During the hot sultry days of summer, cooking can be the last thing on your mind. In warm weather our appetites decrease, but it’s important to get your five servings of fruit and vegetables.

Salads are not only simple to prepare, but refreshing as well. Salad recipes are an easy way to combine grains, fruits, vegetables, and meats in one easy dish.

7 Tips for Yummy Salads

1) Look for produce on sale. Then find a recipe that calls for those ingredients. Or try a vegetable you normally might not use and feature in a salad, like beets or jicama.

2) To make your salad extra special, add a garnish. Sprinkle paprika; add chopped parsley, chervil, chives or basil. Add hard-boiled egg slices, pepper rings, red onions, or pickles.

3) Add some crunch with sesame or sunflower seeds; chopped walnuts or sliced almonds.

4) When making potato or pasta salad ahead of time, add extra liquid. These tend to soak up the dressing and dry out.

Tino munches on fresh produce.

5) Whole grains, like corn and barley, are great cooled and mixed for a whole grain salad.

6) Serve salad on a slice of melon or halved cucumber.

7) When picnicking, nestle the salad bowl in a larger bowl with ice. This will keep the salad cooler longer and keep it from growing bacteria.

Check out the Salad & Sandwiches section to the right of this page. You’ll find yummy recipes like the Tomato Cucumber Salad recipe: Click Here.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.

For info about the FREE Baby Bites Ezine,  CLICK HERE

Gently Toss Together:
3 cooked beets, cubed
1 Romaine Heart or Endive lettuce, shredded
1 apple, cored, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon chopped red onion

Dressing:
Whisk together and pour over salad:
Juice of 1 lemon
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon mustard
Salt & Pepper

Top With:
4 ounces whole, pitted black olives and crumbled feta cheese

Left-Over Rice Salad will bring out your hidden chef, because you’re creating a new recipe each time you make it. It’s also a good choice for a picnic, because there’s no mayonnaise, which can easily spoil in the heat. Kids love to help. Let them add ingredients and toss the salad.

For Left-Over Rice Salad,
Zach adds some parsley
from his garden on the deck.

Begin by opening up the refrigerator to see what’s there.

1. For the base you’ll need:
4 cups of already cooked brown or wild rice (1 cup per person)
Add: 3 sliced green onions (or ¼ cup other onions, chopped)
½ chopped pepper (green, red, yellow or orange)
½ cup chopped celery

2. Then add any of the following:
1 to 2 cups cup of chopped left-over chicken or turkey
1 small can of sliced black olives (or ¼ cup chopped green olives)
1 small jar of drained artichoke hearts
1 chopped carrot
1 or 2 crumbled hard-boiled eggs
Grated cheese, any kind
Handful of raisins or currents
Handful of chopped nuts

3. Toss with a vinegar and oil dressing.
Serve at once or chill for later.

Click Here for the Baby Bites Store.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, CLICK HERE.

¼ red onion thinly sliced
2 tomatoes cut into wedges
1 cucumber halved and sliced
¼ cup (about half of a 6 ounce can) pitted ripe olives drained
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice (about the juice of one lemon)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
Freshly ground pepper

Method:
Combine all ingredients.
Cover and refrigerate several hours.
Serve with a slotted spoon

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.

It’s well-established that how well you and your children feel depends on the food you eat. The good news is your body was created to heal and repair itself:

>In one hour, a billion cells are replaced in your body.

>Every 4 weeks the entire outer layer of your skin is replaced.

>Every 2 months, practically every cell in your heart muscle is rebuilt.

>Your body builds a new bloodstream in 3 months.

>Your nails are replaced every 6 months.

>Every two years, your body has new bones and hard tissues.

Ally helps to serve a yummy salad. You’ll want to try Rainbow Salad.

Next summer, you will have an entirely new body. Will it be healthier or not? It depends on what you eat this summer! Healing begins by eating more raw foods and avoiding sugars, white flour, and altered fats. (The Baby Bite steps will remedy a picky eater refusing to eat veggies and whole foods. Click Here for a synopsis of the book.)

A “raw foodist” eats at least 75 percent of their food consumption as raw food. That’s fresh fruit, vegetables, sprouted grains, seeds, and beans, cold pressed oils, raw honey, nuts and seeds. A totally raw food diet isn’t for everyone, but everyone will benefit from eating more raw foods. The healthiest raw food is grown without chemicals or processed in any way.

Acidosis is over-acidity in the body tissues and is one of the basic causes of diseases. For a proper pH balance, your diet should consist of approximately 75 percent alkaline-forming foods, which includes vegetables and fruit. Click Here for a partial list. It’s not surprising the Standard American Diet  (S.A.D.) contains more acid-forming foods than alkalizing foods.

Alkalizing foods highlight most vegetables and fruit. So you can see that picky eaters, who don’t consume most veggies, eat mostly acid-forming foods (which include fast and junk foods). Tasty produce is bountiful in the summer and it’s the perfect time to include more raw foods into your family’s diet. They’re light and they’re alive: Salads, fruit, veggie sticks, nuts, cool veggie and fruit drinks. Raw foods include dips, like avocado and hummus, for dipping veggies.

The fun for me comes in trying out new salad recipes. When one becomes a family favorite, it’s a natural to bring to family gatherings. You’ll want to continue serving healthy salads throughout the winter. In fact, salads are the perfect dish to bring to holiday dinners.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.

3 to 4 medium peeled apples (any kind) chopped in small ½ inch pieces
1 tablespoon lemon juice
5 good sized carrots grated
1 cup raisins
½ cup mayonnaise (Mayonnaise spoils easily, a ¼ cup lemon juice and a tablespoon of honey may be substituted when making this salad for lunch bags or picnics.)

Directions
1) In a medium sized bowl mix tablespoon of lemon juice with the chopped apples. Stir to prevent browning.
2) Mix in the grated carrots, raisins, and mayonnaise or balance of lemon juice and honey.
3) Stir well. Serve chilled.

Find out more about the free Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

Listen to today’s podcast, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.

It’d been a while since I last ate at a salad and soup restaurant. Dick, my husband and I used to enjoy eating at Sweet Tomatoes, another salad/soup restaurant in our area. The choices are numerous and you can eat as much as you like. My mom was a picky eater and loved soup and salad restaurants, because she could choose whatever she wanted to try and if she didn’t like it, she could go back for something else.

Grace and Elijah are happy to hear
some restaurants are trans fat free.

I stopped eating at salad and soup restaurants, when I read the information on the additives, especially trans fat, that were found in their food items. I was surprised when I saw trans fats were in more than bakery products. They were in things you wouldn’t normally expect, like creamed soups. So, I was happy to see that Souper Salad posted signs stating they were “trans fat free.”

Later, I checked out the Souper Salad website and contacted their “food scientist” (I wasn’t sure what a food scientist is, so I checked it out online. A food scientist works in research and development of food processing companies. They analyze food content.), just to be sure. This is the reply I received from Karen Schroeder, their food scientist:

“Regarding fats:
Gingerbread uses palm oil—0 trans fat
Blueberry bread uses palm oil—0 trans fat
Bread-sticks uses soybean oil—0 trans fat
Cornbread uses partially hydrogenated corn and cottonseed oil—0.11 grams / square. (This is a trans fat.)

The government allows us to claim 0 trans fat if a serving size has 0.5 grams per serving or less. Some items contain naturally occurring trans fat so it would be impossible to claim 0 trans fat for everything without this government disclaimer.”

While I was at it, I asked about MSG. This answer was also encouraging:

“There is one product at Souper Salad that contains MSG. It is in trace amounts in our Jalapeno Cheese Sauce that is found near the baked potato section of our bar.”

Then I asked about one of the worst sweeteners, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). I am happy to say that there weren’t a lot of items on this list. As you might expect, HFCS is in some of their desserts. This is the list of products containing HFCS:

“Caramel Topping
Ketchup
Oreo Cookies
Crushed Pineapple Topping
Chocolate Pudding
Fruit Smoothies
Chocolate Syrup

Our breads do not contain high fructose corn syrup.”

The only way you’ll ever know what you’re eating, is to check out your favorite restaurant yourself. Obviously, if you or a family member is sensitive to other food additives, eating out is more of a challenge. Today, most restaurants have websites offering nutritional information. Understand, that you probably will have to email their “food scientist” from their web page to get the information you really need.

Learn more about trans fat, CLICK HERE.
Learn more about High Fructose Corn Syrup, CLICK HERE.

In a large bowl, combine 1 cup each of cooked barley, brown rice, and defrosted corn.

1 15 oz can rinsed and drained black beans, ½ cup chopped green onions (about 6), 1 red bell pepper, and ¼ cup chopped cilantro. Add 2½ ounces drained sliced black olives.

In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, whisk together ½ cup extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar, ½ teaspoon each salt and black pepper and 1 clove finely minced garlic. Add ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes and 1 teaspoon chili powder for a little heat. Toss with the grains and refrigerate.

Boun appetito! Fill your kids with love; give them a hug before they go off to school.

(This recipe is also found in Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater.)

Mix together:

1 head broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces (about 4 cups)

1 large beefsteak tomato or 6 Roma salad, cut into bite-size pieces

1 small onion, chopped

12 ounces of Italian salad dressing:

Wisk together:

¾ cup each olive oil and red wine vinegar

1½ teaspoon dried oregano or basil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

Mix every thing together in a medium bowl

Chill overnight and mix well.

Spread 1 cup grated cheddar cheese on top of the salad and serve.