It’s “Back to School” everywhere you look.  Supplies. Clothes. Shoes.

But have you thought about lunchboxes yet?!?  Here are a few snack ideas that you could toss into your kiddos lunchbox along with a sandwich, wrap or leftovers.

• Pantry Trail Mix
• Whole Grain Bread with Fruit Spread
• Homemade Applesauce – Make this in the slow cooker…overnight.
• Cheese Cubes – Buy a block and cut your own!
• Homemade Muffins – like Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Dehydrated Fruits – like Honey Sweetened Dehydrated Apples
• Cut Fruit – Make your own fruit salad and send a cup in lunchboxes.

What little goodies do you like to drop into your kiddos lunchboxes?!

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To-may-toes, To-mah-toes…

It’s what we’re talking about this week on Grow. Eat. $ave! Stuffed Tomatoes to be exact…

Got an over abundance of tomatoes?!? Looking for a cool, light and refreshing side…or even a main dish dinner?!? Well, stuffed tomatoes are THE way to go!

Stuffed Tomatoes with Spicy Avocado Salad

4 large tomatoes
1 avocado, diced
About 1/2 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut a cone around the stem bud, cutting out the center portion of the tomato.  Scoop out the seeds. (So it won’t be so “runny” when you fork into it.)

In a mixing bowl, toss together the avocado, onion, jalapeno, crushed garlic, ground cumin and lemon juice.  Season with a little salt and pepper.

Stuffed the Spicy Avocado Salad into the Tomatoes.

Grilled Stuffed Orange Tomatoes with Black Olives and Provencal Goat Cheese

4 orange tomatoes
1 15 oz. can sliced black olives
1/2 cup goat cheese, provencal flavor

Cut a cone around the stem bud, cutting out the center portion of the tomato.  Scoop out the seeds.

In a mixing bowl, toss the black olive slices and the goat cheese and stuff into the awaiting tomatoes.

Place the stuffed tomatoes on a hot grill and grill for about 5-8 minutes, or until goat cheese gets oozy…and the tomato skin begins to wrinkle.

Devour.

Are you drooling yet?!?

More Stuffing Ideas

• Tuna Salad
• Savory Chicken Salad
• Corn and Black Bean Salsa
• Guacamole

Do you have a favorite filling for Stuffed Tomatoes?!

What’s your favorite way to use up the overabundance of tomatoes from your garden or from your trip to the farmer’s market?!

Link up those MATER recipes…

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The amount of produce that is wasted in America each year is staggering, which means that millions of dollars in food is wasted each year, both by manufacturers who have surplus crops and homeowners who purchase food that goes bad.

But if you’ve got a few brown bananas lying around, bringing them to the local food pantry probably isn’t high on your list. Why not find ways to use your brown bananas so that you can maximize your investment and feed your hungry family?

Here are 5 ways to use brown bananas :

• Bake banana cake. Nobody (except for you) will know that you used brown bananas in this scrumptious recipe.

¾ cup oil
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 bananas)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup orange juice
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
2 cups flour

Mix all ingredients together. Place in a greased 9×13 pan or two 9” round pans, bake for 25-20 minutes at 350 degrees. This recipe freezes well.

• Freeze them. Yes, it’s true – if you can’t use your bananas before they get moldy you can freeze them for up to 3 months.
• Make banana pancakes. Not only will this recipe prevent you from wasting brown bananas, it’ll disguise these healthy items in a ‘fun’ dinner.

4 bananas mashed through a strainer
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
¼ tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
½ tsp. salt

Mix all ingredients together and fry on medium heat until brown on both sides.

• Make smoothies. Use brown bananas in a smoothie with yogurt, berries and milk. You can also use frozen bananas for your smoothies.
• Stack them in a sandwich. Banana-peanut butter sandwiches are a little-known treat but one that is worth publicizing. Brown bananas will maintain a smooth consistency for your sandwich without sliding out of the bread. Banana-peanut butter sandwiches work well with both creamy and chunky peanut butter. For small children, cut the sandwich in half so that it’s easier to hold without the bananas shifting inside.

Sari Holtz is a writer for Billy.com and the voice behind Billy’s money saving blog.  She is the mother of 4 children between the ages of 6 and 1, and she is always looking for new ways to save money and to trick her children into eating more fruits and vegetables.

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Now that summer is in full swing and the prices on spring and summer produce are hitting their low points, it’s time to start freezing that delicious fresh fruit. I keep a large plastic container in the freezer, filled with fresh fruits that I want to have for smoothies or for baking.

A few target prices for stockpiling fruit:

• $1 per pint of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
• $1.75 per quart of strawberries
• $1.50 per 3 lb. bag of peaches
• $.50 per mango
• $.30 per lb. or less for bananas

What are some of your favorite fruits to freeze or favorite smoothie recipes?

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UPDATE – This Giveaway is now CLOSED!

Winners announced soon…

Katie from Kitchen Stewardship has put together the most wonderful eBook…Healthy Snacks to Go!  She graciously sent me a copy to review and I am thoroughly impressed!

Here’s what impressed me most…

• HEALTHY – using raw food ingredients like nuts, seeds, honey and dried fruits
• EASY – like put ingredients in a bowl, mix and form into snacks…and eat. So simple!
• “TO GO FRIENDLY” – most are finger food-like, and easy to pack for the road!

She also clearly marks the snacks for the different allergies and food intolerances that many of us deal with!  Love that too!

Some of our new favorite snacks from her eBook: Peanut Butter Kisses, Chocomole, and Cranberry Power Bars

I’m giving away 5 copies of Katie’s Healthy Snacks To Go eBook!

Entry details below…

Giveaway Details

1. Contest ends Wednesday, June 16th at 5 pm EST. Winners will be announced back here on this post, and notified via email with further instructions.

2. Entries…you can have 1 entry (please leave a separate comment for each entry) for doing each of the following.  Get to know Katie and her e-book!  She is fabulous and it is fabulous!!!

• Check out the table of contents here and choose the recipe that interests you the most
• Browse the recipes or Monday Missions at Kitchen Stewardship and choose your favorite
• Follow Katie on Twitter
• “Like” Kitchen Stewardship’s Facebook page
• Subscribe to Kitchen Stewardship

3. Winner will be selected by Random.org.

**NOTE: If you receive the email newsletter and wish to enter this giveaway, click on the title of this giveaway to get to the site and leave a comment on the site with your name and email address to be entered!

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This makes me want to move to Spain. Or Mexico.

Anywhere Spanish speaking would work! (I miss saying Hola and Buen Dia all the time.) Ever since playing “Twitter translator” (where I would send Twitter DMs with common Dominican phrases to my friends who were in the Dominican Republic), I’ve been itching to speak Spanish. I find myself talking to the boys in Spanish and teaching them new words and phrases.

I used to speak about 75% of the time in Spanish with Ryan when we lived there, but I stopped when we learned he had apraxia of speech. I figured it was going to be difficult for him to speak in English, it might not be the best thing to be throwing 2 languages at him. But now that most of his speech issues have resolved, I’ve been speaking more and more with them in Spanish.

I digress.

Please…please…please…the next time you make guacamole, do yourself a favor and add some diced red peppers. I usually add diced tomatoes or salsa, but not this time. I had red peppers on hand, so I added those and what a fabulous flavor combination!

(I made this for a party…and it made LOTS.)

Red Pepper Guacamole

4 avocados, mashed
1 red pepper, diced
1 onion, chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup sour cream (optional)

Directions

1. Mash avocados.

2. Mix in diced red pepper and chopped onion.

3. Add in the lime juice, ground cumin and salt and pepper.

4. Optional: For a creamier guacamole, add 1/4 cup sour cream.

5. Serve with tortilla chips or veggies crudites.

6. And don’t be afraid to lick the bowl. It’s allowed!

Cost $...I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s got avocado and I’d make it if it were $100. (Well, maybe not.) But since I think that guacamole deserves it’s own food group, we’re going to let the cost of this one go.

If you must know, it would be around $5.50, depending on your avocado prices.

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So Tyler had his first popsicle yesterday. Just in time for summer!!!

I hadn’t planned on letting him have a taste…it just sorta happened.  I sat down to nurse him with a popsicle of my own in hand and he had NO interest in what I had to offer him and kept eying my popsicle. And by eying, I mean…EYING!  Then he started reaching.

So I gave him a taste. And he wanted another. And another. So I sat him in his chair and gave him his own to try. (While it appears he is holding the popsicle himself, I am helping him.) And when he’d had enough of the popsicle, he went back to his regularly scheduled nursing.

I remember Ryan chewing on mango seeds when we lived in the D.R. He would nibble on that seed for 15 minutes. Drool all over the place and orange mango pieces in his hair, his ears and up his nose!

These popsicles made a similar mess!

When my first cookbook came out in December, a dear friend of our family sent me this super duper amazing popsicle maker by Zoku as a congratulatory gift. It was the dead of winter and the last thing on my mind was making popsicles.  But now that we’ve hit 80 degrees every day this week, it’s high time to put this little contraption to work!  (Note: Zoku is an INSTANT popsicle maker. It makes popsicles in minutes! Details and a video here.)

Mangoes on sale for $.50 each this week…and I found a few cans of coconut milk in the back of the pantry. Perfect combo for a snack during pantry challenge week!

You can rest assured we’ll be making LOTS of REAL FRUIT popsicles all summer long!!! Who knows, perhaps I’ll sneak some veggies in too!

Ingredients

1 banana
2 mangoes
1/2 15 ounce can of unsweetened coconut milk (1 cup of regular milk will do too!)
Sweetener of choice – optional (I omitted)
(Water if you need to thin out the “popsicle juice”)

Directions

Blend all the ingredients.

Pour into your favorite popsicle mold.

Freeze, then enjoy!

(Kids will NEVER know these are GOOD for them! *snicker*)

A few picts of the Zoku in action…

A little screw cap loosens the popsicle from the mold.

In about 5 minutes, a totally solid popsicle!

Stunned. I couldn’t believe I captured this look. He was totally stunned that they were ready so fast!  He remembers waiting and waiting and waiting last year for the popsicles made in the freezer!

His eyes speak delight.

Have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend!

Enjoy a popsicle for me!

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(Sorry about the sun glare. It’s an iPhone photo!)

Those were the ones left after Round 1. About 3 minutes after the photo was taken, they were gone!

Last week, I tweeted this:

I had the pleasure (and it really was a pleasure, despite my dramatic tweet) of taking care of  my dear friend’s 2 boys while she had back surgery.  They spent the night and stayed with us the day of her back surgery.

So for 24 hours, I was surrounded by testosterone. There was so much of it, I could almost breathe it in!!!

It was the moment above that I decided that perhaps, just maybe, I think there might be a possibility, that I just might want a daughter. I need some estrogen around here people!!!

So what’s the best way to keep 4 little men energized and happy as they terrorize run around the backyard?!?

Makes these. Of course.

Ingredients
1 egg
1/2 cup white sugar or substitute
1/2 cup milk (I use rice milk)
1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ripe bananas, mashed with fork
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease or line 12 muffin cups.
2. Place the egg, sugar, milk, canola oil, vanilla and mashed bananas into a mixing bowl or stand mixer. Mix with hand mixer or stand mixer for 2-3 minutes, or until smooth.
3. Add the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl or stand mixer. Mix until batter is smooth, about 3 minutes. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer or set aside the hand mixer. Fold in the mini chocolate chips.
4. Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 full with the batter.
5. Bake at 350 for 16-18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let cool a few minutes, then remove muffins from the muffin tin. Let cool another 5-10 minutes, then serve.

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A very important word from Maryann of Raise Healthy Eaters…

Erin does an excellent job of showing you how to save money without compromising nutrition. Yet there are many people who still believe eating healthy has to put a huge dent in their wallets.

To prove that there are many inexpensive and nutritious options available, I’ve come up with my top five favorites:

1. Beans – One of the healthiest and least expensive foods around is beans. Whether you buy them canned or dried, they are very inexpensive and versatile to cook with. Try black, kidney, pinto, white beans or lentils.

Why are beans so great? They are packed with protein, fiber, B vitamins, iron and are low in fat. Plus, with plenty of soluble fiber they’ll fill your family up while keeping cholesterol levels at bay. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend Americans consume 3 cups of beans weekly.

Try this tasty recipe for Beef and Black Bean Burritos.

2. Brown rice – Switching from white to brown rice is an easy change to make, both in terms of money and health. Even though brown rice cost almost the same as white, it contains more fiber and nutrients because it’s a whole grain (the bran and germ has not been removed).

For a super frugal example, see Erin’s Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole recipe.

3. Canned fish – Most health organizations recommend Americans eat fish twice a week, yet you might get squeamish when seeing the salmon at 10 dollars a pound. But canned versions of both tuna and salmon are much cheaper and provide the same essential omega-3 fats kids and adults need (DHA & EPA).

Not only does light canned tuna contain less mercury than albacore, it’s less expensive. And you can use canned salmon in everything from crab cakes to toppings for a salad.

For inspiration, see Erin’s Tuna Melt Recipe.

4. Eggs – There’s no easier-to-make complete protein than an egg. At less than 2 dollars per dozen, they are a steal. Eggs not only contain quality protein, but also a variety of nutrients including selenium and riboflavin.

5. Fruits and veggies – Everyone knows fruits and veggies are healthy but they are often associated with high cost. Save money by buying what’s in season, growing your own garden, looking for deals (frozen and fresh) and stocking up and checking the local farmer’s market.

What are some of your most favorite healthy (and inexpensive) foods?

Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD is a registered dietitian, mother of two and creator of Raise Healthy Eaters, a blog dedicated to providing parents with credible nutrition advice. To get started on her site, see her Nutrition for Children section.

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I’m thrilled that Sarah from Frontier Kitchen is sharing this fantabulous dip for your Super Bowl Party.  My favorite part, besides the fact that it’s super healthy, is that it’s dairy free. Woot! Woot!  So many dips at parties are made with cream cheese or sour cream, but I’m loving this great dairy free option!  Thanks Sarah!

A Super Bowl Appetizer that’s Full Flavor with Low Cost!

Let me start off by saying that I’m thrilled to be guest blogging on here! I’ve been reading Erin’s blog for over a year now and really enjoy seeing all the creative ways she makes healthy dinners for her family for $5 or less.

The grand Super Bowl extravaganza is quickly approaching. The downside of this fun event is that I’m often faced with a tough decision. We’re talking a tough decision of epic proportions. A decision like, “Should I eat the nachos or stick with my New Year’s Resolution to eat healthier?” And I’m a girl who likes her nachos.

Well y’all, I’ve got a recipe that is not only delicious and craving worthy, but also completely healthy. Honest. In fact, it’s so good I wasn’t sure whether or not to ‘fess up to the healthy factor because most Americans associate healthy foods with negative tastes. Unconvinced? Well, let’s just whip up a little batch of this goodness and one taste will make you a believer.

Hope y’all like garlic!

To make roasted garlic, slice the entire top off a head of garlic, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven at 425 for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown and soft.

By roasting the garlic, the overpowering flavor of the garlic will die down and become somewhat sweet (just like when you caramelize onions). It is a nice little trick that you can use in a variety of dishes to enhance the flavors.

While the garlic is roasting, grab 1 can of Great Northern Beans, rinse and drain them; season with salt and pepper.

Remove roasted cloves of garlic from the head. Place in a food processor with the beans and pulse until creamy. Now, I’m a garlic enthusiast (feel free to pity my husband) so I like using all the garlic. If you are a bit less enthusiastic about garlic, start off with half of the cloves and then add more if you want.

Stir in two pinches of dried cilantro, chili powder, cumin and lime juice.

Now gently fold in Rotel diced tomatoes and spinach. Taste test and add more salt and pepper if you like.

Chill the dip for at least an hour before serving and enjoying!

White Bean Spinach Dip

1 clove garlic ($.20)
1 15.5 oz can of Great Northern Beans ($.89)
1 10 oz can Rotel diced tomatoes, drained ($.28) Bought on sale for .98 and used a .35 coupon that doubled
1/2 cup spinach ($.50) Use frozen spinach, thaw, and squeeze to drain out the excess moisture before measuring
2 pinches dried cilantro* ($.05)
1 lime, juiced ($.10)
1/2 tsp. chili powder ($.05)
1/8 tsp. cumin ($.10)
Salt and Pepper, to taste

• Slice the top off a head of garlic, exposing each clove, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven at 425 for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Rinse and drain beans. Season with salt and pepper. Remove at least half of the roasted garlic cloves from the head (leaving behind the papery exterior).
• Place beans and garlic into a food processor or blender and pulse until creamy.
• Stir in cilantro, lime juice, chili powder and cumin.
• Fold in tomatoes and spinach.
• Chill for an hour before serving.

Total Cost for Dip: $2.17

*Money Saving Tip! Shop for spices in the “Ethnic” section of your grocery store and you’ll likely save a little cash over buying the more popular varieties.

Looking for other affordable appetizers to make for your Super Bowl party? Try my Roasted Red Pepper Hummus or Super Bowl Football Shaped Cheeseball…both of which you can make easily at home much cheaper than buying them at the grocery store.

Sarah Lenhart is the author of Frontier Kitchen, a cooking blog dedicated to simple home cooking that your family will love. She lives in Wyoming with her husband and daughter.

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