September Acres

I recently had the opportunity to review the Cooking with Trader Joe's Cookbook by Kelly Lester.  I became familiar with Kelly and her Easy Lunch Boxes products by following her on Twitter. I am a huge fan of cookbooks and own too many.  I can also be found with an armful each time I check out at the library.  As with anything, some of the cookbooks are keepers and some are duds.  The Cooking with Trader Joe's Cookbook (available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon ) is a definite keeper. The eye catching cover is only the beginning of the enjoyment you will discover when you pick up this book. If you are a mom, you will appreciate the fun, easy, fast lunch box ideas.  Each recipe is beautifully photographed and not only shows a picture of the recipe but also sides (fruits & veggies) that would be tasty served with the dish.  I don't know about you but I am always looking for different lunch ideas for my daughter - not only for her mai...

There's lots of talk about school lunch these days.  Good things, bad things, in between things.  At the root we all know that what our kids put in their bodies is important for so many reasons.  We all know that lunch provided at school may be a child's only meal of the day.  Yet, so many school districts in this country aren't providing the very best for the kids.  I know, there are many reasons.  The one I hear the most is 'this is all we can afford to serve to the kids'.  Luckily, many schools are creating school gardens or partnering with local farms and restaurants in order to feed the kids.  Unfortunately, my daughter's school district is not one of them.  Fortunately, we are not in the position that she needs to eat the school provided meal each day.  I make her lunch most days and think I make it healthy but fun.  But let's take a look at what our school district is serving this week for lunch Monday Breaded Bake...

LM watering the community garden I watched Jamie Oliver's 'Food Revolution' series when it was on last year and was really intrigued by the work he was doing trying to bring healthy, real food to schools and to our homes.  As parents we have really dropped the ball on nutrition, leading to alarming rates of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes.  We all have fabulous excuses for not paying attention to what we're feeding our children but the bottom line is it's our responsibility to make sure our children are taken care of and it doesn't look like we're cutting the mustard, nutrition wise. When I joined Twitter almost a year ago I had no idea that I would stumble upon another group of parents who are passionate about healthy, real food.  It has opened up my eyes even more and I was recently given the opportunity to host a 'Food Revolution' (or #foodrevparty) Party on Twitter.  I was nervous because I felt like these other hosts had been doing th...

I hope everyone has been watching season 2 of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution . It is eye opening to say the least. Here he is filling a school bus with the amount of sugar kids consume each year - just in chocolate milk. If that doesn't do it watch last week's episode on what gets done to the 'extra' meat from your average cow. This year's show has been focusing on school lunches, namely in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He has been banned from these schools by the school board. But he knows (as we all do) that these school lunches are not the quality food that we should be feeding our children. LAUSD isn't probably that different from the food in your kids' schools. What's a mom to do? First of all, try to go to lunch with your kids and see what is being served for lunch. Even if you send lunch with your kids it's still worth looking at. Kids trade food at lunch. Some kids only get a hot meal at school. These are the kids that really ...