Kids love getting messy in the kitchen and creating sweet confections to serve or give to family, friends and teachers. Here are some fun ideas that don’t require a lot of time or culinary skill to prepare. Perfect for my family because we don’t have much of either! Chocolate-Dipped Chocolate-covered pretzels are always fun to make and even more fun to eat. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or double boil, whichever is easiest for you to do. You can use regular old Hershey Kisses or baking chocolate or chocolate chips—it all works. Be sure to have lots of wax paper and napkins around. Melty…
Back to school means back to packing lunches. Yikes! I have such a hard time coming up with new ideas. Peanut butter and jelly gets boring. Nutella has been a great backup, especially paired with some strawberries, but that gets old too. Regardless, both options will be in my pantry for busy mornings, but I need some more interesting solutions. Do you have any good lunchbox ideas? I asked around and some other moms shared their tips with me. Elise S., a Cinnaminson mom of two, told me how she brightens up peanut butter and jelly or tuna sandwiches with a little trick. “I sometimes cut them …
Summer has unofficially kicked off and it’s time to plan for some family fun. The Jersey Shore is and always has been a popular choice for family outings. Have you read Patch’s Summer Beach Guide for 2012? There’s some great information there to help plan your days by the sea. I love the beach, but did you know there are so many other attractions in and around the Jersey Shore? So don’t just head down the Parkway with sand and surf on your mind. You might miss taking a different path for some uncharted family fun. Here are some spots you might not know about that could make for a memorable …
I love a good salad! Spring and summer are the perfect seasons for nice big salads. Throw some chicken, beef or beans in your mix and you’ve got all the food groups covered to make it a meal. I do admit a salad always tastes better when someone else prepares it. I can never get my own salads to taste the same as one my sister might make or one I might buy at a restaurant. Therefore, I’m a huge fan of Saladworks and Panera Bread. There’s something about their dressings; they put bottled dressings to shame. I enjoy all kinds of salads. The old-fashioned salads with lettuce, cucumbers, shredded …
As a child of the '70s and '80s, I don’t remember many healthy snack options. Powdered iced tea mix, soda and prepackaged salty snacks were the fashionable treats. I had a pack of Dipsy Doodle corn chips and a Diet Coke every day for lunch in high school. Back then, it was rare to see someone munching on carrots, cucumbers or a piece of fruit. I guess salad bars didn’t exist in the “olden days” when I was a kid. If only I knew then what I know now about food. I wouldn't be the mindless potato chip popper I am now! Obviously, I’m not a health nut, nor do I think kids should be restricted to …
I’ve been complaining all winter that I don’t have enough time for anything. It gets dark so early and I just want to curl up on the sofa and chill out. Well, it’s March and spring is on its way. Yeah! Daylight Saving Time (DST) gives us one more hour of sunlight in the evening. Who doesn't need that? I’m writing this on Sunday, the first day of DST, after a St. Patrick's Day parade in Philadelphia, which was quite cold and lacking in any type of sunshine. I was chilled to the bone. After the chilly but fun parade, I enjoyed the first extra sunny hours of the season at a St. Patrick’s Day …
I was out with some girlfriends this past weekend and our conversation turned to cooking and planning meals and how stressful it can be. We commiserated over the dreaded “What’s for dinner?” question. We work every day, outside and inside the home. We are tired by dinnertime. We all agreed it’s difficult to plan a budget-friendly, healthy meal when we’re juggling 10 balls in the air. Who has a test? Who has basketball practice? Who needs to go to the store to get a birthday present? The juggling act goes on and on. We often drop the ball when it comes to dinner. The witching hour hits and we …
Raising motivated readers may be as simple as picking books you and your child will enjoy. I don’t know about you, but books that sparked my interest and held my attention when I was a child are the books I remember today. The books I recall easily made me laugh, touched my heart in some way, or had a unique rhythm or rhyme that stuck with me over the years. Unfortunately, for so many children, reading doesn't come easy. Some kids refuse to read, others read but don’t comprehend, and subsequently struggle in school and on the dreaded standardized tests. All learning is based on reading, so a …
A rumored attempted child abduction triggered discussions in school regarding safety this past week. I applaud teachers for discussing this with children as it keeps our kids on their toes and hopefully aware of their surroundings. One of these classroom discussions prompted my 10-year-old to ask me, “Why do people steal kids?” How do I answer that? I didn’t really know what to tell her. I said there are some people who are just not wired right, something bad may have happened to them and they take it out on others, or there may be some people who want kids of their own so they take them. …
Women today have so much on their plates. Life keeps us running ragged. With kids, husbands, work, parents, bills, cooking, and cleaning, there's little time to take care of ourselves. Check out the video Elizabeth Banks starred in at Go Red for Women called A Little Heart Attack. It’s comical but quite frightening, because it could be any one of us. On Valentine’s Day, we celebrate love, and what a better way to show our love than by keeping our hearts healthy and being around longer for our families. I never worried about the health of my heart, but now that I’m forty-something, I do feel …
You’ve heard of Mahjong and Bunko and progressive dinner parties. Well, my husband and his brothers and sisters organized a Happy Hour Club for all of us. Luckily, we all get along, we’re all around the same age, and we all live quite close. Put everyone in a room together and it’s a party. Going out for drinks and appetizers can be very expensive. We have to arrange for a babysitter and someone has to be the designated driver. My husband and his sister thought having our own happy hours might be better, so my husband devised a plan. He proposed we meet at one house every other Friday or …
Inspiration to be a better person comes in many shapes, forms and colors. I have found it in unique places, different faces and extraordinary stories. Last week, a local woman who gave so much to the community lost her life. I didn’t know her, but just by reading about her, I felt like I did. My heart goes out to her loved ones. Her life, her story and her selflessness inspire me to live better and be more aware of the struggles and difficulties that others face. In December, an old friend of mine lost her 12-year-old daughter. I can’t even imagine. I met her beautiful little girl maybe once …
My 10-year-olds made dinner for me and my husband this weekend. They cooked and took our orders as if we were in a restaurant and then served us and cleaned up. Our meal choices included chicken, pasta primavera and spaghetti—with or without sauce. The chicken was a rotisserie chicken breast, warmed up in the oven. I did help them take it out of the oven and watched in trepidation as my daughter painstakingly tried to carve it. I told her I would finish, but she said, “I’ve got to learn, Mom.” So I let her finish, admiring her determination. When dinner was over, both girls were proud of …
My husband’s cousin, Chrissy, gave a beautiful eulogy for her father that began with the following words, “My father taught me how to make soup.” She compared the making of a good soup to what makes a good life and how it's all about mixing a bunch of ingredients together until you get it right. The longer it cooks and combines, the better it is. A hearty bowl of soup, created by that perfect blend of ingredients, hits the spot on chilly winter nights and brings family together to cook and eat. My friend Mary, who lives in North Wales, PA, has a neighbor, Therese, who hosts an annual Soup-Off…
This time of year often finds me feeling a little weepy and lacking motivation to do anything. My jeans are a bit snug and I’m achy and tired all the time. Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, a psychologist on CBS's Early Show says it’s normal to feel down when the holiday season is over: "You may feel more depressed or more irritable. You might get headaches. You're fatigued.” She says the symptoms “mimic depression, but are usually shorter-term." Music, exercise and healthy eating are some of the top ways to chase away the post holiday depression that hits on Jan. 1. I must admit belting out a few …
I’ve been reading all of Patch’s Year in Review articles and it got me thinking about my year with Patch. My first Mom Around Town article posted last year on Jan. 3, 2011. I wrote about my family’s New Year’s Eve tradition of dinner at Maurizio’s in Cinnaminson. The article was about finding treasures in familiarity, close to home. *By the way, we had dinner at Maurizio's again this year. Maurice, as always, was a charming host and the lobster ravioli was delicious. Ironically, writing the column was something entirely new and unfamiliar to me. I was super nervous. I wondered if anyone …
I don’t know about you, but I look forward to the culinary delights of the season. No matter what you celebrate, food often takes center stage and brings people together. Right now I have a box of Bayard's chocolate-covered pretzels, two containers of chocolate chip cookies and two containers of sugar cookies on my counter. Bags of Hershey's Kisses, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and a bunch of nuts are lined up on my counter waiting to be made into something delicious. I’ve got chicken cordon bleu appetizers and bull wings (steak marinated in wing sauce) from Omaha Steaks in my …
I wasn’t feeling very joyful on Sunday morning when my husband woke me up to go to 7:30 Mass. He likes the early Mass because no one sings and it leaves the rest of the day open to do whatever we want. I wanted to sleep in. At church, the priest spoke about joy, so I thought it might do me some good to listen since I was not feeling especially joyful. He started off talking about how some doctor says that joy helps people live longer even if they have less of everything. He went on to add the doctor’s advice was to: have less, do less and say no. The priest said it's difficult to follow …
What should I bring to the party for the hosts? This is a question I ask myself before every party we go to. I usually opt for a bottle of wine because it’s easy and most people like to serve it and drink it. Did you bake any cookies yet? Baked goods are a perfect hostess gift during the holiday season. I haven’t baked yet this year, but when I do I will definitely be packing cookies wherever we go. One year, I picked up a bunch of reasonably priced holiday dishes so I could make pretty platters of cookies to give to friends who had us over for parties. I often give chocolates too. I love the…
I have to say this is my most favorite time of year. I love the music, the lights and the merriment. I still get giddy when I watch Rudolph or The Year Without a Santa Claus. I sing along with Heat Miser and Snow Miser while they do their little dances. It brings out the little kid in me. My husband, the girls and I usually spend Thanksgiving weekend decorating, shopping for new decorations and watching movies like Elf and The Santa Clause. This year, our decorating weekend was pushed back a couple of days. Our girls competed in an Irish stepdance competition in Philadelphia on Friday and …
