Friday, January 22, 2010 at 06:58 AM
Making sure that my kids get exercise and sunlight in the dead of a New England winter can be a challenge. Last weekend, we were lucky to have some warm temperatures and sunny skies on a Saturday, so we headed over to the brand-new Winter Skate at Patriot Place in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Patriot Place was built a couple of years ago – adjacent to Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots. There’s shopping, restaurants, bars, a hotel, a movie theater and a live entertainment venue. It’s pretty amazing. This year, they added Winter Skate to the menu of attractions at Patriot Place, an outdoor rink for ice skating.
The last time we tried ice skating with the kids was two years ago, when my son was 4 and my daughter was 2. At that time, my daughter liked it, and my son hated it. This time, the roles were reversed.
My son loved it. He said it was “super-fun”. Every time he fell down, he laughed.
My daughter was not so sure. Now that she is 4, she didn’t like falling down. Nor did she like the thought that she might fall down. Even with her pink snow pants on to soften the blow.
I really should have brought the bike helmets. Next time!
Eventually, I got her away from the boards and out onto the ice.
What she really wanted were the milk crates. Of course, there are only about 5 milk crates out on the rink – and there are a lot of people. And everyone wants the milk crates.
Eventually, I was able to score some milk crates for her.
Then, of course, my son had to try the crates too.
It was so nice to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. Especially the sunshine!
Did you know that 70% of children have low levels of Vitamin D?
Skating while trying to hold up a wobbly kid is not easy. So, we each took a turn for some solo laps.
Vancouver, here we come!
Question of the Day?
How do you get some sunshine in winter?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Vitamin D
Tags: Winter Skate
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 07:17 AM
See my grocery bag up there – yes there, in that Polaroid-looking photo – with all the greens sticking out of it? We arranged that little photo-shoot back in October. It was all quite low-key. My neighbor, who does some freelance children’s photography, was kind enough to come on over and shoot what would become the picture for A Better Bag of Groceries. For the shoot, I ran into my local supermarket and blindly grabbed a bunch of vegetables with green, leafy tops to stick in the grocery bag. When all was said and done, I was left with a bunch of unfamiliar vegetables with which I had little cooking experience. One of those was a bunch of collard greens.
What to do with my collard greens…
I soon found myself on Foodbuzz, hunting down recipes. I came across one titled, “Low-Fat Collards recipe.” Hmmmm. Sounded good to me. So I tried it out. And, oh my…..how I now LOVE collard greens! And they get a perfect NuVal score of 100!
This week, I decided to make collard greens again. While waiting to teach my Pilates class the other night, I was chatting with a couple of my students and I mentioned that I had been cooking collard greens. The conversation went like this:
My Student: What are collard greens?
Me: You know the part of the Produce Section where they have all sorts of vegetables that you never buy – you know, carrots with green tops on them, whole beets, escarole? Just go there. You’ll find them.
2 lbs collard greens
1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup turkey ham, diced (I just used lean deli ham that I had in my fridge)
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 Tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (I used Kosher)
cracked black pepper
In a 3 quart saucepan over medium high heat, heat the olive oil just until the scent of the oil starts to bloom. (Yes, that is what the recipe says!)
Add the butter and allow to melt in the oil
Add the turkey ham and saute for about 3 minutes or until you start to get those little brown bits on the bottom of the pan.
Add the onion and stir with the ham, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Saute for about 2 minutes.
Add half of the collard greens and allow to cook down some, about 1 minute or so.
Add the last of the collard greens and stir until the greens, onions and ham are combined.
Cook over medium high heat for about 2 minutes.
Add 1 1/2 cups water, salt and pepper and stir. Allow to come to a boil over medium heat.
Reduce temperature to low and simmer for 30 minutes, adjusting heat to maintain a constant simmer but not let it boil.
Serve at leisure.
Now, you must remember that I am a New England born & bred collard greens virgin. I was impressed by this recipe – my husband too, but what do we know? And my 4 year old ate them!
But the true test was not my 4 1/2 year old (who will eat anything with a little salt and/or ham in it). No, the true test was my colleague, Laura.
Here’s Laura with her grandson Ethan:
Laura, who is a Director of Customer Management for NuVal, lives and works in North Carolina. She is a true Southern gal. I think that there are even some beauty pageants in her past history! She is prim and proper, always courteous and hospitable, and she has a lovely Southern accent. Laura makes the trek up to the NuVal office in Boston about once a month or so, and when she does, I will often bring her something home-cooked or some fresh vegetables. Laura likes to eat nutritiously and I know how hard it is when you are staying in a hotel. So, I brought her some of these collard greens. And she gave them a good ole Southern thumbs up!
One of my goals for 2010 is to keep cooking through that unfamiliar corner of the Produce department. You know, the one with all the leafy greens. What should I make next?
Question of the Day
What vegetable are you curious about?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Incredible Vegetables
Tags: collard greens
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 06:49 AM
Today I’m headed out to a couple of meetings at Price Chopper Headquarters in Schenectady, NY.
Ask most working moms and they will tell you that they actually like the occasional business trip. While it takes a lot of planning ahead of time and a lot of help from spouses, grandparents, babysitters, etc, it’s somewhat refreshing to be on the road and to have the opportunity to be solely focused on your job. In a weird way, going on a business trip feels a little like a vacation.
When I travel to Price Chopper’s headquarters, about 3 hours or so from my home in Massachusetts, I can usually do it in a day. It’s a long day, but it beats packing a suitcase. Since I am the parent who does the meal-planning and cooking in our household, it means that I have to plan ahead and cook ahead.
During this trip, my mom will help with childcare, homework time and dinner, so I made an recipe that she is familiar with – Venus Soup. Somehow, Venus Soup goes down nicely with a little corn muffin, so I made some ahead as well. I thought I would try out my newly-discovered Hodgson Mill Corn Muffin Mix.
The mix definitely looked a little wheatier than the Jiffy mix I am used to!
I made a few modifications to the recipe on the box. The recipe called for 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil or 1 Tablespoon of butter, but I used 1 TableSpoon of Canola Oil instead.
It also called for 3/4 cup of 2% milk. We only had skim in the refrigerator, so I used that instead.
My mom taught me to always add a little creamed corn to my corn muffin mix to make the muffins super-moist. I used a half of a small can of Food Club brand cream style corn, which gets a NuVal score of 23.
I tried a little bite of one of these muffins to see how my family is going to like them. Honestly, I’m a little worried about how they are going to be received! They are definitely less sweet than the muffins my kids (and my mom!) are used to. Rachel, my co-worker and a dietitian, warned me that switching to whole grain flour (which is in the Hodgson Mill mix) is a big change!
I have a feeling that my mom is going to hunt down the Jiffy corn mix that is in my cupboard and do a little after-school baking project with my kids!
In any event, while my trip to Price Chopper is sure to be an adventure (I am going with three co-workers and we have some favorite outlet stores that we love to hit on the way home), the best part of the day will undoubtedly be when I pull in the driveway after the kids’ bedtime and see my husband who will be waiting for me with a steaming bowl of soup – and a muffin!
Question of the Day
What’s your favorite thing about coming home from a trip?
Hodgson Mill GiveAway Winner
Congratulations to Commenter #27, Claire! You’ve won the Hodgson Mill GiveAway!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: corn muffins
Tags: Traveling
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 06:54 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday, my weekly feature here on A Better Bag of Grocerieswhere I tell you about a Trade Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal. I also ask you to share your Trade-Up stories and I give away free stuff. What a deal!
Let’s face it, for many people, grocery shopping is a mindless chore. It’s all about replenishment – putting the same products in your cart week after week. Yawn……
And for some people – especially moms with small children – grocery shopping is a stress-inducing battle that must be fought. Week after week, you just try to make it from your car, through the store (without a potty break in those restrooms, without a meltdown, without junk-food) in one piece.
For me, working for NuVal, learning about NuVal scores, and blogging about it all has made grocery shopping fun again. Where I used to routinely throw the same old, same ole in my cart each and every week, I’m now branching out to try new things – especially high-scoring new things. It’s like a little adventure. I know, I know – I live such a wild and exciting life!
A year and a half ago, I had never heard of Hodgson Mill, the Illinois-based company that manufactures flour, corn meal, cereal, pasta and baking mixes. But when I started working for NuVal, the name came up again and again. They package some pretty high-scoring stuff. Most recently, I’ve tried two of their hot cereals:
Hodgson Mill Regular Oat Bran Hot Cereal scores a 60.
Hodgson Mill Milled Flaxseed & Soy Multigrain Hot Cereal scores an 82.
Both of these cook up quickly and are just what I need on a cold January morning in New England. My husband has been enjoying these too. Sometimes we add walnuts and raisins. Other times we add a teaspoon of peanut butter. Next, I’m planning to get my daughter, a 4 1/2 year old Quaker Oats fan to try out Hodgson Mill. The Quaker Old Fashioned Oats that she eats score a 57. I know it’s only a 3-point improvement, but really my motivation is in getting my kids to branch out and vary their eating as well.
This week, I also picked up some Hodgson Mill Cornbread and Muffin Mix. Unfortunately, we have not yet scored this one, but we will get to it. I’m curious to see what it scores. The brand that I usually buy, Jiffy, only scores a 3.
Today’s GiveAway
One lucky winner will receive my Hodgson Mill GiveAway – Oat Bran, Multigrain Cereal and Cornbread Muffin Mix. All you need to do is leave a comment and tell me about a brand or a product that you’ve tried (or that you’d like to try) since learning about NuVal scores. For ideas, check out this blog, Tina’s blog at www.tradingupdowntown.com or www.nuval.com. The contest ends at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight so don’t delay!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Oatmeal, Trade-Up Tuesday, corn meal
Tags: corn meal, Oatmeal
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 01:02 PM
My new co-worker Tina, who blogs about her life at Carrots N Cake and about NuVal at Trading Up Downtown, has a lot of fans. One of them, Candy Tenpas, mother and blog-reader was kind enough to answer Tina’s call for Guest Bloggers. Here, she tells about her trip to Hy-Vee.
Tina asked me to do a guest post about NuVal. Since we have a brand-new HyVee a few miles away I decided to do my weekly shopping trip there instead of at my usual grocery store. HyVee is one of the grocery chains that feature NuVal scores right on the price sticker on the shelf. I wanted to see if having the NuVal scores right in front of me would influence my shopping purchases. In general, I try to make healthy choices but I can always use extra help!
Produce
The first display I came to was naval oranges for 79 cents/pound. NuVal score = 100. Perfect score on my first item! I snatched up 3. The rest of my produce items scored 90 and above: Romaine lettuce, bananas, organic apples and a red pepper. I did notice that the bagged lettuce kits scored much lower than regular lettuce. I guess that shows how croutons and dressing can drag a score down! I also bought canned peaches for my kids (packed in juice—no sugar) which scored only a 14.
Dry Goods
I needed to purchase sandwich buns. I landed on Pepperidge Farm wheat rolls with a score of 29. They were the highest scored bun I could find. The lowest I could see what a hoagy roll for 8. I found the NuVal scores particularly helpful in the bread aisle. It can be so overwhelming sometimes to try to figure out the healthiest option amongst all the choices. The NuVal score made it easy without having to take the time to read individual labels.
I made my way to the popcorn aisle and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Jolly Time 100 calorie micro popcorn that I usually buy was a high-scorer compared to other microwave popcorns. It came in at 27. The lowest I found was the HyVee Kettle Corn at a 2. Yikes!
Next was nuts. This was where price trumped score. I ended up with the HyVee unsalted almonds at 47 because I couldn’t bear paying over a dollar more for the can of Planters Nutrition Almonds with a score of 52.
Beans were a surprise. I like to buy dried beans vs. canned because it’s more economical. I always keep them on hand and cook a few cups worth at a time to add to recipes and for salads. The bags of dried beans were all in the 90s compared to canned beans which scored more in the 40/50s. I also bought canned pork and beans. I didn’t even look at the score because no matter the score, I was still making The Pioneer Woman’s Baked Beans this week. So good!
Another surprise was canned tuna. I wasn’t planning on buying any but the 66 score changed my mind!
Frozen Food
I usually don’t buy frozen pizzas—I prefer to make my own –but my husband is going hunting this weekend and frozen pizzas are easy for the guys to make. My goal was to buy the highest scoring frozen pizza. I was happy to find that the HyVee brand Supreme Pizza had a score of 15 which seemed to be pretty high for frozen pizza.
Overall, I was glad to see that the store brand foods scored just as high as national brands. I like to save money where I can but I was worried that I’d have to pay extra for better NuVal scores. Not the case! Not every item at HyVee has a NuVal score at this point but Tina says that NuVal is working on it. In most cases, I was able to compare an unscored item with a scored item and make an educated guess.
Here’s some of what I brought home.
The total was $65.08 which is about average for our family. I didn’t need to buy anything in the meat dept so that helped keep my total down.
Note: The fire-roasted canned tomatoes are for Julia’s Almost Instant Tomato Soup. I hate to buy canned soups with all that sodium. This soup looks yummy and I can’t wait to give it a try.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Guest Bloggers
Tags: Hy-vee
