Media use and kids

~ servedwithloveincolorado ~ Leave a comment

This is something that is often a hot topic in mom circles and one that I am interested in for sure: Media use for kids, especially really young kids.

While I was pregnant with Bear, Andrew and I saw so many families using media (iPads, iPhones, etc) while out and about to essentially soothe kids or keep them entertained so they didn’t have to interact with the adults.  One family we can both still picture was sitting at dinner at a restaurant, both parents on their phones and both kids with headphones and iPads, all mindlessly eating and not interacting with each other at all.  Might have worked for them but Andrew and I knew that is not what we wanted for our family.

I researched this quite a bit and chatted with our pediatrician as well and these guidelines kept coming back as a good place to start in deciding your “rules” on this topic:

Media Use Guidelines from the AAP

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pages/Healthy-Digital-Media-Use-Habits-for-Babies-Toddlers-Preschoolers.aspx

Whenever I’m wondering if something has been researched or if there is a good recommendation for anything having to do with kids, I go to the American Academy of Pediatrics first.  They have all sorts of great publications and guides for parents from allergies to media use to pacifiers, all sorts of things.

Now there are certainly exceptions and sometimes giving an iPhone to a toddler who is hangry while checking out at Target is a Godsend (can I get an Amen!) but having the toddler not expect to get an iPhone to entertain them every time they are in Target is probably a good thing too.  Because then you get to talk about what you are seeing and buying.  You get to answer all the questions and whys.  Yes, it will take longer but it will also be worth the extra time.

So that’s where I go if I am wondering if a certain type of media use is acceptable or not.  Hope this helps!

Some additional reading:

CNN Article 2019: More screen time for toddlers is tied to poorer development a few years later https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/health/screen-time-child-development-study/index.html

Journal of the American Medical Association 2019 Article: Association Between Screen Time and Children’s Performance https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2722666?guestAccessKey=879c6c87-141e-48f8-8c95-4d684600a644

CNN Article 2017: Letting a baby play on an iPad might lead to speech delays, study says http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/04/health/babies-screen-time-speech-delays-study/index.html

Financial Time Article 2018: Apple faces activist pressure over children’s iPhone use https://www.ft.com/content/a4a0d8d0-f3fc-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e

Go-To Taco Meat

~ servedwithloveincolorado ~ 4 Comments

This is the recipe for my Go-To Taco Meat that I seriously make almost every week.  Beast looks at my weekly menu more on that later for it each week and will ask if it isn’t there when I’m making it next.  This recipe makes plenty for dinner and next day lunches too.  And the kids have no idea how many veggies they are eating.

Go-To Taco Meat
by Mel from Served With Love (in Colorado) April-24-2017
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground beef or turkey
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 cup carrots, chopped
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • 1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
  • 1 can diced green chilies
  • 1 can black beans
  • 1 box hard taco shells
  • 1 packet taco seasoning
  • few glugs your favorite beer
  • topping shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 cup zucchini, chopped (optional)
  • 2 cups fresh spinach, chopped (optional)
  • sour cream for topping (optional)
  • shredded lettuce for topping (optional)
  • fresh tomatoes, diced  for topping (optional)
Instructions
1. Put on Sesame Street for the kids
2. Open a beer and take a swig. You have to make sure the bottle is good prior to using it in a recipe. Seriously.
3. Put on your favorite Pandora mix. I recommend “Today’s Indie Radio.”
4. Brown meat.
5. While meat is browning, chop onion, red pepper, carrots and any other veggies. (Do carrots first since you add them next.) 
6. Once meat is browned, drain (if there is a pourable amount of fat).
7. Add carrots and cook for 5 minutes.
8. Add other vegetables and cook about 5 minutes (until onions are tender).
9. Add seasoning packet to the meat and stir.
10. If at any time the bottom of the pan gets crusty (technical term) deglaze the pan with a glug of beer. Once beer is in the pan, scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the good stuff (flavor) off the bottom.
11. Add can of green chilies.
12. Drain and rinse can of black beans.
13. Add can of black beans.
14. Serve meat in taco shells with cheese, sour cream and other toppings. Can serve with a side of spanish rice (prepared box).
15. Watch your children eat veggies they have no idea about. (Evil cackle quietly to yourself.)
Details

Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 6-8 servings

Taco meat when it is finished.

So there you have it.  This is not anything fancy but it goes over really well with my family and tastes great for lunch the next day.  It is also really flexible and you can make it different depending on what you have on hand.


Hope it works for you too!

Happy cooking!

How to make your grilled chicken better: Beat it

~ servedwithloveincolorado ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know about you, but when I first started cooking grilling chicken was one thing I could not figure out.  I’d throw a chicken breast on the grill.  Flip it.  Pull it off.  Result: Half was already dry and gross.  Half had pink in the middle.

The problem: chicken breasts don’t come in a uniform thickness.  You can easily have a chicken breast that is 2 inches thick on one side and 1/2 inch thick on the other.  There is no way to cook that completely without overdoing one half.

My solution: Beat it.  I put the chicken breasts I plan to grill in a large plastic bag with whatever marinade I am planning on (barbecue sauce, lemon and olive oil, etc).  Get out my metal ladle, put the bag on the floor and go at it until the chicken is a uniform thickness.  The kids can even help.

At this point, my kids know what I am up to when I start walking over to our rug with a bag of chicken and a metal spoon.  They run and get their ladles and join in the fun.

This time I was using Bryant’s BBQ sauce.  A favorite for KC natives.

I focus on the large ends of the chicken breasts and work to get them even (or much closer to even) with the other half.

The result:  Easily grilled chicken.  I preheat my grill on high, place the chicken on the grill, and then turn the grill down to medium.  I flip the chicken once it has released from the grill (you shouldn’t have to pry it off), which is usually about 5 minutes.  Around 4-5 minutes on the other side and you have tender, moist chicken that is done all the way through.

Bonus: The kids say they “helped cook” the chicken.  And my kids always eat things even better when they’ve helped make it.  This is an easy and safe way for them to help cook chicken without getting completely gross or making a total mess.

Happy cooking!

Pantry organization: From mess to magnificent

~ servedwithloveincolorado ~ Leave a comment

Y’all, I had a complete tantrum the other day.  Seriously.  A full on toddler-esque tantrum.  What caused it?  My pantry.

I wish I had a “before” picture for you but this description may be enough to help you understand the chaos that had become our food storage.  I went to grab something up high and a glass vase and lightbulb fell down on me.  The glass vase I ninja-like shoved into a shelf mid air by sheer luck and the light bulb hit a nice soft landing on my bare foot.

This was while my children were eating breakfast.  Before they were done the entire pantry was emptied onto the kitchen counters and island.

The problem:  We had so much random crap in our pantry that it has ceased to become the place dedicated to dry food storage.  It truly had become a dumping ground.

The solution: Full decluttering with putting the non-food away where it goes and a trip to IKEA.  A hilarious trip with two toddlers where the stroller became a shopping cart and Bear became my assistant.

Here are the “afters” and then I’ll tell you the process and products that worked for me.

Now Angels sing when I open this door.

A spot for everything and everything labeled to tell the individuals who dump things in here that “Oh no!  That doesn’t go here.”  (Basically that is a note to Beast.  And me.  Mainly me.)

“This week” bin for items that are claimed for meals I’ve already planned.  This helps when you go to the store.  I know I need more of X because while I have one in the pantry, it will be gone before the end of the week.

Lazy susans for the oils and cooking products.  Perfect in these deep corners of the pantry that if I put things in there, would disappear.  I kid you not, I found 18 breakfast bars of various types pushed back in the recesses of these corners.  No more.

Several large, rollout bins for the floor that have rarely used or surplus items.  I have one for baking items, vases, and surplus.  Surplus has an extra bag of sugar (again found in one of the back corners), one of those half giant bags of rice from Costco, etc.

Not so healthy stuff up top so it is not at Ladybug and Bear’s eye level.  And now I can have one jar of cookies and one jar of snack crackers.  I don’t need 3 half empty boxes.

My meal planning clip board is behind the door and removable.  More on meal planning here.  Perfect for those occasional nights when Beast beats me home.  He knows what I was planning and can get it started.  And I always know where to find it when I am ready to plan.

So here is how I did it.  I bought 8 bins (4 small, 4 big) initially and then went back and bought 4 more (2 small, 2 big).  I bought 5 jars initially and then went back and bought 3 more. I already had a few bins and one small lazy susan on hand.

Here is what I have my items divided into:

Lazy susans:

1) Canned goods

2) Oils and vinegars

3) Kids vitamins, medicine, band-aids, and my ibuprofen

Jars with removable glass lids:

1) Snack nuts

2) Breakfast bars

Jars with sealable lids:

1) Cookies

2) Snack crackers

3) White rice

4) Brown rice

5) Lentils

6) Cereal

Large pull out bins for ground storage:

1) Vases

2) Surplus

3) Extra baking items (rarely used)

Large bins:

1) Potatoes

2) Onions

3) Drinks

4) Pasta/sauce

5) Breakfast

6) Treats

7) Chips/crackers

8) Baking (regularly used)

9) This week

Small bins:

1) Stock

2) Spreads

3) Seasoning packets

4) Rice/beans

5) Nuts

6) Popcorn

Mason jars:

1) Chia seeds

2) Quinoa

As I said, I pulled everything out, put the stuff that didn’t belong the other places in the house where it ACTUALLY was supposed to go, and then started putting everything back in.

I used this time to get rid of the junk that we didn’t need like a bunch of old candy and expired items.  Then we lived with it.  I went to get a few more items when I realized I had the space and wanted to separate out a few more items.

After I was 100% sure that I had everything separated out how I wanted them, I labeled everything.  I used chalkboard labels and a white paint sharpie.  Bought from Amazon Prime, of course.  Laminas labels and a Sharpie marker.  The labels peeled off really easy if I needed to move them a little bit and the paint marker wiped off when wet really easy which was important since it took me two times to figure out that I was actually spelling “quinoa” right.  It just looked really wrong.

I’m super happy with how everything turned out.  My fit was worth it!