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What would you do if your kids asked for “More veggies, please?” Well, prepare yourself, because they just might when you serve vegetables like this. These snacks are great for after school treats.

Celery and Pretzel Butterfly

2 stalks of celery
12 large pretzels (not the straight kind)
6 tablespoons natural peanut butter
Around 18 raisins
12 slivered almonds

Wash the celery with cold water. Cut the celery stalks crosswise into thirds. Fill each celery stalk with one tablespoon of the peanut butter. Gently push 1 pretzel into the peanut butter, so the pretzel is parallel to the length of the celery stick and looks like a wing. Do the same on the other side of the celery, with another pretzel. Your celery stick now has butterfly wings!

Use the raisins for the eyes, nose and mouth of the butterfly. Create the antennae by pushing the slivered almonds into the filling, on top of the butterfly’s head.

Celery and Carrot Wagons

2 stalks of celery
12 toothpicks
16 carrot slices
1/2 cup of peanut butter; cheese spread or ranch dressing
20 Raisins

Wash the celery with cold water. Cut celery stalks crosswise into pieces that are about 3 inches long. Push two toothpicks through the sides of each celery stick to create the axles for four wheels. Fill each celery wagon with the peanut butter, or another spread. Stick a round carrot slice onto the end of each toothpick to form a wheel. After the wheel is attached, cover each toothpick tip with a raisin.

You can stick a toothpick into the end of the celery for a wagon handle, and cover the tip with another raisin. You can also leave the handle off to create a celery car instead.

Tomato Army Ants

3 small cherry tomatoes for each ant
9 toothpicks or grape stems for each ant.

Rinse the cherry tomatoes in cold water. Attach the three tomatoes with two of the toothpicks or grape stems. Use six more to create the ants legs, and two for the antennae. Make as many as you can to create a whole army of ants.

Zucchini or Cucumber Centipede

Small zucchinis or cucumbers
Shredded carrots

Rinse the zucchinis or cucumbers. Cut off the ends of each, and attach strips of zucchini or cucumber for the legs. You can use shredded carrots for the antennae.

Here are some other tips to make vegetables more child-friendly

Choose Colorful Veggies – Kids loves colors. When you serve vegetables to your children, try to serve an assortment of colors

Make them Little Finger Friendly – Slice vegetables into small pieces so they will be easier to pick up with small fingers.

Do the Dip – If your child is a reluctant vegetable eater, let them experiment with different dips. Most kids like ranch dip for their vegetables. Some kids will eat anything if it has cheese or peanut butter on it.

Vegetable Art – Instead of arranging vegetables for your kids, let them design their own vegetable creations. Give them an assortment of vegetables, spreads, and toothpicks, and let them create their own work of vegetable art.

Halloween parties can be utmost fun. While we all focus on the decorations and attire, food adds true life to the party. Good selection of items might not be enough. You can set the right Halloween mood with the apt Halloween dishes.

Yes! Halloween crafts can also be edible. So much so that even kids now-a-days love to make their own food crafts.

While, Internet is a real hub for loads of such recipes, we can give you a kick start to these spooky edibles:

1. Edible Dirt

Kids at the tender age love eating dirt – amazed? Yes, it’s true! So, how about creating a Halloween food craft that looks just like dirt?

For this take clear & small plastic cups. Place scoops of chocolate ice cream at the bottom, one in each cup.

Now provide the kids with sealed zip-loc baggie filled with Oreos. Instruct the child to smash these cookies as much as they can. That is turning these cookies in to real small bits.

Now pour the cookie bits on the top of your ice cream.

Further add some gummy worms.

Finally, dig in to hard with a spoon.

Yummy dirt is ready to eat!

2. Bloody Fingers

For this you need some cocktail wieners and one refrigerated biscuit dough can.

Now, around the bottom of the wiener, wrap the dough. Watch that you leave the tip showing.

From the tip of the wiener that we had left unwrapped, cut an oval piece. This would be the fingernail.

At a temperature of 350 degree Celsius, cook it in the oven. Check that the biscuits should get slightly browned.

Now, let them cool down.

Add some ketchup in place of the fingernail.

Your bloody fingers are ready to be the talk of the party!

3. Edible Eyeballs

Halloween food crafts for kids must look scary but at the same time should be simple to prepare, so that they are easy for the kids to follow.

This food craft is perhaps the simplest of all. Take deviled egg and add a black olive to show the eye black in the middle.

Now coming to the deviled eggs – they are quite easy easy.

Boil the eggs for around 5 minutes and remove them from the heat.

Let them be as it is the hot water for around 10 more minutes.

Now run these eggs under cold water and then refrigerate them. We must do this as cold eggs can be peeled of easily.

Once they cool down, peel the eggs. Cut each of them in half length-wise.

Remove the yolk or the yellow portion and collect it in a bowl.

With the help of a fork, “smoosh” these yolks in order to get a crumbly consistency.

Now, add some mayonnaise. Make sure to put little quantity at a time so that the stuffing remains thick and has a creamy mixture. Excess of mayonnaise would make it quite running.

For some extra flavor add mustard.

Fill the yolk mixture in the egg white with a spoon.

Last, as said earlier, press in the black olives and the edible eyeballs are ready to scare!

What started out as a dream, turned out to be the most beautiful reality for Kurt Penberg. He believed that personalized children products would make a great business idea and thus he put the basis of the successful company he runs today, named Kids Juke Box. It was in San Diego, California that this idea took birth and in the same place where it was operated for the first time. Kurt Penberg took his CD with personalized music and the incredible selection of 800 names, presented it in a shopping mall and instantly knew he struck gold. That is one incredible story and certainly one incredible man.

It didn’t take too long for Kurt Penberg to diversify his product line and develop even bigger ideas for the future. The personalized music revolution continued and the number of CDs grew, just as the list of names included for the increased personalization process. It took a lot of great effort, hard work and tenacity but the results appeared. In just a couple of years, the names of Kids Juke Box and Kurt Penberg were on everybody’s lips when it came to personalized products for children. The number of CDs had reached 13 by the year of 2003 and amazingly the music collection encompassed over 2000 children names. Trying to satisfy everyone, including from a language point of view, Kurt Penberg demonstrated once more his intelligence by producing personalized music CDs in more than one language.

Kurt Penberg did not have the recipe for success from the beginning but he quickly figured out the main ingredients. He realized that it was impossible to succeed without constantly improving his company and most importantly, his products. Kids Juke Box continued to grow under his constant and close supervision, developing new product lines and thus increasing in popularity. Kurt Penberg started to pay attention to the modern story books and came up with an entire line of personalized story books on compact discs. This time, there were over five stories, with an amazing number of 8000 names and five languages to be presented in. It was definitely a recipe for success and Kurt Penberg knew that perfectly well.

Another crucial detail for Kurt Penberg was to obtain a license for all the products he had invented and produced with care. It was the start of 2005 when Kids Juke Box released on the market personalized products for children that were licensed and another moment when Kurt Penberg realized how many great things he has accomplished. Two years later, Kids Juke Box became a partner of important names such as Marvel Entertainment and Care Bears. The contract signed by Kurt Penberg stated that new and personalized products will be released on the market, representing the main characters of the companies mentioned above. It proved out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, the agreement increasing even more the popularity of Kids Juke Box and of its founder as well.

Kurt Penberg did not stop at personalized music CDs and story books. Adapting to the needs and requirements of children and parents, he started to include other exciting products just as personalized. These refer to popular ringtones, growth charts and poems. The patented technology of Grab and Go has also brought Kurt Penberg into the spotlight, many retailers being interested in the advantages it brings. Just imagine, being able to commercialize personalized products with even caring about the names. The huge selection of names presented with every personalized product has clearly proven that Kurt Penberg is a man that knows that flexibility means. It just goes to prove how important it is to follow your dreams and believe in your inner strength!

One of the issues moms face as they send their kids back to school is preparing lunches. Not only are they concerned with preparing food for the kids each day, but preparing healthy and nutritious lunches! This can be quite the challenge, especially with picky youngsters. We all want our kids to eat well so they can learn well, but how do we create a meal that’s healthy that our kids will actually eat?

Here are a few tips and ideas for doing just that:

Think outside the lunch box. Don’t just create a plain old boring square sandwich every day. Try a lettuce wrap, a tortilla roll-up, a pita, or a sandwich made with a cookie cutter or whole grain waffles (use some of the organic frozen ones) for the bread. Try various types of bread to create unique sandwiches that will be not only healthy but fun and exciting for your child to eat. Presentation is big with kids. They love to eat foods that look interesting.

Another outside the box idea is to use small plastic containers or Bento boxes to create a fun, visually appealing meal. Try veggies and bread sticks with yogurt dips or sauces. What about slices of meat and a few different cheeses with crackers? You can create your own meal that is much more healthy than the pre-packaged ones that you can buy in grocery stores. There are several websites that teach Bento – the Japanese art of take out – that have fun ideas for kid’s lunches. Try browsing these for inspiration.

Be big on variety. Offer your child lots of options. This will help them to find something that they like. Include fruit, bread, a veggie, a protein source, and a drink. Try to alternate them as well instead of sending an apple daily, sending an apple one day, an orange the next, grapes the next and then swap it up. For their drinks, try a smoothie. These are easy to make and fun to experiment with.

Get the kids involved. Kids are creative and savvy moms know they are more likely to eat something they have chosen for themselves. They can even find fun ways to package the items to make them more appealing. Let them use cookie cutters to create playful sandwiches or cuts of cheese. Have fun together browsing cookbooks and websites creating new ideas for future lunches. Let them help you do some of the work in the kitchen preparing their lunch box for the next day.

Use your leftovers. Who says lunch has to be a cold sandwich and an apple? If your child loved last night’s dinner and you have leftovers send them for your child’s lunch. At least you know they will eat it. It saves you some work too.

These are just a few ways to make healthy lunches that your child will eat. You’ll also feel certain that they are getting the nutrition they need to stay focused at school.

Kids describe what they really like to eat, Chef La La features her cook book with healthy recipes parents and their kids can make.

Kids love snacks. They always like it when they see snacks in their lunch bags or after school in the kitchen. But you always find it hard to think of quick easy snack ideas for kids. You have done several recipes already and you want to try other recipes so that your kids will not get tired of always eating the same snacks everyday. So to help you on your dilemma, here are some quick easy snack ideas for kids.

Yogurt. Choose your child’s favorite yogurt. If your kid loves strawberry or banana yogurt, then use these in your ingredients. All you need are popsicle molds, your kid’s favorite yogurt flavour, and some berries and fruits. Just pour the yogurt into the posicle molds and put them inside your refrigerator to freeze. You can even add berries or other chopped fruits for added flavor and texture. If you want a colorful popsicle yogurt, add food coloring. You can also make smoothies or parfaits using the same ingredients plus whipped cream, granola, and milk. This is a very nice snack for summer.

Vegetable snacks. Vegetables should be presented and cooked in a very creative way if you want your child to like them. Vegetables are probably at the top of your child’s “things that I hate” list. Instead of tossing all the vegetables together in a bowl when making a salad, why not create a masterpiece out of the ingredients? You can draw faces using the salad dressing and hair, eyes, nose, lips, and ears using different vegetable for your salad. Make sure that you let your child do the ‘art’ so that he or she will also be interested in eating it. Add kiddie ingredients like peanut butter and jelly if you want.

Trail Mix. This is very simple not to mention easy to prepare because you just need to combine the ingredients altogether for a one great and delicious snack. You can include granola, m&m’s, cereals, nuts, raisins, pretzels, banana chips, and other foods for that fulfilling snack your kids will surely enjoy.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. These are classic quick easy snack ideas for kids but you can add a twist to these traditional favorites. You can prepare them the usual way but cut the sandwiches into different interesting shapes. You can use cookie cutters if you want. You can also do this with other kinds of sandwiches such as ham and cheese, turkey, or chicken sandwiches.

Baked bagels or muffins. If you cooked spaghetti the night before, you can use leftover tomato sauce as a spread on muffins and bagels. Add cheese on the tomato sauce and toast it.

Fruits. You can also make a fruit salad using colorful fruits like melons, berries, grapes and other fruits which you can cut using cookie cutters to make them more fun and interesting for your little ones.

Snack Bars. You will need peanut butter, sugar, cereal, and corn syrup. In a heated saucepan, put all the ingredients together and stir them until they are melted. Add a generous amount of cereals. Incorporate all the ingredients together. Put the mixture in a rectangular pan and pat the mixture until it becomes firm. Slice them into desired size.

www.DebBixler.com Children’s cooking school will teach kids healthy living skills. Kids cooking activities will teach your children how to live a longer and healthier life. After school programs, cooking classes and camps for healthy eating will bring wellness to your children. Classes with easy recipes for kids to cook will insure that they will eat better their entire lives. After school programs, private classes, kids cooking camps, elementary school assemblies and more. Children’s cooking lessons are fun, informative and guarantee a better future for your kids. http Deb Bixler is devoted to making a difference in children’s fitness through nutrition and wellness instruction. Using good for you grocery choices and good food cooking lessons,Bixler teaches families fun, fast and whole food meal tips so that they can spend more quality time consuming good for you foods and live a long and healthful life. www.WowYouAreReallyLucky.com Bixler provides wholesome living workshops to businesses, schools, organizations and not for profit groups. Programs are created for each event taking into consideration special needs and circumstances of the group. As a wellness and health living lecturer Deborah’s cooking courses focus on fun, fast and health recipes and tips. Some of the many special needs cooking programs that she has created for special events have included diabetic, autism, vegetarian, vegan, lactose intolerant, gluten free, heart healthy and more. Deb gives healthy …

Being a vegetarian can put a strain on you if your kids are not. However, if if you are considering to put your kids on a vegetarian diet, here are the tips for you.

Having your kids on this diet would not only save you time and make your meal planning a lot easier but it is healthier as well.

However, if you are not a vegetarian but your kid is in the beginning stages of becoming a vegetarian, your child will be might be missing some important nutrients from not eating meat. This results to a nutritional imbalance.

You may have heard about the risks of being a vegetarian such as it could stunt the growth of your child, as well as if this diet is at all sustainable.

If yes, then you are right. Your concerns are valid especially if your vegetarian diet is poorly planned. This could result to a serious short term as well as long term deficiencies in children. This is because children do not have the appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals in their bodies as yet.

You could be putting your kids at risk if the meals are not well-prepared and well-planned.

Being aware of the necessary nutrients that a body should have while on a vegetarian diet, then there should not be a problem.

IF you know what you are doing then you are helping your child improve his or her overall well-being by limiting them from eating animal products that are full of growth hormones, preservative, and other chemicals during the processing.

Make sure that you have the following information at hand before preparing your meal.

1) Protein – source: nuts, soybeans, and tofu.

2) Calcium – source: lots of green leafy vegetables and green tea.

3) Iron – source: beans, soybeans, tofu and cereals.

4) Zinc – nuts, peanut butter, mushrooms and green tea.

Green tea contain all the necessary nutrients and minerals that a body need as well as powerful antioxidants to help prevent diseases and help strengthen your immune system. Nowadays, there are green tea recipes available to include in your diet thereby providing a satisfying and nutritious meal for you and your family.

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. Children especially love the season and begin to get excited from the beginning of December, waiting for that special day.

You can add to that excitement by letting your kids make special treats for the holiday season. They will be so excited about taking part in getting ready for that special time of year and it will help to teach them more about their food, where it comes from and how to create magic from a few ingredients.

Even small children can help. Just determine ahead what level of involvement is appropriate for your child. If they are too young to be around knives, try a recipe that doesn’t involve a lot of chopping, or do that part yourself, then let the kids measure and mix.

Here are two recipes that are perfect for the young holiday cooks in your family.

Uncooked Brownies

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter

6 teaspoons cocoa

1/2 cup cold milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup shredded coconut

2 cups quick oatmeal

1 teaspoon vanilla

Boil sugar, milk and butter for 2 minutes. Add vanilla, coconut, cocoa, salt and oatmeal. Drop on to a waxed paper lined square baking dish. Place in the refrigerator to cool. Cut into squares to serve.

How easy is that?

Peanut Butter Surprise Squares

3 cups Graham cracker crumbs

2/3 cup melted butter

5 eggs, beaten (or 1 carton liquid egg replacement, well shaken)

3/4 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup corn syrup

2 tablespoons corn starch

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter

2 cups mini marshmallows

1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate

1/2 cup chopped unsalted peanuts

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Line a 9″x13″ baking dish with aluminum foil, making sure to cover the sides of the dish.

Blend cracker crumbs with butter. Press into the bottom of the prepared dish. Bake for 8 minutes. Set aside.

Whisk the eggs with the sugar, corn syrup and cornstarch until well combined. Reserve.

Drop spoonfuls of peanut butter randomly over the prepared crust then scatter the marshmallows, chocolate and peanuts evenly over the base. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the other ingredients in the crust.

Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and set.

Tip: When using liquid eggs, you may need to increase the baking time to 40 minutes.

Makes 30 servings

Okay, you have 10 kids under 10 years old coming over to your house and you have to entertain them. You are looking for something interactive and fun. You also have to feed these kids… What do you do? The answer, Make Pizza!

Kids love spending time in the kitchen if you can make it a fun, interactive and yummy experience. Creating mini pizzas is a great way of engaging kids; so pull out your aprons and get cooking.

When cooking with children it’s important to let them get their hands messy and experiment a little. Kids love to pour, measure, mix and taste their own pizza creations. Unfortunately, kids can’t be counted on to be neat in the kitchen, so a little relaxation and patience will carry you a long way.

Safety First in Pizza Making:

Pizza making offers a good opportunity to discuss kitchen safety with children. You can discuss points like kitchen dangers; think knives, boiling water, etc. An alternative to lecturing is to give frequent reminders of what is okay to touch and what they should stay away from. You will also want to establish kitchen rules, like washing hands and not touching the stove or electric mixers.

Integrate Learning in Pizza Making:

At this point, you have already taught the kids about kitchen safety, but there is a lot more that you can teach when making pizza with children. School age children can use their math skills as they help measure and combine ingredients. Just think of all those wonderful fractions that need to be added, reduced, etc.

You can also take the opportunity to talk about good nutrition by discussing the ingredients you are choosing and why. Also, don’t be afraid to add fresh vegetables, you’ll be amazed what kids will eat when it’s covered in cheese and on top of a pizza they’ve created.

Pizza Making Quality Time:

Probably the best reason to make pizza with kids is for the quality time. Think about how much fun a mini pizza assembly line is, especially when the children are in charge of choosing their own crusts, cheeses, sauces and toppings.

Be sure to compliment the child on a job well done and offer your child the first taste of the pizza. Ask what they think and you may even consider having them judge the pizza on the taste, dough, toppings, etc. This will give them a chance to figure out what they might change for next time.

Here are some easy pizza recipes and pizza dough recipes that you might consider making.