What says “Merry Christmas” and “Eat your vegetables” at the same time? Broccoli Ginger Bread! This recipe comes from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cookbook. The beauty of molasses and ginger is that you neither see nor taste the broccoli and carrot purees this recipe calls for. Even my picky eater eats it. Doesn’t get much better than that! (I’ve paraphrased the recipe instructions a bit because I’m too lazy to type every word.)
Gingerbread Spice Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp EACH baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon
1/4 tsp EACH ground cloves, allspice, salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup broccoli puree (I thawed frozen broccoli and stuck it in the food processor with the oil)
1 cup carrot puree (Steam or boil carrots, puree in food processor or blender. Or use applesauce if you’re pressed for time)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tb grated orange zest
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 9×5Â loaf pan.
2. Mix the flours and spices in a bowl, set aside.
3. Mix the sugar, oil, egg until smooth. Add the veggies, yogurt, molasses, vanilla and zest and mix again. Add flour mixture and mix until smooth.
4. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes, turn out onto a rack and cool completely. Or slice it steaming hot and blow on it to cool it between bites like I do. 🙂
Cook with your ears. Listen to an audio book while you cook or put on some music that’ll make your toes and your chopping knife tap together. If the audio book is a tear jerker, chop up a bag of onions and freeze the extra for later.
Rise and reward. Rise early twice a week to prep your recipes: chop the veggies or measure spices and save them in a little container. Get your ingredients set so that when you’re tired and hungry and it’s time to cook dinner, all you have to do is heat the pan and throw it all together. Or, in the case of a casserole, throw it in the oven. Reward yourself for your early effort with a special coffee or a favorite fruit salad. For many moms, being able to cook in peace and quiet in the early hours is a reward unto itself. If you use a slow cooker, your meal can be ready and waiting when you walk in the door.
This last suggestion is my favorite: host a Chop and Chat. Invite a friend over and cook together. Yes, you will have different tastes and styles, but you will learn from each other and the cooking is accomplished—that’s the point, after all. Make salad together, scrape and cut carrot sticks for snacking, make a batch of soup or a fruit salad. We get together with friends to talk, but why not make our hands as productive as our mouths?
Cooking meals at home helps your family eat healthy and save money, but if you don’t shop with a plan, you can end up throwing expensive produce away. It’s happened to most of us at some point. You head to the grocery store with good intentions, buy a lot of random produce,—because with ten pounds of broccoli in the house, you can’t fail to lose weight, right?—and then half of that produce spends the next two weeks being nudged closer and closer to the back of the fridge before it’s finally tossed in the trash. It’s frustrating and discouraging. For you and for the produce.
The solution to this problem is to plan your produce. Here’s how.
Take your list to the store and don’t stray from it. There are going to be produce items that you always keep on hand like garlic and onions, and items that you only buy when you need them like bell peppers and broccoli. It all depends on your family and your preferences. For example, I always have carrots in the house. My boys like to snack on them (when given the choice of carrots or nothing), I like to mindlessly crunch them in front of the TV, they’re cheap, and they’re useful in a plethora of recipes. It’s a staple. Cauliflower, on the other hand, only comes home with me when I have a plan for it. It’s like the out of town relative you enjoy having over, but feel like you have to entertain.
VISIBLE VEGETABLES™ are easy to use! Simply place VISIBLE VEGETABLES™ on a table or kitchen counter or inside a lunchbox or cooler and watch them disappear! As you pass by VISIBLE VEGETABLES™, your hands will automatically reach for the bright colors and cool textures. You’ll enjoy hours of happy crunching!
VISIBLE VEGETABLES™ are great for night binging in front of the television and mindless munching during long car rides. VISIBLE VEGETABLES™ are portable, eco-friendly, filling, and satisfying. Display your VISIBLE VEGETABLES™ today and feel the benefits!
Field Irrigation: Watermelon and sunflower seeds. Sweet and salty, this snack satisfies both cravings. Just make sure you pay attention to which seeds you eat and which you spit.
Mediterranean Berries: Greek yogurt and berries. Fill a small plastic container with Greek yogurt and add a few tablespoons of frozen raspberries, blueberries, or strawberries and your snack is ready to travel without refrigeration.
Cooling Waters: Cucumber 
The Aqueduct: celery with nut butter. This crunchy nutty combination is not just for kids. Let the water and protein flow.
Muddle the Puddle: hummus and cucumber slices. Hummus comes in a variety of flavors to keep things interesting as well as hydrated.
Bell Pepper Boats: half a bell pepper boat filled with tuna salad. This can be a snack, or two boats can be lunch. Easy to take on the go and they store well.
You’ve probably seen Beverage Math on just about every weight loss episode of any talk show for the past ten years. An overweight guest stares hopefully at the host as s/he pulls up a power point slide showing that if the overweight guest stops drinking soda (or “pop” or “Coke” if you’re not a nor’easter), s/he will lose ten pounds in a year. I’ve always been envious of those guests and their Soda Math. Stop drinking soda and lose ten pounds?! That would be so easy! Easy for me because I only drink soda a few times a year.
Sex, Soup, and 2 Fisted Eating 