Skinny comfort food recipes that gently ease you into healthier eating. (Or bathing suit season. However you want to put it.)
As soon as spring hits, I immediately try to switch food gears by ditching all that stick-to-your-ribs winter fare in favor of super light meals instead. It’s a good impulse, but sudden changes like these rarely last more than a week for me. Know what I mean? After...
Kitchen tools for your little sous chef
My kids are more than eager to help in the kitchen, but there's only so much they can do with a big dull butter knife and a spoon as long as their arm. Fortunately, since discovering these cool kid-size kitchen utensils, our nightly dinner service has gotten much more...
2 fun resources that can get a picky eater to actually eat.
Anyone who’s dealt with a picky kid (and who hasn’t?) knows that feeding a picky eater is the opposite of fun. And I've found two new parenting resources—one a book, the other a game—which aim to change that. Both were developed by moms to use children’s natural...
What’s the difference between a macaron and macaroons? Where do we start!
Macarons are all the rage these days, and certainly not to be confused with those big coconut things that one eats at Passover and generally stay in your stomach until oh, June. The difference is, macarons are melt-in-your-mouth delicious French almond cookie...
4 awesome kids’ books about food, with recipes that make them even better
Pairing food and wine is an art. Pairing food and music is a new trend. Pairing food with a good food book: It's one of the best ways to get kids excited about eating--even foods that they're not normally excited about eating. To celebrate the bounty of summer, I've...
Gourmet chocolate pretzels from Fatty Sundays: Bet you can’t eat just 70 million.
I hate showing up to someone's house empty-handed, even when the hostess says, "Oh...just bring yourself." That's why I always have so much fun scoping out affordable hostess gifts for you all each year. While we can always grab a bottle of wine or fresh flowers,...
6 cookbooks that every parent should own
Love it or hate it, if you're a parent, you've got to feed your kids. Whether you already cook nightly or...not so much, but want to cook more, these, six of my staple cookbooks, provide just the inspiration you need to get food on the table with a minimum of stress....
The Family Cooks: In which Laurie David helps make kids crave kale. For real.
Parents, don't we all secretly dream our kids will someday request kale over cookies? Laurie David and Kirstin Uhrenholdt, authors  of the wonderful Family Dinner are out with a new cookbook, The Family Cooks. They are hoping the recipes and tips they've gathered will...
Take on picky eaters this season with The Picky Palate cookbook
I love cookbooks. I've never once turned out a dish that looks anything like sumptuous food photos, but a gal can dream, can't she? Especially around the holidays--oh, to be that hostess. Since I despise ingredient lists longer than Homer's Odyssey, I'm really pumped...
Handstand Kids cookbook. Proving you don’t need a blue Easy-Bake Oven to get boys to bake
Although Easy-Bake ovens are now coming out with "boy-friendly" versions (what, girls don't like blue?), there have always been lots of options for boys to cook--really cook--with the help of great products and cookbooks for kids. Handstand Kids is a longtime favorite...
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DIY haunted gingerbread houses for Halloween: Our favorite tips to make yours extra fun
I've always wanted to make a DIY haunted gingerbread house for Halloween, and this seems like the year I finally do it. Let's be honest, Halloween isn't going to be the same this year. In lots of ways. And that kind of sucks. But on the other hand, sometimes the...
5 simple kitchen experiments for kids that count as homeschool science class. You already have the ingredients!
Lately, my homeschooled children been having fun with these simple kitchen experiments for kids that absolutely count as science class time. And as we get into our second month of school, I really need this in my back pocket! Honestly, some days, my kids complete...
6 snack tray ideas for kids to munch on independently all day. Say no to snack servitude!
Just as I was resigning myself to a lifetime of snack servitude for my son during at-home learning, I saw Kate post a gorgeous snack tray idea for kids on the @CoolMomEats Instagram feed that she spotted from Prashana Vidanapathirana. Is it possible? Would a little...
The best way to clean your kids’ lunch boxes in the age of Covid: It’s easier than you think.
In the past, we've written about how to clean our kids lunch boxes safely, say if a banana gets left in there over the weekend or a container of spaghetti somehow gets tossed back in without a lid. But this year, we have the fun (i.e. not at all fun) added layer of...
Dozens of our favorite school lunch ideas that kids can make…even when school is at home
Just because your kids aren't in school in a traditional way doesn't mean that parents aren't thinking about school lunches. With so much on our plates these days (womp womp), it's a good opportunity for us to teach our kids to be more reliant, and make school...
Recipes
Upgrading 6 kids’ menu favorites for the whole family. In case they’re missing their favorite restaurant.
So many of us miss eating out our favorite local restaurants these days, unless they've got heat lamps outside these days and a good social distancing table plan. As for our kids, well, they mostly miss eating out so they can make us spend good cash on the most...
DIY haunted gingerbread houses for Halloween: Our favorite tips to make yours extra fun
I've always wanted to make a DIY haunted gingerbread house for Halloween, and this seems like the year I finally do it. Let's be honest, Halloween isn't going to be the same this year. In lots of ways. And that kind of sucks. But on the other hand, sometimes the...
5 fall-inspired family dinners for the week ahead | Weekly Meal Plan 226
For next week, I am planning some of my family's favorite fall-inspired dinners that are easy to make, prep and clean up. Because Fall seems to be full of all kinds of busy even though we are doing all of the things from home. And honestly, fall cooking is my...
12 creative pumpkin recipes you can eat all day long, to make the most of fall’s essential ingredient.
It's pumpkin time, if you hadn't noticed, and I'm ready for some creative pumpkin recipes -- you know beyond pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread. With fresh pumpkins now in season, and canned pumpkin filling the shelves at our supermarkets, I've found so many recipes —...
5 make-ahead dinners you can prep on the weekend and eat all week: Weekly Meal Plan 225
How is it that even with schooling from home and almost no social outings, I still feel frazzled when it comes to getting dinner on the table? To make things easier, I'm planning 5 make-ahead meals this week. These can be prepped over the weekend and stored in the...
