MomsToWork.com » Quick Recipes

Harvard Healthy Eating Plate

joy — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:01:19 +0000

Earlier this year the USDA released new dietary guidelines for Americans, under an initiative called ChooseMyPlate.gov.

In response to this, the Harvard School of Public Health released the Healthy Eating Plate, to make it easier for consumers to think about meal planning and not just abstract ideas about food allowances.

You can download a copy of the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate.

Copyright © 2011, Harvard University. For more information about The Healthy Eating Plate, please see The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Harvard Health Publications, health.harvard.edu

Follow Moms To Work on Twitter @MomsToWork.

ChooseMyPlate.gov – New Dietary Guidelines for Americans

joy — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:15:12 +0000

USDA MyPlate Dietary Guidelines For Americans

Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture released new dietary guidelines for Americans. The new advice, released under the new ChooseMyPlate.gov program, changes the way that Americans think about diet and food. Gone is the longstanding Food Pyramid, instead the new focus is simpler dietary advice.

The streamlined guidelines call for more fruits and vegetables, making at least half of your grains whole grains and encouraging the switch to low fat or fat free milk. In addition, special attention is given to the gotchas of hidden sodium in prepackaged food and advice to drink water instead of soda.

In addition, there are specific guidelines for Pregnant and Breastfeeding Mothers, while materials for Preschoolers and Kids apparently have not been updated as of this writing.

Follow Moms To Work on Twitter @MomsToWork.

Survey: Many post children’s names online

julie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:37:30 +0000

No names is best perhaps

How do you protect the anonymity of your children online? Do you use fake names or nicknames? Or do you use your children’s real names online?

Consumer Reports recently found that among adult social network users, 38% had posted their full birth date, including year. And 45% of those with children had posted their children’s photos. And 8% had posted their own street address.

It also found 26% of adult Facebook users with children posted those children’s photos and names.

It’s hard to blog or use social networks without mentioning those whom we mother and love. But in our rush to show off our child’s latest achievements … those photos of your darling with a bowl upside down on his head … are we putting the ones we love most at risk? Are we abusing the online privacy of our children in our rush to show off how cute they are?

Please tell us how you handle this by taking the MomsToWork survey here (no names required ) and we’ll post the results online for everyone to see.

Please take the MomsToWork quiz here before you go. You can read our other post on children’s privacy online here.

Cute expat kids by Shermee on Flickr. Available by Creative Commons License

No Related Posts

Working mom recipes: Spinach, feta and mint frittata

julie — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:24:18 +0000

My friend Marie Damania made this, and I couldn’t wait to share the recipe with MomstoWork readers. It really is amazing.

Here’s the recipe and instructions from Marie:

This is a delicious vegetarian frittata. It may not be the quickest recipe to prepare, but it is worth the effort. I’ve seen kids who believe they’re ‘allergic’ to greens gobble this up. Serve it warm with a salad and if you’re fortunate enough to have leftovers send it off at room temperature in school lunches.

photo credit: LizMarie

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 leeks, carefully washed and thinly sliced
• 4oz fresh peas (or if you’re too busy like me, frozen is perfectly fine!)
• 1lb baby spinach leaves
• 10.5oz marinated feta, crumbled (if I can’t find that, I just use a good quality feta)
• 5.5oz haloumi cheese, grated (available from Giant/Whole Foods)
• ½ cup grated parmesan, plus extra to garnish
• 6 eggs
• ½ cup fresh mint leaves, plus extra to garnish
• 1.5oz dry breadcrumbs (I use cornflake crumbs)

How to make it

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grease a baking dish approximately 12 in x 2.5inches deep. You can also use a cake pan.

Heat oil over low heat, add leeks and cook for 5-6 minutes until softened.

Transfer to a large bowl.

Cook peas in boiling, salted water for 2 minutes and add the spinach for a further minute. Drain and refresh under cold water. Add to the leeks in the bowl.

In a separate bowl combine the feta, haloumi and parmesan. Beat the eggs and ¾ of the cheeses together (retain some cheese to put on top of the dish).

Season to taste with salt and pepper, If you like some heat, add some chilli flakes. Mix the egg/cheeses into the vegetables and add the fresh mint and breadcrumbs. Stir well. Pour into the baking dish and top with ½ of the remaining cheese mix.

Bake in the center of the oven for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Garnish with a final flourish of cheese and mint leaves.

Enjoy!

Bio: Marie Damania is a talented vegetarian chef, a top mom, an excellent tour guide for anyone visiting Washington, DC., and a talented writer and editor. You can reach Marie at salhan101@hotmail.com

No Related Posts

Kids made it: Peanut Butter Pizza

renee — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:15:55 +0000

Here’s a great easy lunch recipie that kids of any age can help make.

Peanut Butter Pizza

You’ll need:

Pocketless Pita bread (white or wheat, your choice)

Peanut Butter or other nut butter

Jelly or Jam

Banana cut into slices (optional)

To prepare:

Take one pita, spread Peanut Butter “sauce” on pita with back of spoon

Dollop with Jelly or jam (can be spread)

Garnish with Banana slices for “pepperoni”

Cut into wedges using a pizza cutter, serve and enjoy!

Terrific Margarita Pie with Pretzel Crust

joy — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:36:40 +0000

Long ago and far away during an earlier life, I was handed down a few good to go recipes from some very noteworthy military wives. This terrific non-alcoholic, no bake Margarita Pie with Pretzel Crust recipe was one of them – and after all of these years, I’m still in awe of everything they taught me. A perfect light pie recipe for parties or a military wives coffee.

Margarita Pie with Pretzel Crust

Crust:
1 1/4 cups crushed plain pretzels
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar

No bake “margarita” filling:
2 ripe limes for the juice and zest (How to zest a lime)
1/2 cup orange juice
14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces whipped topping

Garnish (optional):
Slice or two of lime

Equipment:
Medium mixing bowl
Large mixing bowl
9 inch pie pan
Spatula
Rolling pin and gallon ziploc bag
Microplane grater or vegetable peeler

Prep Time (realistic estimation without an assistant or two):
1 hour

To make the crust, crush the pretzels in plastic bag (rolling pin works the best to crush the pretzels). Combine crushed pretzels, sugar and butter in bowl. Then press the pretzel crust mixture into pie pan as evenly as you can with a spoon. Tip: At this point, you may want to chill the crust in the refrigerator while you make the margarita filling.

In a second larger bowl, combine the lime juice, lime zest, orange juice and condensed milk. Take care to fold in the whipped topping. Pour mixture into pie pan with pretzel crust. Add the optional lime garnish and chill the no bake Margarita Pie for 30 minutes before serving. Yum!

Follow Moms To Work on Twitter @MomsToWork.

Michelle Obama on work life balance

julie — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:54:06 +0000

Michelle Obama’s speech yesterday on work life balance was so interesting that we’ve posted the entire transcript. It is worth reading.

The first lady:

Acknowledges one income doesn’t cut it anymore
How hard it is for single parents, and that
22 million working women don’t have a single paid sick day.

Mayflower Hotel

Washington, D.C.

10:26 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Donna, and thanks to all of you who are part of the Corporate Voices for Working Families. I’m happy to join you today as you begin this annual meeting. This is a very good thing, and I am so glad I could be here.

Many of the issues that you’ll be discussing are issues that, as you know, are near and dear to my heart. I personally, as Donna described, know the challenges of leading a busy life at work and at home, trying to do a good job at both — and always feeling like you’re not quite living up to either — and trying not to pit one against the other, really trying to balance it so that — if people here are like me — I call myself a 120-percenter. If I’m not doing any job at 120 percent, I think I’m failing. So if you’re trying to do that at home and at work, you find it very difficult and stressful and frustrating.

And even though my current life, trust me, is very different than it was and for most people — and I do know that; I know that right now I am living, as challenging as it may seem, in a very blessed situation, because I have what most families don’t have, is tons of support all around, not just my mother but staff and administration. I have a Chief of Staff and a personal assistant, and everyone needs that; that’s what we need. (Laughter.) Everyone should have a Chief of Staff and a set of personal assistants. (Applause.)

But one thing I know from meeting women and men across the country is that the work-life challenges that I’ve faced aren’t different from the challenges facing other families and undoubtedly many of you.

Things are very different for working families than when many of us were growing up. I talked about this a lot on the campaign trail. When I look back on my childhood and the life that my parents provided, working-class folks with not a lot of money, my father was a blue-collar city worker who worked a shift job. But because he earned enough as a shift worker without a college degree, he could still support a family of four on that salary. And because he could, with that salary, support us — we rented a home, we didn’t live lavishly — my mother was able to stay at home. She could afford to make the choice not to go to work while we were growing up. That was how families balanced back then.

But things are very different today. One income really doesn’t always cut it anymore. And that’s in my lifetime. In most families, both parents have to work, and even if people want to make the choice to stay home. And again, there is no subjective analysis or — of what is better. But people can’t make the choice. It’s even harder for single parents, and there are millions of them all across this country who are trying to build a life for themselves and their children, and they find in an economy that’s tough that they’re not just holding down one but they need a couple of jobs just to make ends meet.

Twenty-two million working women don’t have a single paid sick day. That means they lose money any time they have to stay home to take care of their kids. You know, imagine making that choice. And we do it all the time. And even when I had sick leave, I found myself, you know, hoping that the kids would stay well, just I couldn’t afford to take the day off because there was a meeting, or something was going on. So your whole life is just contingent upon everything working perfectly. So imagine families who don’t have any sick time. So if somebody gets sick, they have to take time off, and they lose the money that they can’t afford.

So there are a lot of people counting on us to figure this out. And one of the reasons I was interested in joining you today is because the research that you do provides a solid foundation for the conversations that we need to have on these issues.

Through your work, the private sector, government and other key stakeholders can have a real dialogue based on facts, find common ground and then develop innovative policies that can help employees manage their work and family obligations, without going crazy.

In promoting best practices –- some of which I believe we’ll hear about today, and I’m really looking forward to hearing about how some companies are making it work, because that’s how we’re going to figure this out, looking at the best practices and figuring out how we can replicate that — employers here learn how to implement programs that are beneficial to the bottom line.

That’s something that I learned as a manager, is that when you provide programs that enable employees to remain productive in their work, which everybody wants to do — I know few people who don’t want to do their very best at their job — but in order for them to do this, they have to feel like their home life is stable and manageable.

So I found that as I’ve managed staff, the more flexibility and opportunities that I gave them to be good parents, the more commitment that they made to working with me, the less likely they were to leave because they wouldn’t find the same sort of situation somewhere else.

So this isn’t just about family balance. This is about making work places stronger and more effective, and keeping and attracting the most qualified people. This research is critical to empowering employers and is politically — particularly important during our current economic climate.

We need to discuss flexible work hours that give employees greater ability to attend to important family responsibilities like child pick-up, something as simple as that; doctors appointments for those not just with kids, but for people with elderly parents. We’re finding more and more that families are in that crunch, as well.

We need to discuss paid leave for birth or adoption of a child and when there’s a serious illness that arises.

We need to discuss quality on-site child care, something that keeps many of us up at night as families; you’re just wondering where are we going to put our children where we feel like that they’re being safe — that they’re safe and being loved. That will relieve many of the stresses that parents feel on the job throughout the day.

These types of policies can be the key to whether a family remains economically viable or slips into financial uncertainty.

I expect this day to be the first of what will be for me many conversations that I’ll get a chance to participate in. We need to find ways to encourage other employers to follow your lead and adopt work-life policies that afford employees flexibility and much-needed support. We want to work together to make clear that, again, investing in these types of policies pays off for employers as well as the employees.

So I am honored to be here. I am looking forward to learning more about what works, what doesn’t work, what’s economically feasible, what I can do to be of help in furthering some of these agendas.

So with that, I will stop and do what I love to do best, which is listen and learn. So thank you for having me. (Applause.)

END 10:34 A.M. EDT

Little Eggplant Stacks

marie — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:00:53 +0000

As a vegetarian, I’m always looking for quick and delicious recipes. This is what I threw together in about 15 minutes last night. It involves some ‘cheating’, if you have more time (lucky you!) you could do the entire recipe from scratch.

Little Eggplant Stacks

You’ll need:
About 4 baby eggplants (find glossy black ones that shouldn’t require ‘salting’)
Haloumi cheese (or another cheese that can be broiled, or indeed goat’s cheese or whatever you have on hand)
Jar of fire roasted red peppers (I use Trader Joes)
Store bought Cilantro-lime pesto (or regular basil pesto) (Or make pesto yourself!)
Basil leaves to garnish, if the mood takes you and you have them on hand

Preheat a broiler (avoid frying the eggplant if you want a nuttier flavor and don’t want to use a ton of oil in this recipe). Slice the egglants into 1/2 inch discs and place them on a baking sheet, without overlapping. Either brush with grapeseed or olive oil, or spray them if it is easier. I happen to have a spray, actually a ‘gourmet mist’ of balsamic vinegar infused with pomegranate that I also gave the eggplant a quick shot with. Season with a little sea salt and pepper. I also sprinkled some Middle Eastern spice, zaatar, because it added flavor and was in the same cupboard as the ‘pomegranate spray’! Not necessary, I just like to give the eggplant a little more personality. You could use lemon pepper or any other additional flavoring.

Slice the haloumi cheese into about 2 inch square pieces (depending on the original shape of the cheese, you’re just making small pieces to add to each stack really, so shape them how you will) and add this to the baking sheet. Place under broiler and cook until the eggplant and the cheese are brown, about 6 minutes each side. If you find the haloumi is losing moisture as it cooks, you may need to use a separate baking sheet, but I try to minimize cleanup by using the same sheet.

Meanwhile, have your red peppers cut and ready to add to your ‘stacks’ and make a quick green salad using whatever you have at hand. When ready remove cheese and eggplants from broiler and take a slice of eggplant and layer with the cheese, red pepper, dollop of pesto…repeat to use all ingredients to make enough stacks for your hungry crowd. I try to raise my stacks to about 3 layers of each ingredient, just because it thrills my family to tackle ‘high towers’, please yourself as to the height. Either way, end with a cap of eggplant and a dollop of pesto, adding your basil leaves as a final flourish, if desired.

Enjoy!

Marie is an editor and communications consultant, mother of one. She lives in Bethesda, MD and enjoys reading, traveling and eating food cooked by other people. She suffers terribly from suburban angst.

How did you do that shrimp curry with your busy schedule?

julie — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:38:34 +0000

I love quick cooking. I like quick writing, too.

So here’s a ten minute recipe that’ll have everyone asking, “Wow, how do you find time to do that on your busy schedule?”

Smile knowingly and mutter something about learning about Indian food when you were traveling there with Mommy back in the day, or it was something you learned when you were diddling that famous chef.

It’s easy shrimp (aka prawns) and spinach curry, and that’s not a reflection on what you were doing with that famous chef’s sweet curry puffs. Hmmm.

What you’ll need:

A bottle of Trader Joe simmer Sauce. I swear we have not received any sponsorship (yet) from Trader Joe. And you can see a review of it and other recipes with it here.

But I digress, before you get going, put on some rice to steam. We always eat steamed rice made with a can’t mess-up steamer bought from a local Asian food store, Korean Korner in Silver Spring, MD.

Your rice will never go gluggy again. I promise you.

And please buy some decent rice. I splash out on Tilda Basmati, which is ridiculously expensive at the Safeway but always tastes great.

The steamed rice takes about 12 minutes .. so put that on before you get going with the rest.

Take a clove or two of garlic. Smash, slice or press, whatever you like.

Take enough thawed green shrimp to feed you and your loved ones.

Grab a big bag of prewashed spinach. I am now a convert of the ready to eat stuff after years of smiling through poorly washed gritty bundled spinach.

Cut a lemon in half.

Grab a large frying pan, which is large enough for everything.

Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil, add garlic and shrimp and fry quickly for a minute or so, add one jar of Trader Joe Curry Simmer Sauce and shove all the spinach in and simmer on a highish heat until all the spinach has wilted and the prawns have just turned pink.

Shrimp alert: Really, really, believe me when I tell you that this messy concoction won’t take more than five minutes. Towards the end, add a good squeeze of lemon to taste. And if you like hot stuff, add some chili flakes (or fry a chili in with the garlic and shrimp at the beginning.)

Serve curry on rice. Garnish if you can stand to wait with a slice of lemon or basil or cilantro. If you really want to go the whole hog, set the table, light a candle or two, take a large slurp of wine, turn the telly on for the kids and pretend it is Friday night for 10 minutes … and sit down and eat a civilized meal with whomever makes your heart flutter.

Spinach and Feta Frittata

renee — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:20:03 +0000

One of the benefits of having a chef for a husband is access to healthy, easy-to-prepare recipes. The downside is, I’ve had to learn to cook since he’s normally cooking for others.

This spinach and feta frittata takes around 35 minutes from start to finish. Remember, with a frittata, you can use any ingredients you like (sausage, any veggie, etc.) and it turns out great.

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
6-ounces fresh baby spinach

1 tbsp olive oil
8 eggs (or 12 egg whites)
3 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper (to taste)
1/2 – 2/3 cup feta cheese (or cheddar if you prefer)

To prepare:

Preheat the oven to 325F.
Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish.
In a large skillet, over medium heat, sautee diced onions with 1 tsp olive oil (or vegetable oil) for about 4 minutes. The onions should be slightly soft and translucent. Add minced garlic and sautee 1 minute. Add fresh baby spinach and cook until the spinach begins to wilt. Cool mixture for 10 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1 tbsp olive oil (or other veg oil), eggs, water, salt and black pepper. Whisk eggs until well-blended.
Using a fork or spoon, gently stir spinach mixture into the egg mixture. Pour into prepared baking dish (make sure to oil this well so the mixture doesn’t stick). Top with feta cheese.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. The fritatta is done when the center is just set and the edges are light gold in the corners.
Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.
Serves 6

MomsToWork.com » Quick Recipes

Harvard Healthy Eating Plate

Related Posts:

ChooseMyPlate.gov – New Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Related Posts:

Survey: Many post children’s names online

Related Posts:

Working mom recipes: Spinach, feta and mint frittata

Related Posts:

Kids made it: Peanut Butter Pizza

Related Posts:

Terrific Margarita Pie with Pretzel Crust

Related Posts:

Michelle Obama on work life balance

Related Posts:

Little Eggplant Stacks

Related Posts:

How did you do that shrimp curry with your busy schedule?

Related Posts:

Spinach and Feta Frittata

Related Posts: