Frustrated that your kids won’t eat their greens? Ever try drinking them? Green Smoothies are all the rage for a reason and this drink treat may just be the answer to your prayers.

This Green Monster Smoothie recipe, also featured in my book, is my fool proof solution. Get your kids making these healthy and delicious drinks with you and when it comes to mealtime, green may start being their most favorite color!

On a vegetable nutrition ranking, spinach is way up at the top in terms of vitamin and mineral richness. Packed with Vitamins K and A, magnesium and folate — just to name just a few — there’s no doubt why Popeye ate so much of the stuff.

Spinach gives this delicious drink a beautiful green color as well as a mild, sweet flavor that will surprise you. With the added (healthy) sweetness from banana and honey or agave, this smoothie will be the perfect treat for your kids and their friends this summer.

There have been plenty of sleep deprived mornings where I’ve got to get everyone out the door to school and work and wearily reach for my box of Kodiak Cakes whole wheat pancake mix. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kodiak Cakes. They are easy to make, made from wholesome ingredients and turn out awesome pancakes every time. But at almost $6 on box, I resolved to come up with my own simple, make-ahead mix that I could keep in the pantry.

It took me a bit of trail and error, but I’m finally over the moon — I mean really over the moon — with this recipe. It actually may be one of my favorite weelicious recipes because of how versatile it is: I used the mix to make waffles this morning and the kids actually said they were the best I’d ever made!

This recipe makes a bit more mix than what you would normally find in a box of the pre-made stuff, but that’s a plus, especially if you have a house full of pancake lovers. Just keep the mix in a sealed container and anytime you want to make these, just add an egg, milk, a touch of oil and a scoop of mix for whole wheat pancakes or waffles that are sure to please!

You know some days are going to be packed — so packed there’s hardly time to eat breakfast, much less cook breakfast. Enter make-the-night-before meals!

Back when I first had Kenya, I discovered my crock pot, a wedding gift that had sat unopened in our closet through two moves. After years collecting dust, it quickly endeared itself to me and became my best friend in the kitchen. It’s so easy and efficient to use, I try to find a way to make everything in it, including oatmeal.

With my husband leaving for work before 6am and the kids and I not eating our breakfast until around 7:30 am, I loved the idea of preparing something the night before. No matter what time each of us fed ourselves in the morning, the meal would seem totally fresh and special.

As hard as this all may sound, it was one of the easiest breakfasts I’ve ever made. All I did was toss steel cut oats and the other ingredients into the crock pot, stir it up and the next morning we were enjoying a perfect nutritious meal to start our day. The added benefit was that the kitchen smelled so amazing in the morning that even the kids stopped to remark, “what’s for breakfast, Mom?”

I’ve now made this recipe five days in a row, so there must be something about it that everyone loves!

Kids go through different motivational stages. Right now my kids are into things that makes them feel smart or strong and that includes food. For example, if I put something like roast carrots on their plates and they linger uneaten, all I have to say is, “they’ll help you see better,” and they’re gobbled up in a jiff.

All too often, kids (and many adults) aren’t aware of the important health benefits certain foods offer their bodies and minds. Yet when we start to understand the positive effects different foods have on our bodies, we tend to make better choices, and in many ways, start to enjoy eating more.

We’re big Greek yogurt eaters in my house. Greek yogurt is packed with protein, calcium and most contain natural probiotics which are great for our digestive health and can even boost our immune systems. Combine it with two other super foods like blueberries and walnuts, omega-3 and fiber-packed flax seeds, and a few other naturally sweet ingredients like apples and honey and you’ve got a true power breakfast that will give your body and mind a big boost first thing in the morning — when you need it most.

How smart do you feel now knowing that? And to make you feel even smarter, try my Brainy Breakfast recipe.

This week we’re going to talk about breakfast. We all know it’s important, but some times it just sneaks up on us. You would think that for someone who cooks as much as I do, I would have a fridge full of food 24/7. Although I do try and keep my larder well stocked, there are many weeks when I’m running around non-stop and don’t make it to the grocery to pick up our every day essentials.

Still, there are three things that I ALWAYS have on hand; eggs, tortillas and cheese. They’re all relatively inexpensive, last for weeks if properly refrigerated, and combined, make the perfect breakfast meal that will send your kids off to school with tons of energy for their day.

I had originally tried making this Breakfast Quesadilla with scrambled eggs, but when it came time to eat it, huge chunks of eggs kept falling out of the tortillas all over the floor. No one dislikes clean up more than me, so I went back to the drawing board and experimented — this time cooking the eggs like a thin omelet, topping each side with melted cheese and then sandwiching it all between two tortillas (if you want to watch how to do it, here’s a cooking video for this recipe that walks you through the simple process in detail).

My kids love this recipe so much, it’s gone into heavy morning breakfast rotation. That’s good news for me, especially for tomorrow since I just checked and my fridge is practically bare again!