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Tonight, we face one of the biggest nutrition challenges of the year: candy overload. Liz’s 13-year old son Josh has been scheming all week to collect as much candy as is humanly possible. His goal: to amass 200 pieces. Janice faces the same scenario, though Leah (AKA Hannah Montana) has slightly lower candy aspirations. Clearly, we’ll both have to set some limits (because after all, a diet of sugary candy is more than most dietitians can cope with)!

While surfing the blogisphere today, we came across an uber-clever post on AlphaMom.com to create an advent calendar designed to portion out Halloween candy over a month or more. Check it out! We’d love to hear how you tame the candy beasts in your house!

It’s not too late to listen to our recent Healthier Halloween podcast or read our Halloween tip sheet. Have a ghoulishly fun-filled evening.

Liz & Janice

Late Tuesday, we returned from Chicago after several action-packed days at the annual meeting of the American Dietetic Association (ADA).  We saw many old friends (by old we mean, “we’ve known them for a while” vs. they’re old), sat in on interesting lectures (we’ll share some of what we learned in future posts) and got to cruise the exhibit hall to sample new family-friendly food products and to peak at recipe booklets and cookbooks.

We have so many cool things to share with you, but decided to start with a recipe for Cocoa Raisin Muffins.  We tasted this recipe at the California Raisin booth after meeting fitness trainer, Valerie Waters (if you go to the raisin website, you’ll find lots of Valerie’s easy-to-follow healthy living tips).  Anyway, despite the fact that we just got back to reality land, we tested & tweaked the recipe and infused some of our Meal Makeover Mom magic. 

These double-chocolate muffins are perfect for Halloween - whether you’re hosting a neighborhood party or just looking for a new muffin recipe to keep your little ghosts and goblins happy. 

Cocoa Raisin Muffins

Makes 24 Muffins

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup 1% lowfat milk
• 1 cup California raisins
• 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil or coat 24 mini muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Whisk together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl.
3. Combine the applesauce, egg, oil, and milk in a medium bowl and stir until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.  Stir in the raisins and chocolate chips. The batter will be thick and “fudgy.”
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups (fill them generously).  Bake about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes.  Remove the muffins and cool an additional 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Information per Serving (2 mini muffins):   210 calories, 8g fat (1.5g saturated, 0.6g omega-3), 260mg sodium, 33g carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 4g protein, 10% iron

As you may know, we’re huge fans of chocolate - which is why this recipe caught our attention.  What also caught our attention were the raisins.  They offer an easy way to get more fruit into the family diet:  They’re portable, available year round, and kids naturally love them.

More news from our ADA adventures in upcoming posts this month!

Imagine a hearty, nutritious, kid-friendly dinner entree that costs just $2.50 per serving. If a recipe with all those attributes sounds too good to be true, then read this blog post! Recently, we found a website called www.MakingLifeBetter.com featuring budget-conscious recipes. There, we noticed a dish for skillet pasta & beef dinner which we decided to cook for lunch today. Since Leah (Janice’s 9-year old) was home from school, she offered to be our official taste tester. Thanks Leah!

In the spirit of full disclosure, we must admit that we couldn’t resist the urge to tweak the recipe just a tad. We added a finely diced red bell pepper, used lean ground beef (look for 90% lean or higher), a whole wheat blend pasta (whole wheat can be a bit of an overachievement so we compromise with the whole wheat blends from Barilla Plus … plus they’re really delish), and switched to part skim mozzarella.

The dish was incredibly easy to make and a definite winner as far as Leah was concerned. She actually gave us a really cool idea: For kids who pick out and eat the pasta first, you can use the savory meat sauce like a sloppy Joe and add it to a whole wheat hot dog or hamburger bun.

Skillet Pasta & Beef Dinner

Makes 5 Servings

• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• 1 medium red bell pepper, finely diced (about 1 cup)
• 1 pound lean ground beef (90% or higher)
• One 26-ounce jar pasta sauce (we like Light Ragu Tomato & Basil)
• 2 cups water
• 8 ounces dried whole wheat blend rotini (we like Barilla Plus)
• 1 cup preshredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (about 4 ounces)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, optional

1. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 5 minutes
2. Add the meat and cook, breaking up the large pieces, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain excess fat.
3. Stir in the pasta sauce and water, raise the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Stir in the pasta and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is tender, about 15 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese. Cover and let stand until the cheese melts, 5 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese as desired.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 410 calories, 10g fat (4g saturated, 0.3g omega-3), 620mg sodium, 46g carbohydrate, 6g fiber, 34g protein, 35% vitamin A, 70% vitamin C, 25% calcium, 15% iron

On a final note, our November 12 Cooking with the Moms radio podcast will feature the topic of Healthy Eating on a Budget so stay tuned.

Liz & Janice

Though we haven’t taken our kids to Starbucks yet to sample the new offerings, we suspect they’d like everything on the menu. In the meantime, we’ll continue to serve up breakfast every morning to our kids … and if either one of us happens to be too busy to sit down to a bowl of cereal, a waffle, or a smoothie, we’ll keep Starbucks in mind.

Liz & Janice

Janice, Liz, and Chrissy Redmond from Cone, who set up our tasting

By Liz: 

As some of you may know, we tend to raise an eyebrow (or two) when we see ingredients like partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, artifi cial flavor, and artificial colors — Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 6 – on food product labels.  Those ingredients are often the norm in cake and frosting mixes, which busy moms and dads (and yes, even The Meal Makeover Moms) rely on from time to time.  Now, to the rescue, is a new line of oh-so-tasty all-natural cake and frosting mixes from a company called Naturally Nora. 

When Nora herself called me two weeks ago and sent along some samples, I donned my apron and got cooking.  With two party invitations and a promise to bring dessert, I first tried Nora’s Cookie Cookie Yellow Cake Mix with Bits of Chocolate Cookie and the Cheerful Chocolate frosting.  For party-number two, I baked Alot’a Dots Yellow Cake Mix with Bits of Color and the Alot’a Dots frosting.  The response from over a dozen kid taste testers a alot’a adults was overwhelmingly positive.  Not a crumb was left.  If you get a chance to try one of Nora’s mixes or any other all-natural products, let us know what you think it them.

There are more squash varieties out there than acorn and butternut and one in particular that has huge kid appeal.  For the past week, we’ve been testing a new side dish recipe using delicata squash.  On the outside, this long, oblong-shaped squash is creamy in color with stripes running down the sides, and on the inside it has a beautiful golden color.  Delicata squash is also called sweet potato squash because it tastes a bit like sweet potatoes, and it has a similar creamy texture.

We’re confident your kids – even if they’re averse to vegetables – will gobble up this naturally sweet side dish.  All of our children – Janice’s daughter’s Leah and Carolyn and Liz’s sons Simon and Josh – gave the new recipe two thumbs up.  That’s what we call “veggie success.”

Delicious Delicata Squash

Makes 4 Servings

• Two 1-pound delicata squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeded
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Generous pinch ground cloves
• Pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons unsalted butter, cut into four small pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Place the squash halves, cut side up, in a glass baking dish.
2. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt in a small bowl.  Top each squash half with the butter, and sprinkle with the brown sugar mixture.  Bake, uncovered, until the squash is very tender when tested with a fork, about 1 hour.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 70 calories, 2g total fat, 1g saturated fat, 75mg sodium, 14g carbohydrate, 2g fiber, 2g protein, 130% vitamin A, 25% iron

Although we typically blog about healthy family recipes, tips for feeding kids, and our dietitian/mom opinions on new food products, we’re switching gears today in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To celebrate all the great strides in breast cancer research and the progress yet to come, we have added three pink items to our current line-up of “bling” now available at our new Meal Makeover Moms’ Store (located at Cafepress.com).  All the proceeds from the October/November sales of our pink Meal Makeover Moms’ hat, t-shirt and long-sleeve shirt will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

There are many creative ways to raise money for cancer. Last weekend, Janice walked in her fifth annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. There, she met James Hilton — he’s the zany guy in the photo wearing a giant pink hairdryer — who founded www.myhairdryerforcancer.org. Through his organization, he gets celebrities to donate an autographed hairdryer and then auctions them off. Proceeds go to cancer research. How cool is that?!

Snack chips are often criticized by dietitians for being too high in fat and sodium and for containing ingredients like partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and artificial colors. To investigate what snack food companies are doing to improve their products, we recently took a tour of the Frito-Lay plant in Killingly, CT.  It’s not every day you get to walk through a food manufacturing facility … nor is it every day you get to wear a hair net, ear plugs, and protective goggles (a hands-down Glamour Don’t though clearly a safety necessity)!

On the tour, we saw how potato chips and Smartfood Popcorn are made, and we got to eat them warm as they came off the production line (incredibly yummy, if we must say so ourselves). We were impressed by the fact that Frito-Lay has reduced the saturated fat in its chips by switching to sunflower oil and that all its chips are trans-fat free. They even have a line of products called Pinch of Salt featuring lower sodium versions of their most popular snacks (we blogged about this on July 7, 2008).

It’s nice to know you can enjoy chips without all the guilt when you need a little crunch with your lunch! As with all snacks, keep an eye on those portion sizes!