Diva Recipe ~ Ranch Salad Dressing Recipe – Ingredients you have in your pantry

I have been contemplating making my own dressing for some time now – so many store bought are laden with ingredients that are unknown, preservatives I can’t pronounce and additives you don’t really want to eat.

Tonight – we used the last of our Maria’s Ranch Dressing, the little ones were happily busy. I seized the moment.

Ingredients
3/4 cup of light sour cream
3/4 cup of lowfat yogurt
1 tablespoon of mayo
1 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoon of parsley flakes
1 1/2 teaspoon of dried chives
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of agave or sugar
squeeze of lemon juice – maybe 1/2 teaspoon
2 tablespoons of milk – adjust to personal taste

Combine all the ingredients, adjust seasonings to your taste and chill.

I made the recipe in the clean and empty Maria’s jar – so I didn’t even need to mess up a bowl.

Gave my 3 year old a taste and she wanted the whole spoon! She is pretty much exclusively a ranch girl – so we’ll take that as a positive review. It really is delish – if I do say so myself!

Diva Recipe ~ Ranch Salad Dressing Recipe – Ingredients you have in your pantry

Green Your Toddlers: Easy ways to teach your child be green

The toddler years seem to be filled with waste.

I’m saddened by the food that we waste in our home daily. Did you know we throw out enough food to feed 49 million people every year? Not to mention water, supplies, diapers, birthdays and so on…

My children are toddlers, but we have started to teach them, begun to plant seeds of awareness.

Awareness that they shouldn’t be wasteful, awareness that what they do in their home impacts beyond them.

Opportunities for teaching children to conserve are endless and can be implemented throughout our daily lives as they arise and as is appropriate for the age of your child.

As I’ve searched for ideas to “green our toddlers” I’ve found many ideas and lots of cool lists. What I haven’t found as readily is what people are doing in their homes – real life experiences.

So this post talks about things that you can do with your child. When you finish reading the ideas – click through to find out how we work these ideas into our daily lives.

Take what works for you and build from there!

1. Water – teach them to use less.
2. Teach them to recycle.
3. Teach them not to be wasteful.
4. Buy quality and teach them to take care of what they have.
5. Teach them not to litter.
6. Drink water from a cup or reusable water container.
7. Turn off the lights, unplug the “stuff”
8. Donate – when you are done with something donate to a worthy organization
9. Waste free lunches.
10. Recycle your batteries safely and/or switch to rechargeable batteries.

Other places to look for ideas:

Kids National Geographic
Naturally Savvy

Green Your Toddlers: Easy ways to teach your child be green

Agave Nectar – A Great Alternative to Sugar

By Tania Reuben

If you haven’t tried Agave Nectar yet, give it a try. Don’t take my word for it, Dr Oz has named Agave Nectar as the best sugar substitute on Oprah

Agave Nectar comes from the agave cactus plant. It looks a lot like honey – but has a more neutral flavor than honey – making it ideal for teas, coffees, yogurt and other times you need just a little sweet.

While Agave is not a low calorie sweetener – it will be lower in calories than sugar or honey because it’s sweeter, so you will use less to get the same sweetness. I’ve seen it reported as a substitute at a ratio of 1/4 to 3/4 of a cup of Agave to a cup of sugar. So it really depends on your own preference and the brand of Agave.

Agave has a low glycemic index – around 27 (depends on brand), honey is 83 and white bread is 112. This means that the sugars aren’t absorbed as quickly in the bloodstream.

Even though Agave it’s not a low calorie sweetener our bodies process it as though it is – because it doesn’t cause blood sugar to spike like sugar and white flours.

You can substitute agave for sugar in recipes at the ratios mentioned above – you also need to reduce liquids by about 25% and decrease baking temperatures by 25 degrees.

I made some yummie cookies – I used 2/3 cup of Agave instead of 1 cup of sugar with good results – I don’t do it routinely because it can put a dent in your budget using it a cup at a time.

To learn a little more about Agave Nectar I like the information here (their prices seem higher than other vendors though).

Agave Nectar – A Great Alternative to Sugar

More Vegetables Please? Getting your kids to eat Vegetables

By Tania Reuben

Do you dream that your children – or in my case husband – will ask this question at the dinner table?

You’re not alone – It’s just a dream in my home too! Do you know that ideally we would consume 9 – 1/2 cup servings of fruits and vegetables a day and should have no less than 5! Some of my friends seem mystified by how many vegetables my children eat, so I’m giving away my secret.

Many people are familiar with hiding puree’s in your food. I do use this technique, but need it less and less as my children eat their vegetables without me having to hide them.

My secret is diced mixed vegetables. Every week I dice up a giant dish full of mixed vegetables – this mix typically contains onions, red pepper, green pepper, zucchini, and celery. Sometimes I will add grated carrot or diced yellow squash. Really you can add almost anything.

Once you have this mix – add it to everything you cook that week at the end of 5-7 days cook up whatever is left and put it in the freezer for use on a day when you are out of the fresh mix.

We use this mix to up the veggie count in spaghetti sauce (1/2 vegetable and 1/2 meat), shepherd’s pie, tuna noodle casseroles and other comfort foods. I put it in mac & cheese, quesidilla, enchilladas, burritos, rice pilaf, soups, ready made spaghetti sauces (my kids never met a noodle they didn’t love!) and eggs. Basically if I’m cooking – there are mixed vegetables going in.

Once the mixed vegetables are in, I also add chopped frozen spinach to most dishes and other vegetables that are part of the dish. For example, in our home peas are part of shepherd’s pie and tuna casserole.

It’s also a good idea to add flax meal to any dish that will hide it’s dark color, 1-2 tablespoons in the sauce. A tablespoon in the pancakes or french toast egg mix. You won’t taste it, but you will amp up the nutritional value.

So there you have it. You are hiding vegetables, but they still know they are there.

Some of you may find your eaters pick around the vegetables (I’m OK with this, they can’t get them all) and in my experience they will eventually give up with most dishes. My daughter used to pick around the vegetables in spaghetti sauce and after enough nights of “you can’t have more noodles until you eat the sauce”… the sauce is now eaten with the noodles.

We just need to be more persistent and consistent than they are.

Come back soon – we’ll talk about the salad!

More Vegetables Please? Getting your kids to eat Vegetables

How to: Diced Mixed Vegetables

You are excited to try my diced mixed vegetable technique – but don’t want to spend hours getting your veggies into perfect 1/4 inch cubes. I don’t blame you.

I don’t spend hours chopping – I have a chopper that I use. I recommend it – with hesitation – I can’t keep it from breaking. After about 6 months usage the hinge breaks, this is only in the vicinity of 24 uses – not very good – right?

Trouble is – I have tried so many other options and none of them work either. The food processor doesn’t give you the right size or consistency, other choppers have been too difficult to use, and manually just takes me forever!

This one works the best – but clearly it’s not ideal because it keeps breaking. I keep returning mine – hoping the manufacturer will fix the flaw – but so far no luck. I’m open to suggestions!

So with mixed feelings I will tell you I use the Vidalia Chop Wizard. It’s made by progressive. They sell it under the Williams Sonoma name as well, it’s the exact same one, just pricier.

How to: Diced Mixed Vegetables

Shopping Bags – Get in the Habit of Bringing Your Own Reusable Bags!

By Tania Reuben

Bringing your own bags with you when you shop is such an easy change to make – yet so many of us don’t bother.

I thinks it’s just because we haven’t gotten into the habit. And – it really is a habit. They say it takes 30 days to form a new habit. I’m a slow learner – it took me almost a year.

So how do you break through the bag barrier?

To start:
Keep shopping bags in the car. This way they are with you when you need them. After unloading groceries – I put the all the bags outside my front door this way I remember to put it back in the car.

Even if you don’t have the canvas bags, start by reusing your regular shopping bags – over and over again.

The canvas bags, they will come – I kept getting given them through special promotions and now I have a fleet – it really is worth buying them they are typically around a dollar and you only need a handful.

Advanced:
Don’t stop at your grocery bags. Strangely for me, it was harder to get in the habit for sundries, going to target or the drug store. While “shopping” shopping – it was harder still.

Somehow those shiny crisp beautiful looking bags have become part of the shopping experience – yet whatever we pull out of that bag will look the same no matter what it comes home in. And we’ll be taking better care of the planet at the same time. If this is still a jump for you, try getting a slightly snazzier canvas or tote just for retail therapy.

That should make every shopper happy – go shopping for a bag so you don’t need bags when you go shopping.

There have been times when I’ve been caught without my bags – I’m not perfect, but now it really has become a habit.

And if you are wondering – why bother – coming soon.

Shopping Bags – Get in the Habit of Bringing Your Own Reusable Bags!

Trashy – Funny talk on composting

Found this on LA Moms Blog – it’s a good foray into talking about composting.

In Los Angeles we can compost in our green bins. I’m almost ready to move past my childhood composting trauma and give it a try… almost.

By Emily

About a year and a half ago, I posted a series on my personal blog entitled The Lazy Mother’s Guide To Saving the Planet. It was all about being eco-friendly by doing less, or, in my case, using the environment as a convenient excuse to avoid wrapping holiday presents. And I got to thinking, “This would be a fantastic idea for a book.”

Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

I have gotten over my disappointment that someone beat me to the book, but I haven’t gotten over my laziness or my environmentalism. I still eschew goody bags at parties and prefer hand-me-downs to new stuff (I am also cheap). And I still let yellow mellow.

What I don’t do is compost. I know, I know. Food waste either sullies the water supply or sits in a plastic garbage bag, waiting to decompose sometime around when my great-great-great-granddaughter gets Bat Mitzvahed. Properly composted, it can be fertilizer for all that food I am supposed to be growing in my yard.

To read the full story -
LA Moms Blog: Trashy.

Trashy – Funny talk on composting

3 Reasons to stop using antibacterial wipes or soaps

From Change Becomes Change – it resonated with me and wanted to share.

When my first baby was born, I was often called a germaphobe – for very good reasons that I won‘t even attempt to deny. Before we even brought him home from the hospital, every sink in the house was outfitted with some sweet-smelling antibacterial soap from Bath n’ Body Works. Our diaper bag was filled with antibacterial wipes, along with both cars, all purses and the nursery. We encouraged the use of a bink at indoor play places like our children’s museum so that he couldn’t put germ covered toys or fingers in his mouth. And as he got older, we had our own little mats to put down at restaurants (after scrubbing the high chair, table and other surfaces with the wipes!).

We didn’t do half of those things with my second baby, and we rarely use an antibacterial wipe now. Why? What’s changed? A couple things.

Read the rest of  the post here -

Change Becomes Change: 3 Reasons to stop using antibacterial wipes or soaps.

3 Reasons to stop using antibacterial wipes or soaps

Drain Cleaning? Naturally Unclog Your Drains

It happened again, my kitchen sink backed up – if anything other than water goes into our sink – it’s all over.

Our sink disposal, so it should be fine, but things don’t work like that – at least not in my life!

I’ve been using the regular drain removal methods to avoid calling in plumber.   I just finished up my last bottle of the toxic stuff.  Time to go natural.

Baking Soda & Vinegar (same ingredients used science class for that volcano – so I understand why it worked for me!

Click  the following link for complete instructions!

Naturally Unclog A Drain With Vinegar, Baking Soda And Water. | The Good Human.

Happy de-clogging!

Drain Cleaning? Naturally Unclog Your Drains

Green Your Toddlers: Lessons From The Diva Home

Children are little sponges – jumping at the bit to learn everything we have to teach them. If we start teaching them to live greener lives – it will be the only way they know (unless their friends are living differently – but that is a conversation for another article!).

For now I want to share the techniques that I find work in our home. In real life.

1. Water Conservation:
When they are washing their hands and have the water on full blast – teach them to turn it down.
When they want to keep flushing the toilet over and over again.
When playing with water – we try to fill containers and then turn the water off.
When brushing teeth, water doesn’t need to be on while they are brushing. They can rinse at the end.

When using water – we share. We talk about examples from the world.

I ask them to:
– Think about all the fish that need water to swim in, if we use all the water flushing the toilet, they won’t have water to swim in
– Think about all the pretty flowers, if we use more water than we need the plants will be too thirsty to make any flowers
– Think about the trees – if they don’t have water then we won’t have trees and all their beautiful shade to play under (we live in CA – shade is a big deal for us).

Once you’ve been having discussions like this with your toddlers, you can move to the next step.

When they are using too much water ask them why they shouldn’t use too much, let them show you that they are learning the lesson. It won’t happen overnight.  And water play is so much fun for toddlers!

They will grow out of some of the water play, but the lifestyle habits they learn now will last a lot longer.

2. Recycling
We haven’t had to do too much in this area, we live in Los Angeles and don’t have to sort our recycling, so it’s not much more than teaching what goes in the garbage, and teaching them what goes in which receptacle. My almost four year old will ask me – is this recycling, is this garbage?

In areas that require sorting – kids love sorting games.  So if you turn the sorting into a game the kids learn while they have fun.

3. Don’t be Wasteful
This is an area where I feel as though I’m in a constant dance with cliche’s.

Who wants to be touting children in Africa – feeling like your own parents. Yet, I’m guilty, I do it.

Food Waste

• When they ask for more milk, they have to finish it. If they don’t they are told they won’t get milk next time. There have been next times when they have gone without milk. Now they almost always finish their milk.
• Often for breakfast we’ll have a cereal with a toast, bagel or something. I noticed they were asking for toast, but not eating it. I starting cutting the amount I gave them in half or not giving them toast. When they asked, I told them, you haven’t been eating your toast, so none today. After promising they would eat the toast I prepared it for them with a caveat. “What happens if you don’t eat all the toast?” – and they’ll tell me “no toast tomorrow”.
• None of this is to have them stuffing their faces to avoid waste – but I believe in teaching my children to finish what they ask for… eat what they take… eat their crusts… the skins off the apple.

Other areas we talk about waste:

• When my children don’t take care of something properly, we talk about other children who don’t have toys and how grateful they would be to have a toy like that one
• Repair books or toys, when possible, rather than throwing them away. My daughter was pretty rough on her books early on, I became a book surgeon – I just couldn’t throw them away.

4. Buy Quality and take care of what they have.
Some toys are better than others.

When buying toys, make choices that are going to last and will have a life after your children are done with them. We love wooden toys by Plan Toys, Sprig, Green Toys and Melissa and Doug.

When children break a toy due to carelessness, consider not replacing it. They quickly learn to take care of what they have if they know it won’t be received with, it’s OK – we’ll get another one. When a toy breaks in our home, typically it’s a lesson, I hope next time you’ll remember to take care of your toys, so they don’t get broken. I’m sorry you won’t have this toy to play with anymore.

5. Litter
We started working on this pretty young. Children aren’t born knowing that dropping something on the ground and leaving it their is littering.

They had to be told – that’s littering, we don’t do that. And they had to be taught to pick it up. IMO – If you pick it up for them they aren’t learning as much. For the really young you can take them and place your hand over theirs and use your hands to close over theirs and ensure the item is picked up.

Let your children see you picking up other people’s litter, mine have seen me do it at the park. They’ll ask what you are doing and then you have another teaching opportunity. Another family we know – before they play at the park they pick up 5 pieces of litter.

6. Drinking water.
Every time we pass a water cooler my children want to take a cup and get a drink. I’ll let them have a drink, but they need to put it in their own water container. We have metal water containers for them and they are labeled their names to help prevent loss. My son has lied down on the ground crying because he wanted a cup, so there are some days this isn’t easy, but why waste a cup just to let a toddler have their way. The way I see if they win now they run the show forever!

7. Turn off the lights.
If my daughter had her way she’d sleep with all the lights in her room on as dim as they go. Instead she has a nightlight. I’m sure lights off will be a lifetime of training, if they are anything like we were when we were younger. Only we have 2 green reasons for turning them off.

8. Donate – when you are done with something
My sister had a baby. Now when we’re done with something it goes to “the baby”. I’m sure this technique will work with any baby that your child identifies with. My daughter now randomly comes up with things for “the baby”. Some of this will actually go to the baby and the rest will go to a charity. The idea is to get children used to moving things on to their next home when we’re finished with them.

9. Send Lunches without Waste
This sounds harder than it is. When I look around there are so many single serving pouches, easy conveniences.

What we use regularly are individual serving sized containers. I keep them in my pantry next to the “snackables” so I’m not running around my kitchen putting it together last minute. Every mom needs a system, snacks are sent in an insulated “little mermaid” lunch bag (a birthday party favor) with her “water bottle”. When they get older and might have hot lunches – I’ll use the metal thermos options now available and the reusable to go cutlery.

For more lunch tips – Check out Diva tips for a greener school year.

10. Recycling
Batteries leach toxic metals and acid into the environment so be sure to take them to a recycling depot. They can be found at many grocery stores and at radio shack.

Rechargeable batteries are next on my list of green changes to implement in our home, I’ve started a list of everything that needs batteries, quantity and size so I have a starting point of how many batteries we need. I’ve been keeping a coffee tub of batteries that we take to recycle, but it’s time to step it up.

There you have it, 10 ways to be greener with some of our real life experiences on how we’ve

Don’t be surprised when they start lecturing you or a younger sibling on the “green way” to do things.

Green Your Toddlers: Lessons From The Diva Home

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