Today we are lucky enough to bring you Amy Rosekelley from SuperHealthyKids.com. Amy is one of our favorite food bloggers, always providing great information, tips and recipes for raising healthier kids. She is also the creator of the Super Healthy Kids Plate, which allows parents to visually reinforce food portions and types in a kid-friendly way (Sophia loves her plate ).

Read on to learn more about Amy and how she’s raising Super Healthy Kids…

1. What prompted you to bring your healthy eating message to the web?

I went online to share my message about healthy eating because my sister and best friend is a complete computer geek. LOL. She talked me into starting a blog almost 5 years ago as a means to promote my healthy kids plates, and the blog completely consumed me and became more exciting to me than selling plates.  So, while I’ve maintained both (selling plates, and blogging about recipes) I actually prefer blogging!

2. You’ve indicated that your kids have been  picky eaters, but now they try most things. How do you encourage kids to venture out, & try new foods without presetting expectations? (Alex & Soph will try anything, but many times, Soph has decided she doesn’t like it, even before the spoon hits the mouth.)

My kids were super picky before I started blogging.  Now they will at least taste almost anything I make.  I once read that a child who is offered a variety of foods to eat over time, will be less picky. In other words, not just offering spinach 12 times in hopes that they’ll someday enjoy spinach, but also offering Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, lettuce, and all other vegetables.  This variety will expand their tastes and lead them to be more adventurous and accepting.  Beyond that, I truly believe parents are short sighted in this effort, or they give up too quickly. Kids tastes and attitudes change frequently, and it’s important to not get upset about it, but just to keep pressing forward.

3. Do you have any tips for encouraging kids to make healthy food choices outside the home—when we (the parents) aren’t controlling the food they eat?

Yikes! That is a tough question.  I feel that if you teach kids properly, when you aren’t looking over their shoulder, they’ll choose healthy food on their own.  The most important lesson here is to help kids understand how they feel when they eat healthy food.  They have more energy, they can think better, they’ll grow bigger and stronger, etc.  My poor 8  year old is super short for his age.  He eats healthy because he really feels like it will give him the most advantage to getting stronger and smarter.  Even though he understands he may never be the tall kids, he knows he can be the fastest or the strongest.  This is enough to keep him on the right track!

4. One of our biggest challenges is getting healthy food when we’re super busy – when both the kids have activities and commitments. What do you recommend for on-the-go families when it comes to avoiding unhealthy foods (i.e. how not to stop at McDonalds for dinner)?

Eating healthy in a hurry can be just as quick as stopping through the drive through.  Our busy nights, we make sandwich, or we throw a bag of frozen veggies into a pot of boiling pasta, and then shake parmesan and butter on top when it’s done.   We do this a lot!  When you are at home and busy, as long as there is healthy food available to prepare, rather than junk food, it won’t be a hard choice.

5. Do your kids cook with you ever? Or for themselves? If so, what are your/their favorite things to make?

My kids love to cook! They are carboholics, so you will find them making bread, pancakes, waffles, toast, and cookies- usually several times a week!

About Amy Rosekelley:

Amy is founder of SuperHealthyKids.com, is a mom of three and and graduated from Brigham Young University’s Health Promotion program. As a counselor with Utah’s Department of Health for ten years, she advised state employees on healthy lifestyles. SuperHealthyKids.com won the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Blog of the Month in January 2011. She lives in Lehi, UT with her family.

Soooo, we were recently lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview celebrity Chef, George Duran. You might recall seeing him on TLC as the host of The Ultimate Cake Off or maybe on Food Network on Ham on the Street and Secret Life of… . With our Food Network addiction, we’ve definitely seen his shows and were super excited to ask him a few questions to share with you!

1. In your bio, you indicate you missed your mom’s home cooking when you left for college–Did you spend time in the kitchen with your mom and/or dad cooking when you were a kid? If so, do you have a particular memory you can share?I always love to tell people that my mother loved to over-feed me through her umbilical cord! The truth is that her food is beyond delicious and was the focus of my childhood! In fact, I remember clearly one time as I watched her knead sweet dough, I would steal bits and pieces of her dough and run to my room with it. I would then take the dough and press it onto the light bulb on my reading lamp and wait for it to “cook” into a mini-pizza. I was always passionate about cooking!
2. While you were at NYU studying communication, did you cook for yourself and your friends?At NYU I discovered the world of dinner parties in my apartment! It was magical! Friends would come and I would figure out how to cook cornish hen and serve it up. I was quickly learning that there was this incredible social element to food that I would someday share with the rest of the world!
3. When did you realize you wanted to become a chef, what was the key influence?I was passionate about television production throughout college, but I knew I had to merge another one of my passions to make it big. And food was an easy choice. I decided right then to fly out to Paris and take a 3 year culinary journey and boy did I learn a lot.
4. We love creative, fun recipes and your recipes are just that–what inspires you when you’re creating a recipe?My first inspiration is who is going to eat or cook the recipe. If someone is new to cooking, I will do my best to inspire them to cook a recipe without intimidating them with complex ingredients or difficult instructions. For example, I always have moms and dads come up to me and ask me where they can find some of my quick and easy recipes online.  And there is only one place I tell them to go and that’s ReadySetEat.com. This site has a database of recipes that use minimal ingredients, many of which can be made in 30 minutes or less! But, if they happen to be food connoisseurs, then I’m pulling out the big (French) guns and pointing them to recipes that will absolutely bewilder their palate!
5. I know how food and the interaction, preparation and tradition associated with it has affected me throughout my life. From your experience with food, what suggestions can you give to families that want to include/inspire/teach their kids with the ‘family food experience’?This is a great question as I just became a father and I look forward to bringing food into my child’s life! Remember to be active in the kitchen with your children! Listen to what they like and then encourage them to be part of the cooking process, even on a minimal scale (ie, ripping lettuce, getting their hands into the dough, etc.). Have them taste everything you taste and I guarantee that they will want to learn more. But if there is one thing you MUST do though it’s to ALWAYS sit together as a family for dinner (and even the other meals if you can). Oh yeah, and NO TV at the dinner table!

If you’ve ever Googled for kids cooking recipes, then you’ve more than likely been to kids-cooking-activities.com or another of Debbie Madson’s family of websites focused on family food, activities and fun. With an awesome array of recipes and activities for kids and family, we visit the site regularly and were honored when Debbie interviewed us for her site. We were even more excited when she agreed to share some thoughts with us!

1.) What do you find to be the biggest challenges when cooking with kids? And, how do you work to minimize these challenges when cooking with your kids or in classes?

Sometimes I have to stop and step back and give the kids space. I love to cook so it is easier for me to whip something together, crack an egg for them or help them stir the batter. However, stepping in and doing things for them are things teachers and parents tend to do a lot because we are used to lending a hand. Kids can accomplish a lot more than we think if we give them a chance to just do it.

When cracking eggs or measuring let kids learn by doing it themselves and hold back the impulse to take over for them. There are plenty of things kids need help with but there are many age appropriate kids cooking tasks they can do themselves.

2.) Do you incorporate other learning opportunities for your kids (and other children) when cooking with them? (math, cultural history, chemical reactions, etc)?

Some of my favorite ways to incorporate other learning while cooking is with a world history theme. Picking a country, learning about it and trying a unique recipe from that country tends to be a lot of fun.

Another thing I like to do is taking a recipe and halving and doubling it so they can practice and understand how math comes in handy in real life situations.

3.) Do you find that your kids, and those in your classes are more willing to try foods when they help make them?

Definitely! Food which kids have prepared themselves takes on a whole new meaning. They feel more connected to what they are eating and are so proud of their work, they’ll eat it and share it with everyone.

Taking it even a step further and growing your own food and watching it grow and then cooking with it makes a wonderful cooking experience for kids.

4.) We love the simplicity and kid-friendliness of all of the recipes and activities you share–what are the recipes and/or activities that your family would call favorites?

No matter how far we venture in cooking at home, one of my kid’s favorites is spaghetti. Often times I make homemade spaghetti sauce and add pureed spinach, carrots or zucchini in the sauce.

Our favorite cooking activities include making homemade ravioli, cinnamon rolls or donuts. Actually anything with dough my kids are there with their own piece of dough to work with.

And there you have it, thoughts on kids cooking activities straight from Debbie Madson of Kids-Cooking-Activities.com.

Thank you Debbie!

Happy Family Cooking Everyone,

Alex, Sophia and Kelly

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