Some foods are just ubiquitous to seasons – Winter foods are heavy and hot like pot roasts or stews, perfect for keeping you snug in the chilly temperatures. Spring foods are light and hopeful like salads and citrusy pastas, looking ahead to days spent playing outside and evenings on the front porch. Summer foods are cool and easy like gazpacho or caprese salad, ideal for ending a sweaty, hot day.

But fall … fall is a tricky season. You aren’t quite ready to release the delights of summer, so it’s filled with the last tomatoes, leeks, peppers and other fresh goodness that just won’t be available again until June. Still, you are faced with descending temperatures and a need to bring out those sweaters, so cool foods just won’t do … but soup will.

On the first cool day this fall, I practically skipped down to my basement to retrieve a frozen batch of my favorite potato leek soup. The kids and I love the flavors in it, and what says fall more than a warm bowl of soup served up with some toasty bread?

This recipe for Easy Garlic and Cheese Bread is a simple way to use up those leftover slices from another night. It comes together in just minutes and totally beats spreading butter on getting-stale bread.

Easy Garlic and Cheese Bread

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice day-old crusty bread (Italian, French, sourdough … whatever you have) into 1 inch slices. Lay the slices on an ungreased cookie sheet and place a pat of butter on each. Sprinkle with garlic salt and grate some Romano cheese on top. Place in the oven and cook for 5-7 minutes, until butter is melted and cheese is lightly browned. Be careful not to burn it.

Missy Chase Lapine, aka the Sneaky Chef, provided her favorite back-to-school simple recipes featuring Mott’s applesauce and juice. Mott’s products are Missy’s super sneaky ingredient because they’re an easy way to get kids servings of real fruit. Check out the video!

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When it comes to table manners, I am a die-hard supporter and I have some firm opinions on the matter. Manners are a must in my house, and I love the way it’s influencing my kids to be good guests in other homes, restaurants and settings. Are they perfect? Definitely not, but who is? But they also aren’t the kids yelling, screaming and making a scene anywhere. They just know better.

I am certain that my devotion to manners comes from how I was  raised. As a child, I knew the rules and, for the most part, followed them without thinking. Understanding the concept of manners has come in handy in my adult life. On the first day of my first semester at Barnard College, I dined with the president of the college. To be eating with someone so important to my education was nerve-wracking, to say the least. But I knew how to act in that scenario, so there was no added self-consciousness about how I was behaving … only that I would make a good impression.

Right now, someone, somewhere is saying, “Oh please, does this really matter? Who cares if you know the right fork to use?!?” It does matter. When it comes to important dinners and lunches, having good manners mean that how you sit and eat blends into the background and it’s your conversation that gets noticed. On the otherhand, if you have bad manners, that can overshadow anything you say at all. Talk about a bad impression … and really, would you rather be remembered for your excellent commentary on the state of health care reform or unseemly noises you made while you chewed your steak?

So parents, I encourage you. No matter how you were raised, it’s time to raise the bar on manners in your home so that your kids can go out in the world confident and certain in any eating situation. They will be better off for it.

My Top 5 Table Manner Rules

1. Wait for everyone to be served before eating.

2. Do not leave the table unless you’ve been excused or politely excused yourself.

3. No talking with your mouth full.

4. Do not touch your food with your fingers (unless it’s a finger food like corn on the cob)

5. Pause between bites — meals are not a race

I don’t know about your kids, but mine love food. And if it’s food with a surprise, then it’s even better in their eyes. That’s why they really enjoy when I stuff their burgers with cheese. As for my husband and I, we love how the melty cheese permiates the burger with flavor and oozes out when you bite into it. Divine.

And better yet? They are easy to make. You can use whatever cheese you prefer. We’ve made them with cheddar and blue cheese and liked both (although the blue cheese is our collective favorite). I am sure these would work equally well with gouda, swiss or gorgonzola. But I wouldn’t choose a hard cheese, since they tend not to melt. And fresh mozzarella, while tasty, might be a little too watery.

So, how do you make a stuffed burger?

Step 1: Season the meat

Using one pound of ground beef, combine it with salt and pepper in a bowl. Knead it together with your hands until the meat is well mixed.

Step 2: Divide the meat

Using a kitchen scale (or estimate, if you don’t have one), divide the meat mixture into four equal portions. Roll them into balls.

Step 3: Flatten the meat and add the cheese

Using one ball at a time, flatten the meat out to an even 1/4 inch thickness. Place a 1/2 ounce slice of cheese of your choice in the center of the flattened meat.

Step 4: Fold the meat around the cheese

Fold the sides of the meat up and around the cheese, as if you are wrapping a package.

Step 5: Seal the edges

Gently knead the hamburger into a round patty shape, taking care to ensure that the edges of the patty fuse together. Then, use your thumb to indent the center slightly (this will stop the burger from becoming misshapen while cooking.

Step 6: Cook to desired doneness

Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely take the easy route. Croutons? Why waste the money when homemade croutons are so easily and cheaply made with leftover bread? Salad dressing? I love the freshness and the complex flavors of a good homemade dressing. And cakes? I can bake up a cake with the best of them …

But when it came time to make cupcakes for a recent gathering, I knew I wanted to do something wild and kid-centric, so I decided to do my own riff on the trendy rainbow cake that has been making its way across the internet.  But really, when you are going to be mixing and dividing and dividing again, do you really need the added complication of baking from scratch? For once, I decided that I didn’t … so I took the easiest route and used a box of cake mix.

Hey, it worked for this. And when I make these again — and I will make these again –I will do it again in a heartbeat. These are such a fun dessert, especially when kids are involved. Go bold and bright with the colors, and be sure to start with white cake mix for the best hues.

Continue reading…

There is a song in the Nick Jr. show Ni Hao, Kai Lan that encourages children to give unfamiliar things a shot. I absolutely love that song, and the show, because it’s encouraged my son to be very openminded:

When you are scared of something new and you don’t know what to do, just try it! Try it! Try it! Because you might like it! – Ni Hao, Kai Lan

Is that not the best message ever or what??

In that spirit, when I heard a farmer talking about these pole beans at a recent farmers market, I was intrigued. Pole beans are longer and thicker than green beans, so they hold up well to cooking directly on the grill. Be sure to marinate them in a good vinaigrette first — something with a lot of tang and flavor.

Could these be an alternative to oven baked fries and sweet potato fries (which my family loves, but honestly can take a bit of effort to make)? Yes. When I make these we all pick them up with our fingers and eat them like fries. No need for dipping sauce here though — the marinated beans cooked up packed with flavor. And yes, the kids love them.

A healthy vegetable as a finger food? Excellent. Continue reading…

Sometimes, I feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day for all the things that I would like to do with my kids. Like most families, my husband and I juggle work responsibilities with home responsibilities and caring for our two young children and two dogs. In the fall, school gets added back into the mix too, and that can get even hairier. So, I try to multi-task so that we can do as much as possible.

For instance, on sunny summer days, I unplug my laptop and set up shop on the porch or in our backyard so our children can play while I work. One of the big perks of being a freelance writer is that my kids can also tag along when I am researching locations for a travel or dining piece or checking out local foods for a cooking piece.

But one of our favorite multitasking activities is the rolling picnic that we frequently have when it’s warm and sunny. This one has little to do with writing and instead is more focused around fitting exercise into my day, eating lunch and spending quality time together.

So, what is this rolling picnic? Well, I pack up a lunch in individual portions and we head off to a nearby park with walking trails. The kids get situated in their double stroller and I hand out food — one baggie each at a time, and they can’t move onto the next part of the meal until they are both done. Then we walk through these beautiful wooded trails while they eat.

Sometimes, like earlier this week, we catch glimpses of wildlife in their natural habitat like a deer and her fawn or a pheasant and her (six!) chicks. My son gets so excited when we see animals along our walk and quietly points them out, so as not to scare them. And for both, the fresh air is a wonderful start of a summer afternoon.

What kinds of foods work for a rolling picnic? Here are some that we like:

• Sandwiches that are stuck together like peanut butter and jelly, cream cheese and jelly or grilled cheese
• Meat rollups — take one slice of luncheon meat and roll it with one slice of cheese. These make great finger foods.
• Crackers
• Cut up fruit in bite sized pieces like strawberries, grapes and melon. Blueberries are also a favorite. Mott’s makes some wonderful individually packaged sliced apples that are good fingerfoods too. These are also good with a small container of dipping sauce like a creamy mix of yogurt and marshmallow fluff or caramel sauce
• Fresh popcorn tossed with parmesan and salt or cocoa and sugar
• Sippy cups filled with water or juice, like Mott’s for Tots Juice or Mott’s Organic juice.

Have you cooked with your kids lately?

To some people, the idea of having children in the kitchen is a horrifying one. Danger lurks everywhere between the sharp knives used, the hot surfaces and ovens and the potential to fall from chairs. To me, those are just safety issues that you instruct the kids to avoid and then trust that they will (and, in my experience, they do).

It’s a magical experience to be a child helping in the kitchen. The child might not be the one actually slaving at the stove, but they can assist with mixing, grating and even measuring. These skills are so much more important than the actions themselves. They promote dexterity, concentration and more. And, imparting the sense of tradition (as in, this is how our family makes these things) and practical knowledge of how to cook is a wonderful thing. For the children, there is also a sense of accomplishment.

I mentioned in my introduction that when I was a child, my aunt and I would cook together on Sundays. One dish we often make was potato pancakes from scratch. It was a glorious experience, grating waxy potatoes with a box grater, mixing up the batter and then cooking them in a hot pan at the stove. I was very young, so I don’t remember much of the cooking aspect, but I do remember how exciting it was to be allowed to help, to contribute, to create. And I followed the rules set forth for me: stay away from the stove, do what was asked and pay attention.

Even now, more than 25 years later, I can still remember the taste of fresh, hot potato pancakes just off the stove and dipped in chilled applesauce. Amazing. Nothing compares to the taste of freshly made, home-cooked potato pancakes. Nothing.

I don’t have the recipe my aunt and I used, but there are some fabulous recipes for potato pancakes, also known as latkes, out there. Don’t forget to serve up with some tasty applesauce and smooth sour cream.

• Potato pancakes (with mashed potatoes) at Retro Food.
• Potato pancakes (with grated potatoes) at The Perfect Pantry.
• Baked sweet potato latkes at Erin Cooks.
• Oven baked latkes at Baking Bites.

Bad Mothers Need Juice, Too

Oh, hey, hi!

I’m Catherine. I’m kinda known as a bad mother, probably because I call myself that at my blogs, Her Bad Mother and Their Bad Mother. It’s mostly tongue-in-cheek, but also a little bit not, because I am totally the kind of mom who struggles with little things like, say, cooking. I am not the mom who harvested her own heirloom apple trees and boiled the fruit down to make organic compote. I am not the mom who will ever bake fruit pies from scratch. And never, ever ask whether I squeeze fresh juice for my kids. I’m just not that mom.

I’m the mom who needs all the help she can get in pretty much every department of parenthood other than the ‘Let’s Have Some Fun’ and Hugs & Laughs departments (I have those covered) and I’m going to be writing here about my efforts to at least fake being an Apple Pie Mom. And I may or may not checking up on more famous Apple Pie Moms (because, seriously, do any of us really believe that Gwyneth purees her own organic fruit sauces? And if she really does, can we not just pretend that maybe she doesn’t?) You know, for fun.

Hopefully I won’t get applesauce on my face in the process (*insert-pie-tossing-joke-here*), but if I do, at least it’ll be funny. For you, anyway.

My earliest memories revolve around two things: helping my aunt in the kitchen on Sundays and pretending to be a writer. Once I was old enough to write sentences, I began writing nearly everyday. After high school, I went to school in New York because New York is a city of writers and stories . . . and I knew that would be the perfect place for me.

These days I can be found writing about food at my food blog, Sarah’s Cucina Bella Sarah’s Cucina Bella, pregnancy and parenting at SheKnows and mom-related topics and reviews at The Voice of Mom.

Here at the new official Mott’s blog, More To The Core, I will be focusing on healthy cooking and eating for the whole family. With two young kids who are voracious eaters, I understand how challenging it can be to make sure that kids eat right everyday but Mott’s Healthy Harvest Apple Sauces (with no artificial sweeteners! YAY!) have been a godsend. The single serve portions are perfect for an afternoon snack. And my kids have grown up drinking Mott’s Natural Apple Juice, which has no added sugar — something I always look for in kid-friendly drinks.

With the right recipes, a few healthy snacks and drinks and getting kids involved in the process, eating well can be a fantastic family affair.