The morning meal doesn’t have to be fancy or require cooking each morning. Instead, think of easy foods that your family enjoys and ideally includes a few of the food groups: Grains, Fruit, Milk, Vegetables, and Meat. Try to include three food groups at breakfast for enough variety to stay satisfied until lunch and enough food to “break the fast” after what is easily 12 hours since the last meal.

Easy breakfast ideas that include three food groups:

The Customary Starter: Cereal with milk and a piece of fruit

The Works: Bagel topped with peanut butter and 100% juice

One for the Road: Egg and cheese mixed with salsa then wrapped in a whole-wheat tortilla

Stand-In Fancy Meal: Frozen whole-grain waffles topped with yogurt and sliced fruit

My kids love breakfast, but our mornings can be pretty busy. Starting the day with a full sink of dishes also does little to put me in the right mind set. To have the best of both worlds—breakfast without the early morning mess and rush—we love to have breakfast for dinner or “Brinner.” So in honor of state testing, here is a recipe that is Brinner perfect. It has three of the five food groups and encourages your kids to think outside the box for dinner. Who knows, maybe there will be pizza for breakfast the next day!

Make Breakfast for Dinner: Brinner!

Cottage Cheese Pancakes Recipe

• 1 Carton California Cottage Cheese (16oz)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons orange marmalade (for divided use)
• 4 Eggs, separated
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Butter
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 4 thin orange slices for garnish
• Mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Combine Cottage Cheese and 1/4 cup of the marmalade in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.

Beat egg whites until they are stiff, but not dry. Transfer the beater to the yolks to save washing in between. Beat yolks until they are light in color. Beat in the cup of cottage cheese-marmalade mixture, reserving the remaining cup of the mixture for the topping. Add the flour and salt and continue beating until completely mixed. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

Melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Wipe the butter out of the pan with a paper towel. Spoon the batter (1/3 cup for each pancake) into the hot pan. Cook pancakes over medium heat until golden brown on the first side.

Very carefully turn the pancakes over to brown the other side. While the pancakes are cooking, combine the maple syrup and remaining 2 tablespoons of marmalade; mix well and set aside.

To serve, place 3 pancakes on each of 4 plates. Top each serving with 1/4 cup of the reserved Cottage Cheese-marmalade mixture. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the maple-marmalade mixture over the top of each serving. Garnish with twisted orange slices and a sprig of fresh mint, if desired.

Makes 12 pancakes.

Calories: 316 ; Total Fat: 7 g ; Saturated Fat: 3 g ; Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.8 g ; Carbohydrates: 43 g ; Protein: 21 g ; Vitamin A: 338 IU ; Vitamin C: 1 mg ; Calcium: 122 mg ; Sodium: 625 mg ; Iron: 1.7 mg ; Fiber: 0.5 g

Add your favorite fresh fruit, like sliced banana or strawberries or defrosted berries if off-season, to up the fruit in this recipe.

 What breakfast food do you like to serve for dinner?

Trina Robertson, MS, RD is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in sports nutrition. As a Meals Matter Mom, she shares her positive approach to healthy eating with the goal of inspiring others to prepare and enjoy foods. As a Project Manager with the Dairy Council of California, Trina develops, evaluates and promotes nutrition education materials for students and adults. At home she enjoys cooking and sharing meals with her family. Her most rewarding accomplishment is that her tween boys are good eaters and are learning to cook. Follow Trina on Twitter @TrinaR_RD.

This is the story of my life with two super picky eaters. Life is never dull, but when you throw in a holiday like Passover into the mix, it really ups the ante and lets me get down to the basics.

There are hundreds of different recipes, that is true. However, aside from my kids being hard to please, I also live in Guatemala where the words Passover, Matzo and shopping, simply don’t go together. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Matzo has ever crossed this border.

After hours of figuring it out, it came to me! Actually, it’s so simple I almost laughed that I didn’t think of it earlier.

Fry-Less French Fries with Sour Cream and Yogurt Dill Horseradish Dip

Ok, so the dip is for me, while my kids go nuts with the french fries!

Ingredients

French fries

• 2 pounds of Yukon potatoes peeled and cut into thin slices
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• Paprika

Sour Cream and Yogurt Dip with Dill and Horseradish

• 2 tablespoons natural flavor yogurt
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon of freshly chopped dill
• 1 teaspoon of horseradish

Directions for the Potatoes

I love this recipe. It’s so simple that your kids can do it themselves—if you dare.:)

Preheat oven at 425 degrees. Take out a baking sheet and cover it with aluminum foil. Chop up the garlic cloves really fine. Take a large mixing bowl and throw in the potato slices, olive oil, garlic. Mix well. Add the garlic salt and parsley for flavor and mix it up again. Bake for 30 minutes, until soft and crispy. Take out and place in a bowl to serve.

Directions for the Dip

Unlike most people, my family are not ketchup fans. My kids prefer to have fries without anything at all, while I’m a big dip person. And for Passover, horseradish is a huge ingredient. This is without a doubt the easiest recipe ever!

Take a small mixing bowl, add in the yogurt, sour cream, horseradish and dill. Mix it up.

Ready to Serve! Really makes a difference with the potatoes.

Do you have any great Passover recipes that are sure to satisfy picky eaters?

Marina K. Villatoro has two extremely picky eaters for kids. Tired of taking the easy way out and ordering crap food, she’s taking over the meal planning and cooking of creative, fun and sneakily healthy food—even if she doesn’t like to cook! Join Marina on Facebook and Twitter for more Central and Latin American fun!

How to De-Stress and Get Organized for Easter and Passover

9 Ways to Make Spring Holidays Less Stressful:

• Don’t worry about making the holiday perfect. No one is as critical as you are!
• Decide what traditions are important to you and forego the rest.  Figure out how to make the holiday meaningful for your family.  Your family takes their cue from you, and no one will enjoy the holiday if you feel stressed.
• Delegate whatever you can. When a guest asks what they can bring, have a suggestion ready.  Be proactive about asking guests and family members to help.
• Do it the same way every year.  If you always serve the same dishes, use the same platters and set up the same way, so it becomes routine.
• If you’re a family that takes turns hosting holidays, avoid Passover like one of the ten plagues. Between all of the different courses and types of food, this is a holiday meal that’s very labor intensive to host.
• Although I always advocate ease and simplicity, the Easter baskets I see are filled with junk you don’t want in your house.  Consider filling your own baskets with some higher quality toys that might last longer than an Easter egg hunt.
• If you buy Easter baskets without the handle, they’re easier to store and may have some other uses after the holiday is done.
• Store holiday accessories in labeled boxes with lids.  Since these items are used only once a year, they don’t need to be accessible.
• Stock up for next year as soon as the holiday ends; that’s when you’ll find the best sales!

Happy Holidays!

What are some ways you simplify your family holiday celebrations?

Barbara Reich is a professional organizer based in New York, NY. Her tough love approach turns organization and clutter from chore to lifestyle. To find more tips from Barbara, please visit www.facebook.com/ or www.resourcefulconsultants.com

A homemade heart-shaped pizza will absolutely be a hit among the young ones. This is something that the kids can help with too. The best part is they will never even know it is healthy for them too.

Heart-Shaped Pizza Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 cup PLUS 2 tbsp warm water (110 degrees F)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups bread flour (can substitute all-purpose flour or WW flour)
• Your favorite pizza sauce
• 2% mozzarella cheese
• Your favorite veggie toppings *For meat use turkey pepperoni, sausage, and/or bacon.

Directions:

Tips For Strengthening Family Relationships at Dinner:

1. Involve kids in the preparation.  Meal time is bound to feel more stressful if you are doing it all solo.  There are tasks for kids of all ages – even my not quite two-year-old can help lay out the napkins and silverware on the table.  Not only will you get some help in the kitchen, the kids will love feeling involved.

Allison Ruth, mama to three hungry girls, blogs at Some the Wiser where she takes life as it comes and tries to learn a little something as she goes. Whether she’s baking bread, sewing, or contemplating the fate of socks gone missing in the laundry, she looks for the peace and creativity life offers to everyone who is paying attention. Living life deliberately isn’t easy, she admits, but it helps when you have good things to eat.

It is the same conversation between you and your husband every year. Which family will we share Thanksgiving lunch with and which family will we share Thanksgiving dinner with? It is my experience that no matter who my family has lunch with that family always feels slighted as if we are not spending the same amount of time with both families.

My husband and I decided that we needed to do what was best for our family. Well, in advance of the next Thanksgiving holiday, we each spoke with our families and let them know we would rotate the lunch and dinner schedule between families. So far it has worked out well. Both families know what to expect each year. It takes away any argument about where we will spend our time.

Rotating lunch and dinner schedules are just one way to ease the pressure of satisfying parents. Another option is to have a Thanksgiving dinner at your own home before or after Thanksgiving and invite both of your families. If everyone in the family (on either side) agreed, one family could have Thanksgiving on another day. This option works well for families that have members traveling into town.

The key is doing what works best for your family and allows you to enjoy the holiday.

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving and keep both sides of the family happy? How do you make sure you see both sides of the family during the holidays?

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Robin Greene is a mother of two, a wife and a kindergarten teacher. Robin enjoys spending time with her family and wants to have has much harmony as possible. During her spare time Robin enjoys freelance writing for mybabyclothes.com. Shop for the holidays and grab your little one the perfect baby clothes, maybe a tutu and matching baby headband for that holiday picture or a sweet baby hat to keep them warm this winter.

Fast forward many years to when we had kids. Being that we both loved milk, we naturally assumed that we would have milk-drinking kids. And, as planned, our oldest followed in our footsteps. But then, we had child number 2 and everything changed. He is a water boy! He can’t down a glass of milk to save his life. We scratched our heads and wondered what we could do to ensure he drank an adequate amount of milk.

8 Tips for Getting Kids to Drink Milk

Here’s some things that helped our kids drink more milk:

1. For kids that prefer water or another beverage, entice them to drink a small glass of milk before giving them their preferred drink.
2. Choose meals you can add milk to: cereal, cream of wheat, oatmeal, etc.
3. Add extra milk to their bowls of cereal.
4. Identify special snacks that are perfect with milk and offer only milk as the beverage with that food. Some desserts, for examples, go perfectly with milk. When we have brownies and chocolate chip cookies, my youngest guzzles the milk!
5. Don’t be 100% set on having your child drink milk alone. Find ways to serve beverages that have milk in them: shakes, smoothies, and even chocolate milk are ways to disguise the milk flavor if your kids absolutely don’t like it.
6. Model the behavior. Drink milk in front of your kids!
7. Explain the benefits of drinking milk to your kids.
8. Make it fun! Get big crazy straws, having milk drinking contests, offer rewards, and take pictures of your family with milk mustaches.

Now excuse me while I make my way down to the expo hall at BlogHer, where I’m excited to join the #gotmilk team, get a picture in my milk mustache, and hopefully, enjoy a big glass before diving into the BlogHer fun this weekend!

Want to follow the fun online? Visit http://search.twitter.com and type in #gotmilk #blogher11 and check out the Milk Mustache Campaign page on Facebook or @MilkMustache on Twitter.

What are your tips for getting your kids to drink more milk?

I always love to bring something just a little different when I am invited to a party.

The way I feel about food is the same way women feel about clothes—you never want to be caught wearing the same thing as someone and you want attention. I am an attention hog when it comes to my food. I love hearing their surprise and exclamations.

So, I am going to let you in on my little secret recipe, but I better never see you at a party I am attending—DEAL! You will get a lot of attention when your friends take a bite out of this exotic Sweet and Spicy Thai Salad.

This salad has a little of everything—the sweet from the pineapple, the spicy from the chilis, and the crunch from the cabbage and almonds. This is a sure fire way to get attention at your next get together.

Dressing

• 2 Tbs Sweet Chili Sauce
• 2 tsp Rice Vinegar
• 1 tsp Fresh Grated Ginger Root
• 1 tsp Fresh Minced Garlic
• 1 Tbs Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• Juice of one lime
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in serving bowl and whisk.

The Salad

• 2 cups cubed Pineapple
• 3 large Cucumbers, peeled, seeded and cubed
• 1 Chili Pepper minced (If you want to venture into the world of true Thai cooking look for a prik kee noo pepper, but be warned these little puppies pack a punch)
• 1 cup shredded Carrots
• 2 cups shredded Cabbage
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds

Add all the veggies to large mixing bowl and toss. Garnish with slivered almonds.

Pork BBQ Ingredients

• 5-6 pound Pork Picnic (aka Boston Butt)
• 4-5 Tbs your favorite BBQ dry rub (we like Head Country)

Instructions

• The night before, rub your butt (the pork one that is) liberally with the dry rub.
• Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge. Now is that easy or is that easy?
• The next morning, place the pork, fatty side down, in a crock pot.
• Cook on low 10-12 hours until fork tender.
• Once cooked, take two forks and pull apart. Shredding the pork.

The Drunken BBQ Sauce Ingredients

• 1 bottle of your favorite beer
• 1 small onion diced
• 1-2 Serrano peppers, diced (add more for a spicier sauce)
• 1Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup your favorite BBQ sauce (again we like Head Country)

Instructions

• In a skillet heat oil over medium heat.
• Add peppers and onion, cook till onions are soft and translucent.
• Add bottle of beer.
• Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer. Simmer till beer has evaporated by half.
• Add 1 cup of BBQ sauce, and bring back to a boil.
• Once it starts to boil again remove from heat and blend till smooth.

Simple yet flavorful pork picnic! Put some of this pork on fresh soft yeast rolls with a little drunken BBQ sauce for an melt in your mouth sandwich. Cole slaw, baked beans, and sweet tea – now you have a meal your family will love.

Which leads me to my next culinary venture—Mexican Stuffed Peppers.

Ingredients Needed

• 6 large Poblano Peppers
• 3 Roma tomatos, diced
• 2 jalapenos, diced
• 1 small sweet onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 links of chorizo sausage
• 1 pound very lean ground beef
• 2 cups mexican melthing cheese, shredded (monteray jack will also work)
• Salt and pepper to taste

How to Prepare

1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.
2. Remove Chorizo sausage from it’s casing.
3. In a large skillet over medium high heat, add onion, sausage, and ground beef.
4. Just before the meat is completely browned, add tomatoes, jalepenos, and garlic.
5. Finish browing, making sure you do not over cook and burn the garlic.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Finishing Touches

1. Cut a circle around the stem of each Pablano pepper.
2. Once cut, pull the stem out making sure toremove all the seeds.
3. After all peppers are hallowed out, place cut side up in an oven safe dish.
4. Spoon mixture in peppers, without packing tightly.
5. Once peppers are filled, place in preheated oven and bake 45 minutes.
6. Take out of oven and cover with shredded cheese.
7. Place back into oven and finish cooking for 15 more minutes or until the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown.

This recipe will have you looking at peppers a whole different way. Plus it is budget friendly way to get a healthy and nutrient packed meal. I suggest serving with some brown rice and black beans.