Holiday Foods ... Enjoy Them!!

This morning, we watched a segment on the Today Show featuring tips for avoiding holiday weight gain. The Today guest suggested that one of the best ways to curb your holiday cravings is to eat before you go to a party. We've heard this advice numerous times and every time, it makes us chuckle. We prefer to go to a party hungry, saving up our calories for the fun foods that await us! After all, eating and enjoying a delicious variety of appetizers and treats is part of what the holidays are all about.

While we don't recommend gorging on platefuls of Brie cheese and rich chocolate fudge, we would never advise anyone to deprive themselves either. Here are a few tips to help keep weight gain in check during the holiday season:
- Increase your exercise (walk, walk, walk!): It will help reduce your stress level and burn off extra calories.
- Start your party nibbling with low-calorie choices: Fill up first on things like shrimp cocktail, veggies with hummus or lowfat dip, and fruit. Once you feel satisfied, enjoy a tiny taste or two of the more caloric options. Then, move away from the food table!
- Beware of beverages: The calories from beverages can add up before you know it. Stick with water or seltzer (we like the lemon and lime flavors), choose lowfat eggnog if available, limit party punch to one glass and watch your alcohol consumption.

Life is short. So get out there and enjoy eating and drinking (in moderation!) with family and friends over the holidays. Cheers!

A Sweet Veggie Side Dish

Every year without fail, we both make our favorite sweet potato casserole recipe for family holiday gatherings. It's always a huge hit but requires a lot of ingredients and results in a sink filled with dirty dishes. Since we love sweet potatoes -- as do our kids -- we decided to take our tried-and-true recipes and simplify them quite a bit. What we came up with is this simple veggie side dsh you and your famiy can enjoy any day of the year. All you'll need is a pot, a bowl, and a potato masher!

Smooshed Sweet Potatoes
Makes 4 (almost 1/2 cup) Servings

1 pound sweet potato (about 2 medium)
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch ground pepper
Pinch ground ginger

Cook the sweet potatoes in a pot of boiling water for 20 to 30 miutes or until tender. Let cool. When you can handle the sweet potatoes, peel them and then mash with a potato masher or fork. Stir in the orange juice, brown sugar, butter, salt, pepper, and ginger until well combined. Season with additional salt, pepper, and ginger to taste.

Nutrition Information per serving: 120 calories, 1.5g fat (1g saturated), 110mg sodium, 24g carbohydrate, 4g fiber, 2g protein, 110% vitamin A, 30% vitamin C

Holiday Cookie Makeover

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us and the holiday season is in full swing, you may be dusting off your old recipe box as you plan for a month of baking your favorite festive treats. If that's the case, we hope you'll try some of our hot-off-the press cookie recipes featured in this month's issue of Kiwi magazine. There, you'll find five of our best-ever cookie makeovers. Perfect for cookie swaps, neighborhood parties, and family gatherings, you'll love our sweet, better-for-you confections. Click here http://mealmakeovermoms.com/about/press/pdf/KiwiCookieSep2007.pdf to check out the article (hey, we even made the cover with our Chocolaty Coconut Mini Tortes recipe).

Chocolaty Coconut Mini Tortes
Makes 2 Dozen

These super fudgy, hard-to-resist nibbles get a healthy makeover with a few smart switches. For starters, we use whole wheat flour instead of white. For the clincher, we swap the usual stick or two of butter for a healthier fat: canola oil. By using omega-3 eggs, we also up the ante on nutrition.

8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 1 1/4 cups)
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
5 large omega-3 eggs, beaten
Confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil or coat 24 mini muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. Stir the chocolate chips and canola oil in a medium saucepan over low heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Whisk the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, and coconut in a large bowl until well combined. Whisk in the eggs until well blended. Add the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups. Bake about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes. Remove the tortes and cool. To add “snow” to the tops of each torte, sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 150 calories, 9g fat (3g saturated, 0.5g omega-3), 15mg sodium, 18g carbohydrate, 1g fiber, 2g protein

So You Think You Can Cook!

Last month, the Rachael Ray Show invited Liz to help judge their "So You Think You Can Cook" culinary challenge. The story aired today, and we sure hope some of you saw it! If you missed it, click the following link to watch a clip from the Rachael Ray Show.

Viewers from all over the country entered to take part in the challenge, but only five contestents were ultimately selected. Once the contest began, the finalists were given various cooking challenges and each week, one contestant was eliminated. The challenge that Liz had the opportunity to judge took place at an elementary school in Long Island, NY. There, the three remaining contestants were asked to create a healthy meal for a group of hungry and finicky third grade students.

While the recipes all tasted okay -- turkey meatballs, breaded chicken nuggets, sauteed peas, oven baked potato fries -- none blew Liz away in terms of kid-friendly flavors or nutrition (wow, she's a tough judge)!

All in all, hanging out behind the scenes during the show's taping was a thrill. There were a mind-blowing 25 producers, food stylists, and crew members on hand to light the kitchen, set up the cameras, coordinate the kids, and organize a well-stocked food pantry for the contestents. The set-up began around noon and ended at 8:00 PM that night. It's amazing how much people power it takes to create entertaining "reality" TV. We've included a couple of photos so you too can take a sneak peak behind the scenes.

Manic Mommies Escape

Moms from as far away as Texas and Michigan gathered in Newport, RI this past weekend for the first annual Manic Mommies Escape. We had the pleasure of joining the group -- nearly 100 manic mommies strong -- for a fast-paced Meal Makeover lecture. During our presentation and cooking demo, sponsored in part by Mom's Best Naturals, we prepared our Grab-and-Go Breakfast Bars and talked about easy and realistic ways to add good nutrition to the family table.

One mealtime challenge that came up was the issue of feeding picky eaters, especially those who love a particular food one day but then refuse it the next. Click here to watch our picky eaters video clip for clever ways to tackle this all-too-common problem. On a final note, we’d like to send a huge thank you to Erin Kane and Kristin Brandt (AKA the Manic Mommies) for inviting us to speak at the Escape!

The Dinner Party Project

When children learn where their food comes from and acquire hands-on skills in the kitchen, they're more likely to eat a healthful diet. That's the premise behind The Dinner Party Project, a nationwide cooking program introduced by Spoons Across America,® an organization dedicated to educating children, teachers, and families about the benefits of healthy eating. Recently, the five-week program came to Liz's town of Lexington, MA where a group of twenty 5th grade students were taught about nutrition (that's where Liz came in), food safety, meal planning, table setting, etiquette, and cooking. The course culminated with a giant dinner party where the kids cooked a delicious meal of roasted chicken and autumn vegetables, salad, and homemade bread that their families were able to enjoy. One of the coolest things about Lexington's Dinner Party was the role that the Lexington Farmer's Market was able to play. Students had the opportunity to tour the market, meet local farmers, and create the meal using fresh ingredients from the area. If you want to bring the Dinner Party Project to your community, check out http://www.spoonsacrossamerica.org/.

Candy Rules!!

Halloween is behind us but for many families, the aftermath is buckets and pillowcases filled with candy. To help your kids control their appetite for Skittles and Snickers, consider some of our Halloween food rules:

- Set limits. It's okay to eat a couple of pieces of candy a day, but half a dozen or more is a bit much. For Liz's boys, two or three pieces is the limit: one piece after lunch and one after dinner (none for snack time).
- Donate a few pounds to your local nursing home.
- Make tooth brushing mandatory after eating a treat.
- Find out if your dentist, or any others in your community, have a "buy-back" program. In our area, one dentist pays $2.00 per pound of confections. In December, he and his young patients use the candy to create a gingerbread house which is then given to a local nursing home.

Tell us about your candy rules!