I try to avoid prepackaged foods, but I have to admit to buying Hot Pockets from time to time. My son absolutely loves them and when we're rushing out the door to head to his soccer practice, it's undeniably convenient to throw one of those in the microwave. But it always gives me a bit of mommy-guilt. Like most pre-packaged foods, they usually come with more sodium than you'd like or contain some unpronounceable ingredients. Nothing pre-packaged compares to homemade.

This article tells you how to make your own "haute" pockets. The crust is a simple recipe -- but I would recommend substituting at least half of the all-purpose flour with whole-wheat flour. Fill the prepared crust with any mixture you like. The article has filling ideas you can try, but your options are limitless.

I'm planning on trying them out this weekend. I think it will be a fun project for my son and I to do together -- and it will result in a variety of quick and healthy meals waiting in our freezer for whenever we're on the go.

Source

Isabella and Olivia Gerasole of Chicago have a Beard ... a James Beard award, that is. The sisters were the youngest-ever recipients of the coveted award for chefs when they won in 2006. They were also nominated in 2007 and 2008. The sisters, nicknamed Belle and Livvy, have also appeared in many magazines and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Today Show.

Their website, Spatulatta: Cooking 4 Kids Online, features fun videos for kid-friendly recipes. Watching these videos is a great way for your kids to build an interest in cooking. While the videos aren't all healthy, there are plenty of health-conscious recipes to steer your kids toward. Their snack attack section has plenty of healthy options, such as Tuscan Bean Dip, Banana Orange Smoothie, and Tropical Celery Boats.

Source

Bagel Critters. Banana Dog. Good Morning Gorp. Egg in a Nest. It all sounds so fun, doesn't it? It looks fun too. Check out this Bagel Critter, complete with cream cheese, baby carrots, cherry tomato halves, sliced black olives and bell peppers, poppy seeds, cucumber rounds, minced chives, and crunchy Chinese noodles. Could anything be more enticing to a kid? Well, candy maybe, but let's talk healthy stuff.

Family Fun magazine features all sorts kid-friendly breakfast ideas, intended to help you serve up your morning meal in a flash, minus the hassle from your little ones.

Take a peek, right here, and learn how to create nutritious servings of good stuff to fuel your family.

Source

There have been a couple of cookbooks on the market recently that show how to "hide" vegetables and other healthy ingredients in food. I'm not opposed to that, per se. I just made a zucchini bread where I increased the amount of zucchini and replaced most of the oil the recipe called for with no-sugar-added applesauce. I don't think it's an inherently bad thing to do. However, there was something about the idea that grated on me a bit, but I couldn't pinpoint it.

Then I read an article about yet a third cookbook, Real Food for Healthy Kids, and they pinpointed the issue for me. The author states that by serving foods like brownies with spinach puree hidden inside "we are lying to our kids and signaling, either implicitly or explicitly, that vegetables, in particular, are so yucky, they have to be hidden."

While I don't think there's anything wrong with serving up a spinach-laced brownie, it's important for parents to repeatedly introduce their kids to, well... spinach! How can we teach our kids to eat healthfully and enjoy good nutrition if the only way they get it is in disguise?

Source