The Food of Love: Chocolate Covered Popcorn

Every year, the kids' school hosts a bake sale benefitting a charity chosen by the kids (they take it to a vote at their Monday assembly). And every year I like to help out by baking something that the kids at school can buy (see a photo of the Chocolate Crinkles I made for last year's sale). Ever since I bought my beloved Kitchen Aid mixer, The Pea has really gotten into baking, and she can now whip up a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies all by herself. She was quite excited to take over bake sale duties for 2011, but alas, life (as in, dance class) got in the way, so we had nothing to contribute.

But I don't fancy myself the MacGyver of bake sales for nothing. I had a bag of kettle corn that I had bought for our Superbowl Party but had never got around to using. I had candy melts in my cupboard. I had semi-sweet chocolate chips. Et voila, chocolate-covered popcorn!

How to make a Peanut BETTER Sandwich

I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I don't care much for the taste of them myself, but I love them because my kids love them. Thanks to PBJ's, I have a Go To school lunch that my kids will eat any day of the year.

When school mornings get extra crazy, it's practically a given that the kids will be getting PBJ's for lunch. Because what could be easier to prepare than PBJ? Umm.... how about a pre-made PBJ? For extra lazy busy parents (like me), here's a tip: you can make the sandwiches the night before and freeze them! In the morning, you can throw them in the kids' lunchboxes and cut down on your morning rush. The sandwiches thaw just in time for recess or lunch.



If you're super super super super lazy busy, you can buy Smuckers Uncrustables, which are pre-made, frozen PBJ's with the crusts cut off. My kids love these, but the guilt of buying these became too much, and I decided to make my own frozen PBJs. Now I make a whole bunch of these in advance (about 2 loaves of sandwich bread's worth), use Press N Seal wrap to keep them airtight, and just pull them out of the freezer whenever I need them!

As I mentioned, the kids would eat PBJ's every day -- but I haven't dared test that theory, because they might get sick of PBJ's, and where would I be? So I try to limit PBJ's to once (okay, maybe twice) a week. And I try to vary the sandwich itself to make things more novel and appealing:

* I use medium-sized tortillas to make peanut butter and jelly burritos.
* I spread peanut butter and jelly on lavash bread, roll it up and cut into pinwheels.
* I use cookie cutters (Williams-Sonoma sandwich cutters rock) to cut the sandwiches into cute shapes.

Finally, I do realize that while peanut butter is a great source of protein, the jelly and white bread aren't exactly nutritious foods. So I make healthier substitutions:

* I use whole-wheat bread (or whole-wheat tortillas or bagels or lavash) instead of white.
* I use low-sugar versions of strawberry or grape jelly.
* I sometimes use fruit instead of strawberry or grape jelly. I've used raisins, sliced bananas and smashed-up blueberries, and the kids love all three.
* I sometimes cut out the bread entirely and make Ants On A Log (i.e. spread the peanut butter on celery sticks instead of bread, and put raisins on top instead of jam).


Now and then I do buy a box of white-bread, full sugar Uncrustables, and sometimes I'll even pair the peanut butter with Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread), which pretty much turns a PBJ into dessert. But those occasions are getting rarer and rarer, and I always make sure I pack carrots or tomatoes or pepper strips or fresh fruit along with it, so the overall lunch is a healthy one. I feel good about packing better peanut butter lunches -- they work for my kids and they work for me!



This post was inspired by the Yahoo Motherboard's Topic of the Month for September: Teaching Kids Healthy Eating Habits. I am not compensated for my participation in this group but I get to belong to a group of smart, savvy moms -- which is compensation enough!

My Eggplant Lasagna recipe, a.k.a How to Avoid Pizza Takeouts

Wednesdays are busy days around here. Take The Pea to school at 8AM, take 3Po and Jammy to school at noon. Work out, have lunch, fix up the house or run errands (or go shopping). On regular Wednesdays, pick The Pea up at 1:15 and the boys at 3. On Girl Scout Wednesdays, pick the boys up at 3 and The Pea at 3:30. Take the kids to skating lessons at 5PM (this time around neither of the boys wanted to take skating, so I didn't push them), arrive back home just before 7PM.

Dinner? Oh, right. Ummmm, canned soup ok? Last year I succumbed to the vice known as Little Caesar's $5 Hot-N-Ready Pizza waaay too many times. I'm trying to do better this year. I've started making dinner the night before (i.e. chicken salad or egg salad that we eat with greens and toast) or earlier in the day. This afternoon I threw together an eggplant lasagna. When we arrived home, exhausted and hungry, I simply reheated it and everyone devoured it.



1 medium eggplant, sliced thinly lengthwise
8 oz (approximately 2 pcs) italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
2 cups red pasta sauce (you can make this in advance or just use fresh tomato sauce or use bottled sauce -- hey, who am I to jugdge? I use the bottled stuff myself)
2 cups white pasta sauce (see comment above)
1 cup shredded cheese
1 box lasagna noodles, precooked (if you want to use no-boil lasagna noodles like I do, be sure to add more sauce or a bit of water, or soak the noodles in very hot water for 10 minutes before assembling -- otherwise the topmost layer of noodles will end up dry and chewy)

1) Spray a 13x9x3-inch baking dish with cooking spray (so it will be easy to clean afterwards!) and preheat your oven to 450F. Divide all ingredients equally into 4 groups.

2) Mix the sausage in with the red pasta sauce.

3) Layer the ingredients in the baking dish as follows: Red sauce, noodles, eggplant, white sauce, cheese. Repeat 4 times.

4) Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes.

There are so many ways to customize this basic lasagna recipe to make it healthier/more decadent/ kid-friendlier/ etc... (i.e. omit eggplant, substitute cooked ground beef for the sausage, eliminate white sauce, add shredded carrots, etc...). It sure beats doughy, oily cheese pizza. Enjoy!