing Marcel Walker. Recipe of casserole will be featured tomorrow.

Dot is Great.. She gives me Chocolate CAKE!!!

I’m quoting Bill Cosby. He sing-songs this. Only it’s ‘Dad is GREAT… he feeds us chocolate CAKE!’ (For Breakfast.)

I feel like a little kid who was offered cake for breakfast. That’s how happy I am. See… last weekend, out of the blue my website was down. And it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Your blog sort of becomes another appendage after years of feeding it,  stroking it’s ego, and especially after working through a whole WordPress transition. That was like giving birth, I swear! All painful and stressful while waiting for the new baby to emerge….

Okay enough metaphors. Dot from Dabbled.org was the miracle WordPress midwife who helped GoodNCrazy make the giant leap from Blogspot to self hosting ‘real’ website. However all along there was a funny glitch. I had already purchased my hosting (for a total of 18months!!) before consulting the Guru. Turns out that was a big mistake.

Dot assured me the hosting service she used was fabulous and if I ever wanted to switch after my LONG contract was up, she would totally help me. Her favorite server hosting company is BlueHost. Have you heard of them? About $7/month and get this… They give you a free Domain Name for life! No more renewing your URL. {Even if you already purchased yours, they will help you transfer it and then they will renew it from then on!}

Back to my nightmare last weekend. My server is inexplicably down. They call to tell me my account was canceled and that one whole year later I didn’t qualify for the ‘free’ extra six months after all. REALLY? SRSLY? Cuz, HELLO… the only reason I was duped into using your service was the fact that in EMAILS you promised me the 6 months free. And then there were fees. Extra fees for a database upload. ‘Oh you need a database for WordPress??’, they asked me. Well DUH! Yes you need database access for WordPress! They allowed it. (Gee thanks I thought.) ‘Oh it’s extra for the DNS switching stuff‘, they tell me AFTER I’ve paid them for the year-plus 6months free. Again with the hidden fees I’m thinking?

There I was, server down, hosting company refusing to respond to me, either by ‘support ticket’ email or via phone.

Tail between my legs I begged Dot to please SAVE my blog! And easy as cake… she referred me to her BlueHost affiliate link and I had my server up and running and she helped me get my WHOLE site moved over in a matter of hours. By Monday morning I was GoodNCrazy once again, not 404error – sorry no website here….

If you are thinking about making the switch to WordPress. YOUR FIRST STEP is getting a reputable hosting company. Please feel free to Use Dot’s BlueHost link.. I promise you’ll be happy you did!

Your Second Step is talking to Dot about blog design. She’s the artist who created my Crazy Tree Header complete with linkable social media icon ornaments! (I know you love it and want one for yourself…) Please check out her Web Design: DabbledStudios.com and her quirky blog: Dabbled.org. (Imagine a Platypus Cake??)

And if you really must have chocolate cake now… Dot is more than a Jack of all trades.. in addition to all her artwork and blog design, she is also the creator of one of my newest favoritest Foodie Websites: FoodWhirl.com. I LOVE subscribing to this site via email. I get 3-4 new recipes delivered to my inbox everyday! I’ve tried her pizza recipe, her smoky lentil soup recipe and many more… She had a whole week dedicated to BACON.. I mean does it get any better than that!?

FoodWhirl.com Examples

There is a great feature on the FoodWhirl site they call the spotlight. YOU can submit foodie articles to FoodWhirl.com! How cool is that! Reminds me… I have a cream puff recipe I SO need to share with the FoodWhirl world….

It’s summer time FINALLY!

We had the coldest spring I’ve ever known. Heck it snowed only 2 weeks ago!
(I so wish I was kidding.)

Along with school vacation comes the dreaded mom conundrum:

What to Feed the Kiddos All Summer Long!

Especially at snack time, it gets hard to keep them from eating a lot of junk.

I was looking for ideas and found a couple articles by Dr. Joanna Dolgoff perfect for moms looking for healthy eating ideas this summer! First she has a whole article dedicated to helping your kids eat well even when sending them off to camp. But even for kids not at camp I LOVE her suggestions.

Top 10 Healthy Snacks

1. Hummus with fresh carrots, celery and peppers for dipping.
2. Peanut butter spread on rice cakes.
3. 2 cups of air-popped popcorn.
4. Trail mix made of low fat and low sugar granola, assorted nuts, seeds, raisins and craisins.
5. Non-fat plain yogurt topped with fresh berries.
6. 1 cup of edamame.
7. Apple slices and low fat string cheese.
8. 1 small whole wheat pita stuffed with 2 turkey slices, spinach leaves and fat-free cheese.
9. Baked sweet potato chips.
10. Your favorite flavor Fiber One bar.

Her next article is about organic fruits and veggies. When should you buy organic? I’ve read a lot about this but I think Joanna makes it super clear, the reasons and the times when it makes sense for you and for your kids.

15 items ordered from most to least pesticide containing.

1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Domestic Blueberries
6. Nectarines
7. Sweet Bell Peppers
8. Spinach
9. Kale/ Collard Greens
10. Cherries
11. Potatoes
12. Imported Grapes
13. Lettuce
14. Imported Blueberries
15. Carrots

Apples? Really? And celery tops the list? I didn’t know that? The fact that imported grapes and blueberries are on the list is interesting too? Does that mean local ones are okay I wonder? We eat a lot of several of these items. And I once heard a suggestion to take a look at the top three items your family eats the most of and try to at least buy those in organic. Especially when thinking about kids.

Read the Rest of the GoodNCrazy Summer Series!

***

Dr. Dolgoff is a pediatrician who specializes in child obesity. She is amazing and is very active in social media. She answers twitter questions and is very approachable, find her @JoannaDolgoffMD. She wrote the book ‘Green Light, Red Light, Eat Right’, and I swear by it. I’m using her 100 calorie ‘light’ system myself this summer…

This is not a sponsored post.