A Likable Lunch Giveaway!

With Spring officially here, we’ve been looking for ways to spruce up our lunches and on-the-go meals. Soon there will be sports practices to go to, play dates, and afternoon excursions to the park, so we wanted to host a giveaway to give our readers a chance to win some awesome items that will help you pack meals and snacks on-the-go. So keep reading to learn how to enter to win these great prizes:

An OOTs Lunchbox

A gift from gnu foods
FiberLove Bars

 a Rafflecopter giveaway
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MDIO March Giveaway

Happy March everyone! A few of our recent posts were written about traveling. I recently traveled to Peru with my family and wrote a few months ago on the importance of healthy eating while on-the-go. So, to continue this theme of eating while traveling, I wanted to host a giveaway!

We’re giving away some great items that are sure to help you pack healthy while traveling with your little ones. This month’s giveaway features a brand known as Kangovou. This company offers stylish and eco-friendly food containers that make great travel accessories. Their products are BPA-free and dishwasher safe. To learn more about Kangovou check out their website here.

Now, on to the giveaway details! One lucky reader will win 1 Kangovou Compartment Tray with lid, 1 snack bowl with lid, and a copy of Healthy Habits.

To enter follow the instructions below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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New Years Giveaway!

2014 is here! And this year we’re focusing on setting new intentions and creating healthy habits! To help with these endeavors, we’re giving away The Children’s Nutrition Tracker: an apple a day. This nutrition tracker is a wonderful and interactive way to get your kids involved in making healthy habits and allows them to view their progress at the same time. To learn more about an apple a day, click here.

To enter complete as many of the following tasks as you’d like:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Thanksgiving Giveaway!

We wanted to show our thanks and gratitude to our readers and followers, so this Thanksgiving we are giving away a free copy of Healthy Habits!
(click here for reviews and a look inside)

To enter complete as many of the following tasks as you would like! Contest entries accepted until midnight this Sunday, December 1st – Good Luck to all and wishing you a happy and healthy holiday!

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Healthy Halloween Ideas + Wholesome Haunted Halloween Contest Winners!

Happy Almost-Halloween! We are happy to announce the winners of our Wholesome Haunted Halloween Contest with Bitsy’s Brainfood. Our winners were kind enough to share their wonderful ideas for a healthy halloween and we’re very excited to share them with you:

Rachael R:
www.nboysmommy.typepad.com

My BBF (Battle Buddy Forever) Nicky and I met in the Army over a decade ago.  We were literally “Battle Buddies” training to be leaders in the real life transition of adult and womanhood.  We banded together then, to force the change in our lives for better fitness and health. We rendered triumph in our journeys, acknowledging that DIET is an utmost factor.

Today, as mothers, we continue to band together to keep our children enriched with healthy lives.  We value their nutritional foundations. Although we choose health over popularity food with our children, we’re very proud to live our lives in a way where not a single one of them are short on fun or experience just because of a conscious diet.

Our candy-free Halloween celebrations are full of fun, edible indulgences:

  • Bloody Brains (chicken meatloaf and tomato herb sauce)
  • Scrambled Brains (green food colored scrambled eggs)
  • Vampire tongues (crisp bacon) and flying ghouls! Yep, those pancake ghosts fly right into our mouths!
  • Our witch finger breadsticks are LITERALLY finger-licking good
  • WE just forgot to tell the vampires, that their teeth would get stuck!

Happy Healthy Halloween!


Mary-Kate C:
http://www.3boysandagirl2.blogspot.com/

When it comes to picky eaters, you can’t beat an almost 4 year old!  Our son won’t eat or try anything new… unless you somehow put a “cool” spin on it! So as a mom who wants her kids to eat healthy and be exposed to a variety of foods, you have to get creative! Some of my ideas for healthy, creative Halloween snacks are:

  • Fruit Cup Jack-O-Lanterns:  We took orange fruit cups, drew Jack-O-Lantern faces on them, taped a green spoon to the back (for the stem) and Ta-Da!  A cute & spooky spin on a healthy snack!
  • Ghost Bananas: Cut a banana in half cross-wise and then in half length-wise. Put some peanut butter on it, raisins for the eyes and mouth and boom! – A ghostly banana treat!
  • Spiders: Make deviled eggs. Cut a black olive in half and put half on the yolk part of the egg, slice the other half and use it as legs for the spider!  Scary and yummy!
  • Vampire Teeth:  Put peanut butter between 2 apple slices and use almonds as the teeth.  Yumm!
  • Give me a Hand:  Take a rubber glove and fill it with popcorn!  So easy and yummy too!

These are some easy ways that I have found I can get my almost 4 year old and friends to enjoy some healthy treats but also make them fun for them!  🙂

 

And we’ve been getting into the spirit at Mom Dishes It Out. Check out some of our spooky and scary Halloween ideas below (PS they’re great activities for both you and the kids)!

Soup In a Cauldron

We love making and eating soup in the Fall months. The weather gets chillier, plus soups are a great way to pack in some extra nutrition! You can add a can of beans for extra protein and fiber or throw in a cup or two of kale for a boost of vitamins, the options are endless.
One of our favorite things to do around Halloween is to make a big pot of soup and pretend that we’re making a witches’ brew. For a super fun activity with the kids, dress up as witches and warlocks and get to cooking in your cauldron!

 

Frankenstein

We love avocadoes and guacamole, so what better way to dress up this dish for Halloween than labeling it Franken-Food. If you’re having a party you can have the kids make labels for a fun and creative activity. It’s always fun to make Frankenstein footprints out of paper and make a path on the floor to the food table. A great addition is using carrots or cucumber sticks as “fingers” to dip.

 

Mud Yogurt

We love Greek yogurt and our kids love traditional mud cups. So, we thought of a compromise that added some nutrition, but kept the snack fun and festive. We recommend adding a tablespoon of cocoa powder to Greek yogurt and stirring until it reaches a mud-like color. Feel free to add more until you reach the desired coloring. You can throw in some gummy worms or crumble up a chocolate cookie for dirt.

Or if your children prefer smoothies, you can add cocoa powder to your family’s favorite smoothie recipe. This way your kids can drink the “mud” and enjoy a fun Halloween activity.

 

Do you have any festive activities you do with your family to celebrate Halloween? 

Cookie Comparison: Which Cookie Should You Feed Your Children? & Giveaway!


 

Check out Laura’s review of four popular cookie brands to find a great, kid-friendly cookie!
Click the photo above or here to view.

While we’re talking about feeding our children, we have a fun giveaway to share with our readers! We’re giving away an adorable Planet Box Shuttle Lunch Box, perfect for school and on-the-go lunches. You can learn more about this great product by clicking here.

To Enter:

  1. You must be a subscriber of Mom Dishes It Out (which can be done by entering your email address on the top of our homepage).
  2. Comment on this post.
  3. Like us on Facebook and/or tweet us with #MDIOGiveaway in the message.

Entries will be accepted until next week, Wednesday October 30th!
Good Luck!

Cuisine Kit Tutorial and Giveaway

Last week we shared with you a recipe, White Bean and Caramelized Onion Salad, and this week we wanted to share with you our how-to video. So, if you haven’t dished out this recipe already, click on the photo below to follow along and try your hand at making this warm and savory salad! And if you’re wondering how I got through this recipe without tearing up from onion chopping, click here to find out how I learned how to cut an onion without crying. Lastly, for a chance to win your very own Cuisine Kit, see below for full details.

This recipe comes from Counter Culture Cuisine, which offers a series of cooking kits that allows you to combine organic (and shelf-stable) essential ingredients with easy recipes for you to choose and cook at your leisure. In each kit, there is a mini pamphlet of recipes. The red text indicates ingredients that are already included in the cooking kit and the black text is anything that you have to purchase on your own. With this little guide, shopping at your local farmers’ market, or health foods store can be a litter easier to navigate the shopping aisles.

 

 

If you have trouble viewing the video tutorial, please click here to play.

 

Enter to win your own healthy cuisine cooking kit!

Thanks to Counter Culture Cuisine, we’re able to give a lucky reader a cuisine set! To enter, see details below:

**You MUST be a subscriber to enter
You can submit more than one entry by doing any of the following. Just be sure to leave an additional comment letting us know you did! Good luck!

Leave a comment here and “Like us” on our Facebook page

Follow @MomDishesItOut and tweet @MomDishesItOut and healthy cooking kit #giveaway!

Giveaway ends on Sunday, October 13th at 6:00 PM EST.

Get Ready to Bake a New Kind of Cake

Yesterday, my son was home from school and I thought, what better way to spend the afternoon with him than to do one of his favorite activities together…baking! Except this time, it was a different kind of baking; a cake in a mug that you can make under 10 minutes. (Yes, it’s true!) Aside from the speed and ease of baking mug cakes, the time you spend in the kitchen with your kids can be a fun way to introduce new (and old) foods to your kids, have them practice their hand at measuring ingredients and most importantly, build healthy habits.

So, get ready to make a new kind of cake with us! All you need is a mug, a microwave, and a few ingredients to follow along. And if you want to enter for a chance to win your own copy of the Mug Cakes cookbook by Leslie Bilderback, click here to enter our Mug Cakes Giveaway!

To watch Laura and Liam bake together, click each image below.

 

 

 

 

 

Devil’s Food Cake

 

 

 

 

 Classic Carrot Cake