Portion Control

This week I have relied heavily on two muffin tins that hold 4 muffins each as my go to for feeding my kids healthy meals. They help me in so many ways:

1. They keep portions child sized
2. They inspire me to provide variety because there are 4 holes to fill
3. They help me make left overs interesting to the kids.
4. They remind my kids how much I love them (they are heart shaped)

I use the muffin tins for every meal some days. Today for breakfast the kids got a heart full of oatmeal, 2 hearts full of whole fruit, 1 heart full of pistachios.
Last night it was a heart full of roast beef, a heart full of green beans, and a heart full of corn. I put a small blob of ketchup in the other heart and a glass of milk to go with the meal. I'm not always as healthy unfortunately, the other day our lunch consisted of a PB & Honey sandwhich, vanilla yogurt with sprinkles (ooh la la), 2 fresh home baked chocolate chip cookies, and some orange segments. Yep a bit to much sugar in that one, but at least the portions are small.
Check out this button for other muffin tin ideas:

I Can't Get No Satisfaction, but I Try, and I Try...

So last week my goal was to make more home made nutritous soups. Over the course of the week I made Spinach Soup (I'm the only one who ate it), Chicken Vegetable Soup (Grandma's recipe), Grandpa Al's Hamburger Soup, and I had Borscht on hand from last week, but no one had any. The challenge I find with soup is that with preschoolers it is messy. They have made a request that I purchase some straws so they can slurp up the soup instead. Sounds good to me, I'll have to put them on the list. Also, right now I'm expecting and I find the smell of onions and garlic a bit off putting. It tastes fine once I can get past the smell, but that seems to be the base of most low cal soups. Interspersed between the soups we had Chicken Cordon Bleu, Pulled Pork (no buns) and Roast Chicken. All in all we ate fairly healthy. I find though that I'm not satisfied. I'm full, yes, but satisfied? No. What I want is a nice big dose of sugar or starch! Sigh.

I guess this week my goal will be to find some healthy, fresh tasting, and satisfying snacks and treats. I'd welcome any suggestions. I'm thinking yogurt parfaits might be the first thing on my list.

S-eeeewww-p

I have soup issues. I make soup for lunches because it is economical and healthy. Very good, sensible reasons, so why can't I be sensible about eating soup. I always look for an alternative when I am serving soup. Something high in fat and sugar please. I usually turn up my nose at soup, until... I take a bite. If I can just get a spoonful in my mouth I quite enjoy it and even go back for more, but the self discipline it takes to just put a teaspoon of the stuff in my mouth is quite ridiculous. I have great recipes and somewhat great success most of the time when I make it. Today's specialty is borscht. It was delicious and now I'm trying to convince myself to fill up my bowl again instead of boiling up some pasta with butter...
This will be my nutrition goal this week, to consistently prepare healthy soups for the whole family to enjoy for lunch, and also eating them myself! If you want to join a fun nutrition challenge with me check out the Mission Family Nutrition button on my side bar, or click on the link above.