The Lazy Cooks Guide To Cooking

Have you ever found yourself wondering how you can give a new lift to old favorites? Or worrying over how you can tempt those picky eaters?

Try keeping a few sheets of frozen puff pastry in the freezer.

Puff pastry is one of the most useful, and at the same time most overlooked, weapons in the cook's arsenal. It gets less exposure than it should because many people are nervous of using it. If you are one of those, read on. You are about to become an expert.

Frozen puff pastry is one of the food industry's great success stories. From the cook's point of view it's easy to handle, needs no preparation and, even more to the point, it works every time.

On top of all that, it's versatile enough to be used in any number of ways from making mini pizzas to decorating the lamb roast. There is practically no end to its flexibility.

Take desserts for example. Cut one sheet of thawed out puff pastry into four pieces, place a spoonful of fruit into the middle of each one, bring the opposite corners of the pastry into the center and crimp them together between finger and thumb. Lightly glaze with an egg beaten in milk, top with half an apricot and a sprinkling of sugar and pop into a medium hot oven for 15 minutes.

You can use exactly the same technique for individual savory pies or, for a terrific farmhouse-style result, use two whole sheets, one for the base and one for the top.

You don't even need a pie dish. Put the base directly on to a baking sheet, add the filling and top with the second sheet, folding the edges over and pinching the corners together. The base will be light and crisp when cooked and the crust golden-brown and flaky.

Once you get started on using puff pastry in this way, you may find it difficult to stop. One great technique is to cut the pastry into shapes using a cookie cutter, glaze and bake the individual pieces and then use them to decorate whatever dish you are serving.

You could use crescent shapes to top off a casserole, or prepare triangles and place them artfully on cooked meat or chops. You could even cut the pastry into rounds, cover with something like sweet chilli sauce and grated cheese, bake for 15 minutes or so and serve them with pre-dinner drinks.

Kids love these min-pizzas too.

The truth is you can go down any path your imagination takes you. As an ingredient this kind of pastry is just so forgiving it's hard to get it wrong. There are really only a couple of things to guard against.

One is incorrect cooking temperature, either too hot or too cool. Most ready-made puff pastry 'lifts' successfully at around 200-220 degrees Centigrade. The other thing to bear in mind is not to overdo the glaze. Too much egg-wash may result in a soggy finish that will not rise successfully. Just a light brushing will do.

So there you have it. A great product that is labor-saving, versatile, looks good and tastes great. What more could you ask for?

Get Your Kids to Eat Fruit and Vegetables

Most children don't like to eat fruit and vegetables. How can parents get them to eat the food that is so good for them? Here are some ways:

1. Healthy breakfast

Fill your kids up on their fruit for the day at breakfast.
a. banana on toast, maybe with peanut butter;
b. cereal with fresh or dried fruit;
c. pancakes or waffles with fruit toppings;
d. fresh fruit smoothies and a yogurt and sliced fruit combo.

2. Hide vegetables in a sauce.
a. Grate and chop zucchini, carrots and spinach into pasta and cheese sauces;
b. puree mushrooms before putting them into spaghetti sauce to avoid kids seeing them and picking them out.

3. Add to dessert
a. Add fresh fruit pieces to Jello, yogurt or ice cream for a healthy treat;
b. puree fruit to use as homemade topping in place of chocolate or caramel syrup;
c. let your kids make their own fruit parfaits.

4. Put vegetables into the meat;
a. grate vegetables in meat dishes;
b. hide grated vegetables in meatball, casseroles, meatloaf, shepherd's pie and lasagna;
c. try an all-vegetable lasagna;
d. make all-vegetable "hamburger" patties.

5. One pot, many vegetables
a. Making homemade soups stews and chili are all easy ways to increase your family's intake of vegetables and fruit (yes, fruit!) Everything and anything healthy should go into the pot. Puree vegetables that the kids don't like and add them to the stock to use as a thickener.
b. Make gazpacho, a fruit soup using mangos, yellow pepper, yellow tomatoes, carrot, cantaloupe, cucumbers, papayas, raspberry vinegar, honey and vanilla extract.

6. Mystery foods
a. Use the kids' favorite cookies, cakes and breads as a cover for fruits and vegetables. Make sweet breads and desserts with vegetables - zucchini bread, sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie.
b. Slip fruits and vegetables in all kinds of things: applesauce in cookies, zucchini in chocolate cake, and grated carrots in pasta sauce.

7. Fast and healthy food
a. Homemade pizza. Give the kids tons of healthy toppings to choose from such as tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, spinach and pineapple. Let them make their own pizza.
b. Tacos or fajitas can be a great way to get kids to add vegetables in various forms - diced tomatoes, salsa, etc.
c. Stir fries - sugar peas, snow peas, spinach and carrots.
d. Omelets - salsa, tomatoes.

8. Keep fruit and vegetables handy
a. Keep washed fruit in a bowl nearby;
b. Have ready-to-serve individual fruit cups in the fridge;
c. make up vegetable-and-dip packs for snacks;
d. serve fruit and vegetables as a side dish at meals.

If at least some of the items on this list don't work, try making their food more interesting - like shapes out of vegetables - trees, animals, houses and let your kids pretend to be King Kong eating his surroundings.

Are You Considering Adoption?

Are you thinking about adopting? There are thousands of children placed with adoptive parents every year in the U.S. and other countries, so you're not alone.

Adoption can provide a very special connection between a child and his or her adoptive parents. However, there are often sad circumstances surrounding adoptions. Some adoptive parents have been struggling for years to conceive a child only to deal with the heartbreak of infertility or miscarriage. Many children needing adoption have special needs including physical impairments or a history of abuse or neglect.

A sizable portion of adoptions take place amongst relatives or by step parents. Whatever the reason you are considering adoption, be prepared that for all the joys there are also difficulties ahead. Your adopted child needs you to be prepared and eager to create a new family. Ask yourself these questions as a means of determining your readiness for adoption:

- Why are you considering adoption? Are you hoping to save a marriage or fit in with friends who have children? Or are you committed to the idea of parenting regardless of how your life may change in the future?

- Can you handle the idea of not being genetically related to your child? Do you think it may impact your relationship with them? What if you eventually have genetic children of your own, will you still feel as committed to an adopted child?

- Are you able to handle the adoption process? The interviewing and waiting process can be daunting. There may be age restrictions or other concerns that affect your ability to adopt easily. What if you cannot adopt an infant? What if the child is from a different culture, race or country?

- Have you done research on special needs or transracial adoption? Could you handle the financial costs of a child with disabilities? Would you make lifestyle changes for a transracial adoption to help them feel comfortable and build self-esteem?

- Is parenting an adoptive child important to you? Have you always wanted to adopt or are you only recently considering the idea of adoption? Have you spoken to adoptive parents, known someone who was adopted or sought out information and advice about adopting?

The adoption process can sometimes be a trial, but the experience of adopting can be the most rewarding of your life. Continue to learn more about adoption, the process, cost and options available. Surrounding yourself with people who support your efforts will go a long way towards finding your adoptive child and helping him or her become part of your family.

How to Help Your Adopted Child Build Self Esteem

Are you adopting a child from another culture, racial background or country? While all adopted children need to feel loved and special when adoptions place children with parents who have a very different background from them it poses an extra obstacle to feeling accepted.

Children have a natural need to identify with their parents. If speaking a different language, learning new customs and adjusting to a new family are not enough, some children are visible minorities in their new family or even their entire community or country. It takes love, patience and foresight to help these children build self esteem despite the obvious difficulties they will face.

Here are five areas that adoptive parents can take into consideration to help their child adjust.

BE OPEN ABOUT DIFFERENCES

Children, especially if they are from a different racial background, will notice from a young age that they are different from their parents or community. Young children may not be troubled by this, but it is a good time to build up their confidence in themselves and their connection to you when they point these differences out.

Praise your child's differences but counter that by identifying similarities between them and you. Maybe skin color or hair texture is different, but a love of music, a sense of humor or athletic ability can be shared.

INTRODUCING CULTURE

Introducing other cultures to your child shows them how you appreciate different backgrounds. Include connections to their culture by means of festivals, food, music and meeting people in the community and introduce other cultures as well.

If a trip to their birth country can be arranged when they are old enough it would be rewarding for everyone in the family. It may give you a different perspective to be a minority in their home land.

LANGUAGE

If your child is already speaking another language when you adopt them you will have an additional challenge in learning to communicate. You may also wish for your child to retain their original language.

Knowing others who speak the language, adopting siblings or children who speak the same language or learning the language yourself are all positive steps to maintaining that cultural link.

ADULT ROLE MODELS

Your children will look to you first as a role model. However, if your child is likely to face trials and discrimination that you have never experienced it would be to their benefit to have an adult acquaintance of the same background as a role model as well.

Strong role models will help your child find acceptance and teach them tools for handling hardships. You may empathize but it's not possible to truly understand what they are going through or how to handle rejection based on skin color or nationality.

ENCOURAGE TALENTS AND INTERESTS

Every parent wants their child to be confident, but when a child feels different from his peers it can quickly erode self confidence.

Building confidence in other areas of life will help your child handle peer pressure regardless of if they are physically different from their peers or not. Encourage talents or interests by enrolling them in classes or teams outside of school. Support their efforts to fit into peer groups when they express an interest; clothing, activities and recreation that makes them feel part of the group may be areas to consider.


Whatever steps you take to ease your child's introduction to your family, culture and community, it is your unconditional love and devotion that will give your child a firm foundation on which to grow and blossom as an individual. A confident child will handle the issues of being different by knowing they have their family's support and love.

How To HelpYour Child Overcome Fear

Does your child suffer the detrimental effects of fear?

Fear is part of our emotional makeup that helps us to identify danger. When children sense that something is wrong, they may feel an intense anxiety, causing their heart rate and blood pressure to increase, as well as sweating, shaking or running away from their object of fear.

In cases where children are highly fearful, they may run to their parents with loud shrieks or screams. The sense of fear may not relate proportionally to the threat or danger that is evident. This is called “irrational fear”. When fear stops a child from functioning in their normal environment, it has become a “phobia”.

HOW ARE FEARS DEVELOPED?

There are several ways that children develop fear. The child’s first main contact with fear is usually developed by relating cause and effect. For instance, a loud noise like the discharge of a gun may cause a child to be afraid if they see negative effects resulting from the discharge. A child may run away to hide whenever they see a gun – avoiding the object of fear.

A second way that fear is developed in children is by observing the actions of others - usually their parents - and imitating them. For example, whenever a child sees a parent shriek or run away from a spider, the child learns that spiders are objects of fear.

Sometimes fears are developed when parents “reward” the child for showing a fearful response. For example, a child may avoid using a bath towel that has “germs” on it for fear of being contaminated. If a clean towel is given each time a child requests it because of “germs” then you really are only rewarding the fear response, rather than helping to solve the root cause.


HOW CAN PARENTS HELP THEIR CHILD OVERCOME FEAR?

Here are seven steps to help your child to overcome fear.

1. Don’t model fearful reactions
2. Show them that you can cope and don’t need to avoid fearful situations
3. Teach your child how to cope with fearful situations
4. Praise your child when they cope rather than run away
5. Keep a calm atmosphere during unsettled periods
6. Stay firm and keep a positive outlook
7. Talk about genuine threats to provide a balanced view

Your children’s fear can be reduced by working through the fearful situation directly with your child. By showing that you are able to handle fearful situations you can help your child to “outgrow” most fears that are common in children.

10 Ways To Cooking-Up Family Memories

The kitchen is the perfect place for making memories. When you spend time baking, cooking and enjoying meals with your family, you create happy memories you and your children will cherish forever.

The benefits of preparing and enjoying food as a family are clear. You save money and eat healthier meals. You create opportunities to connect and communicate with your children and spouse. And most importantly, you show love for your family when you spend time cooking and eating with them. Children of all ages need your attention and your time. By working together to create a meal or bake a batch of cookies, you spend valuable time together.

So, here are 10 steps to get your family cooking up memories.

Step 1:
Teach small children the fun of cooking by helping them bake cookies and cakes. If you are short on time, you can use a boxed cookie mix and spend more time decorating.

Step 2:
Encourage the littlest ones to play pretend cooking. Kids love to play with real mixing bowls, strainers and wooden spoons. These make harmless toys and can be easily thrown in the dishwasher for quick cleanup.

Step 3:
If you live by your day-timer, schedule in baking cookies with your kids. Our schedules can be so hectic that something as simple as baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies can get skipped over. Write it down and do it.

Step 4:
If you have teenagers, let them play their favorite music while they wash the lettuce and set the table.

Step 5:
Work together with your spouse to prepare the dinner and use the time to catch up on each other's day.

Step 6:
Even if you are in a rush preparing dinner, remember to reduce your stress and focus on creating a fun atmosphere that naturally encourages the whole family to participate.

Step 7:
When spending time preparing food with your children, include lessons about healthy eating choices. Keep the conversation positive and avoid listing foods they can't have.

Step 8:
On days where you anticipate time will be tight, consider taking a short cut by using a frozen stir-fry mix or pasta with a jar of pre-made sauce. Your family will appreciate your relaxed mood much more than a made-from-scratch dinner.

Step 9:
Share the job of grocery shopping. One week have mom take one of the children as a helper, the next week dad can go with another child. Always work from a grocery list and let your children help you retrieve items and cross them off the list.

Step 10:
Have big family meals where you share about your day. Keep the conversation fun and avoid negative lectures over dinner. Remember to laugh.

Take these steps today and make your kitchen a fun and memorable place for your whole family.

How To Stop Your Child From Whining

Here are seven steps that you can take to “Stop the Whining!” and get your children asking for things in a way that you desire.


STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING
If you are serious about limiting the whining, you need to stop what you’re doing and focus on your child and give them attention. Listen to what they have to say.

Boys will often talk in a very gruff tone, while girls will speak with elevated voice. Encourage them to speak so that they know they are being heard. However you need to help them separate the way they are speaking (their whining) from their request.

DESCRIBE THE CORRECT WAY OF ASKING
Firstly, address the method they are using to ask for things – the whining. You may say something like, “Jacob, you don’t need to whine when asking for a biscuit.”

Then you demonstrate the way that you want your child to ask for things. For instance, “Excuse me mommy, biscuit please”, would suffice.

This will take repetition so as to reinforce the correct technique for asking and is aimed at reducing the whining. You may have to remind your child from time to time about the “magic word” needed when asking for things.

Or you may say “Pardon?” to jolt their thinking – or even stare back at them with raised eyebrows and wait for their response.

PRAISE YOUR CHILD FOR SPEAKING NICELY
When your child remembers the way to ask for things in a nice manner, praise them! Say, “That was a beautiful way of asking.”

This reinforces that they are following the correct method. It is easy to forget that kids take time to learn how to ask for things correctly, however when they don’t have to be reminded then this is a time to lavish on them exceptional praise and encouragement.

IS THE CHILD’S REQUEST REASONABLE?
When training children to request things in a nice manner, and they achieve that, then it is recommended that you comply with their request.

Hold it. What if your child is asking for food, and dinner is only five minutes away from being served? If the aim is to stop whining behavior and get your child trained to speak nicely, then give them some food, but in a very small amount. The key is to focus on how the request is formed, whether it is appropriate or not. If so, comply with their request.

WHAT TO DO IF WHINING CONTINUES?
Children know instinctively that they can get their way by whining. So if whining continues you will need to go back to the original method that you want them to use for asking for things.

Say again, “Jacob, you don’t need to whine when asking for a biscuit.” This informs your child of the inappropriate behavior.

Then enforce your desired method of asking for things, “Jacob say, Excuse me mommy, biscuit please”.

WHAT TO DO IF THE CHILD PROTESTS?
If the whining behavior continues, you need to describe their undesirable behavior to them calmly, but firmly.

This is the time to take action. Describe what you are doing so that they understand why you are doing it. In relation to the biscuits, you may say, “OK Jacob, if you aren’t able to ask nicely then the biscuits go away for ten minutes. Now try again.”

You will need to follow through on your action to demonstrate that you mean what you say – else next time your child will know that whining is a way to get what they want, and mommy doesn’t really mean to threaten.

WHAT TO DO IF THE CHILD BECOMES AGGRESSIVE?
Remember to describe the whining behavior, as well as the correct method of asking for things. Then place them in quiet time for 2 minutes. Placing them on a chair or on a mat is ideal for this. Let them out of quiet time once their behavior has quieted down. Then you may want to go over the “nice way” of asking for things before encouraging them to ask again.

If your child is becoming aggressive and refuses to sit in quiet time, then you will need to implement a “time out” strategy. Following the lead of super-nanny, you will need to put them into time out for a short period of time - calculated as 1 minute more than the age of your child. So if your child is 4 years old, then place them in time out for 5 minutes. If the behavior continues, you will need to learn the technique for dealing with temper tantrums.


Remember that by keeping your cool you will be able to demonstrate the desired method of asking for things, and help them to “stop the whining!”

One Child or Two? Adding to the Family

Bringing a sibling home is a dream for many parents and grandparents, and the desire to have more children can be an emotional and idealistic idea for some couples. Despite the mental picture, choosing to enlarge your family in this day and age requires a new set of guidelines and principles than when your parents were having children.

If you are debating whether to bring another child into your family, consider some of the following questions with your partner. You may find that your mind has already been made up!

What Is Your Plan?

You already have one child, so you're familiar with the work involved in caring for a baby. You've been through sleepless nights and diaper changes so what else is there to know?

If you are hoping for a large family with the idea of staying home with your children it is wise to consider the reality of your lifestyle and the sacrifices to be made. While a single child has already altered your life don't take for granted some of the ease with which you may be able to call on friends or family for babysitting, take your child to social events or on an errand run.

If you are still holding on to a lifestyle that you had before children you will very likely find a second child causes a drastic change. Granted, some children are easier than others, but if your first child is demanding more of you than you expected, a second child will only double that feeling.

What is the Cost?

The truth, despite what your grandmother may tell you, is that it does cost more to have more children - not just 'another potato in the pot'. More than one parent has had to find new babysitting arrangements when returning to work after a second child because the grandparent or friend did not feel able to take on the additional work. Daycare costs will double - drastically reducing your take-home pay.

If you are choosing to stay home with your children (which in some cases is financially more sound) you will still encounter extra costs even if the second child will wear your older child's clothes (assuming they are the same sex) or is breastfeeding for the first year.

Add to that the cost of health care, education and larger accommodations or vehicles and you will quickly see the numbers adding up. In your parents' or grandparents' time that might not have been such a big consideration. While choosing to have children is not only a financial cost, preparing for that aspect is important.

You may be in a good place financially and otherwise to take on the costs or you may feel the price of having more children to love is worth the sacrifice. Many families both survive and thrive on the tighter budget of additional children and if you are prepared for it yours can too.

How is Your Health?

Children can wear you out. Love them and cherish them but if you are dealing with poor health or stamina you may find your resources tapped with a second child.

It is a joy for a family to grow. You will not regret the person that comes, but for the sake of the family's happiness you need to treat the decision to add to a family as important as the decision to start one.