Sunny Side Up Nutrition

A cooking, nutrition and family feeding blog to simplify your life

Simple Tips For Cooking With Kids

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I hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day! Each year I usually bake cookies with the girls. Click here for the recipe for the Valentine’s cookies we made last year. Today, Ellie and I made sugar cookies! Baking is just one simple way to involve kids in cooking. You can measure out all of the ingredients ahead of time and have your child help cut out the cookies or sprinkle on the sugar to keep things simple.

The thought of cooking with kids, especially young ones can feel overwhelming.  But it doesn’t have to be complicated. You can let them just stir something, or sit on the floor with an empty pot and spoon and “cook” on their own or simply unwrap a stick of butter. As they get older and begin cooking on their own, things can get pretty messy! This is a great opportunity for them to take on the cleanup process, too.

Cooking with kids
It’s a bit hard to see, but note all the flour on the floor and the Learning Tower. We got so much use out of ours.
(This picture of Caroline is from about 13 years ago!)

Tips For Cooking With Kids

Kitchen safety

Safety in the kitchen is often a big concern for parents.  Think about age appropriate kitchen activities. Use the back burners on your stove and keep knives and other sharp utensils out of reach of young children.

You’ll want to give children activities that are safe and age appropriate.  For instance, your toddler/preschooler isn’t going to cook anything on the stove or use a sharp knife.  

Letting children help in the kitchen provides a nice opportunity to teach them about kitchen safety, following rules and even math.

Put spinach in a bowl

Toddlers

They’ll need lots of supervision and something safe to stand on or in (we used this Learning Tower when Caroline and Ellie were youngl).

  • Pretend cook – just give them a spoon and a bowl and let them sit on the floor and bang away
  • Rinse fruits, veggies, beans
  • Stir dry or wet ingredients that aren’t hot
  • Whisk dry or wet ingredients that aren’t hot
  • Help measure wet or dry ingredients that aren’t hot
  • Put ingredients in a bowl
  • Tear herbs or lettuce
  • Brush on oil or egg wash with a pastry brush
  • Toss the salad
  • Use a cookie cutter to cut cookies
Anna’s daughter helped crack the eggs.

Preschoolers

  • All that toddlers do PLUS:
  • Fill muffin tins with muffin or cupcake batter
  • Pour cold ingredients
  • Get out pans, bowls utensils and ingredients
  • Let them cut soft foods like strawberries or butter with a butter knife or one of these knives designed for young children (Put a damp towel under the cutting board so it doesn’t shift around).
  • Crack eggs
  • Separate eggs
  • Roll or knead dough
  • Top a pizza or fill burritos or quesadillas
  • Mash avocado with a fork or potato masher
  • Counter clean up
  • Snap green beans
  • Shuck corn
  • Unwrap butter or cream cheese
This is Ellie about 9 years ago concentrating hard on licking the spatula!

Elementary Age

  • All of the above PLUS:
  • Read the recipe and get all the ingredients out
  • Peel vegetables and fruits with a peeler
  • Make toast
  • Use a mixer with supervision
Assembling strawberry shortcakes. Yum!

Tween and Teens

Once kids reach this age group and they have all those years of cooking with you, they’ll really take off. Teach them to safely use a sharp knife. At this stage they can help with making meals on a regular basis, even. They still need reminders of kitchen safety (tweens especially). And there might still be a big mess when they’re done.

Using a small sharp knife to cut butter

What’s Your Earliest Memory of Cooking?

One of my earliest and fondest memories was in preschool when we cooked lunch for our parents.  We made tomato soup and grilled cheese (or maybe it was open face toasted cheese sandwiches.) I have a memory of standing on a chair so I could have my turn at stirring the soup. I’m sure that’s where my love of cooking began! If you’d like to read more about the benefits of cooking with kids click here to read a previous post.

Tips for cooking with kids
Stir mushrooms (in 2005)!

What are your favorite ways to cook with kids? And how do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? We love to hear from our readers!

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

This recipe is adapted from Maida Heatter’s Cookies.

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Maida Heatter’s Sugar Cookies

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport
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Description

Bake these yummy cookies up either crispy or soft.  

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt

6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 Tablespoon milk

Additional granulated sugar for topping

Instructions

Gently whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

Cut the softened butter into about tablespoon size pieces. Place them in the bowl of an electric mixer and cream using the paddle attachment.  Then add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat for a minute or two. 

Add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition.  Then add the milk and beat until combined (just a few seconds). Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  

Remove the dough from the mixer bowl and divide the dough in two.  Wrap each half in parchment paper or wax paper.  Chill for 1-2 hours.

Preheat your over to 400 F.  

Roll out the dough on a floured surface using a lightly floured rolling pin.  Roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.  Use whatever shape cookie cutter you’d like.  

Place the cutouts on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake for 5-10 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your cookies.  

Notes

Sometimes we make these thick and bake them on the short side so they stay soft.  Then we frost them.

And sometimes we roll them thinner, sprinkle them with colored sugar and bake them a little longer for a nice crisp sugar cookie.

Easy Black Beans and Rice

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about “go-to meals.” I define “go-to meals” as meals that we typically have the ingredients for in our pantry and meals I can make without planning and make quickly. I imagine you know the scenario: It’s dinnertime. Dinner hasn’t been started and you either don’t have a plan, the plan would take too long to get on the table, or you planned an easy meal because you knew it would be a hectic evening.

black beans and rice

“Go-To Meals” Are Different for Different People

Last week, Elizabeth wrote a follow up post, “Go-To Meals – Part 2,” with her family’s “go to meals.” We got a kick out of each of our lists, because many on her list would probably be on my “standard meals” list. They are not “go to meals” for me, because I would think they would take too much effort for me to make. This highlights how we all have different skill levels and comfort in the kitchen and, thus, some meals seem harder for some than others.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, cooking and planning meals takes a bit more effort for me. I very much value it, but it’s something I have to be constantly working on. Elizabeth is an amazing cook and makes cooking look easy. She actually taught me how to chop vegetables when we were in graduate school. Her ability to be calm in the kitchen has helped me learn simple skills to make cooking a little easier for me. For example, I am no longer intimidated to make a really yummy salad. Putting together a salad has become a “go to side” for me. When, before, I would have felt like it was “too hard” or that it wouldn’t be very good. Having more experiences in the kitchen and having simple skills can make cooking feel a bit easier and can expand your list of “go-to meals.” However, the fact is, we all have our own strengths and what may be a “go to meal” for you may not be for me, and vice versa.

“Go-To” Black Beans and Rice

After my post about “go-to meals,” a reader asked me for my Black Beans and Rice recipe. This is a super easy recipe (for me) and something we have been making for years. This is a recipe I share often with my clients.

First, open 2 cans of black beans and pour them in a colander in the sink and rinse. I let them sit there awhile. Then, put 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium sized pot. At this point I don’t actually measure any of the items. 4 tablespoons is about four circles around the pot. Add 4 garlic cloves, minced and sauté for 1 minute. I usually use a garlic press such as this one. However, when I made this last week, I didn’t have any garlic and made it without it! Add the beans, 2 bay leaves, 1 cup of salsa, and 2 teaspoons of cumin.

Stir and simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve over rice.

We like to serve with shredded cheddar cheese and diced avocado and each person can top their bowl as they’d like. I’ve been recently making rice in my Instant Pot. It feels like one less pot to attend to during the busy dinnertime. I put the rice and water in the pot and then just set it.

The beans can also be very good with tortilla chips or inside a tortilla, as a burrito. This is not authentic black beans and rice. But quick and very easy!

This post includes an Amazon affiliate link.

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Easy Black Beans and Rice

  • Author: Anna Lutz
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Description

Simmered Black Beans with Tex-Mex feel. Very easy “go to meal” 

Ingredients

4 Tbs olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup salsa

2 bay leaves

2 tsp cumin

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a medium sized sauce pan. 

2. Add garlic and saute for 1 minute

3. Add beans, salsa, bay leaves and cumin

4. Stir and simmer fo 10 minutes. 

5. Remove bay leaves and serve over rice

How to Pursue Movement for Wellness, Not Weight Loss

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By: Brittany Guerin, MS

Guest Post Writer

As a fitness professional, I see how much diet culture infiltrates the fitness industry. I can’t look at fitness marketing or a gym billboard without exclusively seeing bodies that represent the thin or muscular “ideal.” It’s no wonder fitness can trigger over-exercising, eating disorders, and feelings of body dissatisfaction. Often, when we workout or go to the gym, we think we are doing something good for our bodies, but, sometimes, we end up feeling worse than when we started. (This makes me very upset with parts of the fitness industry!)

The good news is, it doesn’t HAVE to be this way. I am a fitness professional and promote movement for wellness, not for weight loss. I’m a firm believer that movement can be extremely healing if we are doing it the right way, for the right reasons.

Not Everything Your Fitness Instructor Says is Good for You

First, we need to take a critical look at the messages we are receiving from the gym, fitness instructor, yoga teacher, #fitspo, or other components of the fitness industry. Often, this even includes comments from friends and family.

If a message involves movement to burn calories, to earn what you will eat or drink later, to punish your body, or if you leave a workout feeling beaten up and inadequate, that is a really good sign to stay away from that environment. For a list of 10 fitness messages to ignore in social media, check out this blog post. There’s also a really great podcast on #fitspo from “Stuff Mom Never Told You” that critically analyzes when fitspo is unhealthy.

Movement for the Right Reasons

As I said, movement is SO amazing for our minds and bodies. Instead of focusing on breaking down and shrinking our bodies, let’s focus on everything movement does to build us up. Here are just some of the benefits of movement:

  • Improved sleep
  • Increased energy
  • Stronger immune system
  • Maintained or increased bone density
  • Reduced chronic disease
  • Improved mood
  • Decreased stress

Notice I said nothing about weight loss. How much we weigh tells us nothing about our health. If you’re interested in more information on Health At Every Size®, I wrote a blog post on it or you can go directly to their website for tons of resources.

Final Tips on Pursuing Movement for Wellness

  1. Focus on what movement adds to your life: endorphin rush, stress relief, being with friends, sleep aid, etc. (Scroll up for all the amazing benefits of movement!)
  2. Avoid trigger phrases like exercise as punishment, exercise to burn calories, exercise to burn off food or earn food later.
  3. Avoid instructors who mention these trigger words and phrases. If you hear these phrases, perhaps let the instructor know how it made you feel or email the manager of the studio. You are not being rude, you’re just passing on valuable information! This is how we slowly change culture…
  4. Report instagram posts that mention these things so they won’t show up in your feed anymore. (Click the 3 dots on the top right box of the post, click “report”, and click “it’s spam”)
  5. Add in more gentle and brief movement. This could be walking for 5 minutes or take a stretch break if you have been sitting for awhile.
  6. Avoid really intense workouts until you feel like movement does not trigger a weight loss mindset, disordered eating or disordered exercise.
  7. Avoid working out in front of mirrors. Focus more on mind-body awareness and tuning into how movement makes you feel.
  8. Incorporate more gentle, non-heated yoga where you can really slow down and pay attention to your breath. This does wonders for your stress!

For more information, please head over to my website. You can also send me questions by contacting me here. I look forward to connecting with you and wish you the best on your wellness (sans weight loss mindset) journey!

About Brittany Guerin:

Brittany Guerin is an anti-diet movement and wellness coach. Using principles from Health at Every Size, she promotes body kindness, movement for wellness, mental health awareness, and self-care. In May 2019, she will finish her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health and open a private practice in Raleigh, NC. Check out her website for more information! 

Follow her on Instagram: @britguerin

“Go To Meals” – Part 2

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Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Hi!  Elizabeth here.  I’m calling this post “Go-To Meals” Part 2.  Anna shared her family’s “go-to meals” in her post last week.  Read it here.  I’m definitely adopting their yearly tradition–Anna, Dan and their children spend some time on their car trip home from visiting Dan’s parents for New Years to talk about what meals they’ve been eating during the year.   Anna writes down the list so she can refer to it during the year. I just love this idea! I also love the way Anna and Dan divided the list into categories that made complete sense to me. Some of my “Go-To Meals” might fall into Anna and Dan’s Standard Meals.  A good example that everyone’s meals and how they approach food are different.

My family’s current “go-to meals”  

There are definitely some that have fallen off the list over the years.  I plan to bring them back into our rotation and share them with you in a future post.

Meals don’t have to be complicated to be nourishing or to provide an opportunity to gather together to eat.

What does this list tell me?  That I rely A LOT on broccoli and salad as sides.  Perhaps it’s time to branch out a bit!? I’m going to refer to Anna’s post here on simple sides when I’m planning meals over the coming weeks.

One of My Family’s “Go-To Meals”: Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Everyone in my house likes a version of this soup.

My 11 year old, Ellie, only likes the broth.  The bowl she serves herself is often mostly broth with just a few beans.  Caroline, my 14 year old, loves this soup except for the kale. The bowl she serves herself is typically the complete opposite of Ellie’s bowl.  Caroline loves the beans and prefers less broth. I don’t worry that neither likes the kale. The kale cooks in the broth, so some of the nutrients from the kale find their way into the tasty, parmesan infused broth.  And eventually, they might end up trying the kale again.

I’ve made this soup for years.  It’s inspired by/adapted from a pasta recipe, Orecchiette with Shell Beans, Proscuitto, and Parmigiano-Reggiano in Alfred Portale Simple Pleasures: Home Cooking from the Gotham Bar and Grill’s Acclaimed Chef.

It’s quick and easy.  And I typically have the ingredients on hand.  It can truly be made in 30 minutes!

Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

At some point, I decided to change the recipe up a bit.  I began adding a lot more broth, a hunk of parmesan cheese (this gives the broth a lovely rich flavor), and black eyed peas.  

And it slowly transformed into soup, rather than a sauce for pasta.

Sometimes, I serve this over polenta–not as a “go-to meal” though!  Served over polenta is a great option for a nice dinner and it’s great for a crowd, too.   During a few Christmases at Chad’s parents (there’s always a crowd), I made a big batch of the soup and served it over polenta along with a salad. Then we used the leftovers as soup for lunches.  

Here it is served over pasta.  I love serving it over orecchiette (which means little ears) pasta because the broth pools in the “little ear” shape.  I alternate between the three because we have one person in our foursome who doesn’t like polenta and one who prefers it as the stand-alone soup.    

If you’d like to make this without the bacon, I’d suggest adding fresh basil or a couple of tablespoons of pesto to the soup just before serving.

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Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport
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Description

A great weeknight soup that doubles as a tasty ragu over pasta or polenta.  Serve it over polenta for a nice weekend or special occasion meal.

Ingredients

4 slices of bacon cut into small strips

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

3 cans black eyed peas, drained and rinsed

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

1 2 x 3 inch hunk of parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed

2 cups kale, washed and torn

1 ½ teaspoon salt

pepper

 

Instructions

  1. Stack the 4 slices of bacon and cut into strips crosswise.  Place the bacon in a large pot over medium-medium low heat. Cook the bacon until it is crisped–about 10 minutes.
  2. While the bacon is cooking, peel and chop the garlic; drain and rinse the beans in a colander, and rinse and tear the kale; and cut off a piece of parmesan cheese.
  3. Once the bacon is crisp, add the chopped garlic and cook 2 minutes.  Next add the beans, stock, water, parmesan hunk and salt and pepper.
  4. Bring to a boil.  Then turn the heat down to medium and simmer the soup for about 15 minutes.  Next add the peas and kale and cook for about 5 more minutes.
  5. Serve as a soup or serve over pasta for a quick and easy tasty weeknight meal.  

 

Notes

For a weekend meal or for a large group, I sometimes serve it over polenta.

 

“Go To Meals” – Your Plan B

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Each year on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, my family takes a 9 hour car trip home to North Carolina from Ohio through the mountains of West Virginia. While the kids are watching movies in the back of the minivan, my husband and I usually talk about the coming weeks, months and year. It’s a moment of calm after the months of busyness leading up to the holidays. We review our calendars, work plans, childcare arrangements and often our conversation turns to what we want to be doing differently or better. This always seems to include the topic of food and cooking, something we both value but have to work hard at doing well. This year, as we were rounding the curves of the mountains, Dan suggested that we make a list of all of the dinners we like to make, because we tend to get in a rut. We make the same 4-5 meals over and over again, and forget about certain meals we used to enjoy. We thought if we could keep our list handy, right inside our pantry, then we could refer to it when we are meal planning and grocery shopping. (Get our simple meal planning template at the top of our home page.)

So, we pulled out my little anchor journal I have in my work bag and found that we made a similar list 365 days ago. It’s beginning to be a tradition, this time of year, to feel like we could be doing better with meal planning, but we keep working at it and haven’t given up yet.  The kids paused their movie, and we brainstormed all of the meals we like to make for dinner.

We divided the list into 4 categories:

  • Go-to Meals – Meals that we typically have the ingredients for and can make without planning and quickly
  • Make Ahead/Slow Cooker Meals – Meals we can make on the weekend to have during the week or put in the slow cooker on a weekday morning if we know there’s a busy evening
  • Standard Meals – Meals that require some planning and cooking, but I usually keep meals to 30 – 40 minutes tops
  • Special Occasion Meals – Meals that we like but we’d never make during the work week.
Pizza

In future posts, I’ll expand on each of these categories. To start, though, I think it’s important to have a list of “go to meals” that we usually have the ingredients for and are easy to get on the table in 15-20 minutes.  We are all so busy and juggling work, activities, trying to keep the house clean, school and appointments. It’s easy to fall into black and white thinking about dinners. Sometimes it feels like there are 2 options — either cook something with a recipe or we don’t have time, or haven’t planned, so we order take out. There’s a lot of gray area between these two examples. Having a list of “go to meals” can help you have an easy plan for busy nights, but also are great to turn to when your plan isn’t going to work for whatever reason. They are your Plan B. These aren’t gourmet meals, but meals that are nourishing and you can make at any moment and know you’ve put together a nourishing meal for you and/or your family.

black beans and rice

This is our list of  “Go To Meals:”

  • Tacos (with fruit and bagged kale slaw or veggies and dip)
  • Spaghetti and Frozen Meatballs (with a salad or broccoli)
  • Spaghetti Carbonara (with fruit or a salad)
  • TJs Mandarin Chicken (with broccoli and rice)
  • Boxed or stove top Mac and Cheese (with broccoli or fruit)
  • Pizza – We keep premade pizza shells in the pantry (add a salad or fruit)
  • Black Beans and Rice (add avocado if the stars align)
  • Frozen eggplant parmigiana (with salad or veggies and dip and pasta)
  • “Brinner” – toast or waffles, eggs and/or bacon/sausage, fruit
  • Ravioli (kept in the freezer) (with fruit or salad)
  • Quesadilla (with salsa and fruit)
  • Tomato Soup and grilled cheese (apple slices)
  • Nachos – We make ours with tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, black beans, and leftover meat and avocado, if available

When I’m headed in the door at 5:30 pm with hungry kids and I’ve forgotten to put the food in the slow cooker, or I just don’t have the energy to make the meal that I planned, these are meals I can pull together quickly.  I think it’s helpful for anyone to have their list of “go to meals” so that we know we have a back up. Just knowing we have a Plan B can be reassuring. What are your family’s “go to meals?” Your list will be different than ours. Would it help to make a list so you know you have several nutritious meals to “go to” in a pinch?

Tomato Soup

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts – Our Holiday Tradition

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Just before Thanksgiving, Anna and I shared some of our family holiday traditions. These Brussels sprouts are part of our Thanksgiving AND Christmas meal traditions. The process of removing the cores and seperating the leaves takes awhile. But it’s well worth it! And Chad and I enjoy the time together. Sometimes people help with the process and sometimes it’s just us. Either way, we enjoy making this dish.

If you’d prefer not to core and leaf the Brussels sprouts, you can simply feed them through your food processor using the shredder attachment. It’s not the exact same dish, but still works well and tastes great! Either way you decide to prepare them, cook them until they are bright green and some of them just being to brown.

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Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport
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Description

Even Brussels sprout naysayers will like these tender, sauteed Brussels.

Ingredients

2 bags (or 1 branch) of Brussels sprouts

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Cut the end off the Brussels sprouts.  Then, using a sharp paring knife, carefully carve out the core.  Once you’ve cored all the Brussels sprouts you can begin separating the leaves into a large bowl.  (You can do this a day or two ahead and cover the bowl and leave it in the refrigerator until ready to saute them).

Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a large saute pan and heat over medium-high heat.  Add the Brussels sprout leaves and salt and pepper to taste.  Saute for about 10 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.  Serve hot or at room temperature.

Tips for Feeding Kids and Teens During the Holidays

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The holiday season is certainly in full swing and a long break from school is fast approaching. Feeding children can take a lot of effort when things are in a “normal routine.” Traveling or having family visit can be an added challenge with feeding, especially with picky eaters. Then, you add in irregular meal times, erratic sleep schedules, lots of exciting yummy foods, new challenging foods, and a man entering the house in the middle of the night and leaving presents! This can certainly be a recipe for lots of fun, but also lots of stress around kids’ eating.

The Scenario

I imagine you’ve been there or can relate: You’re at a holiday dinner. There are appetizers out and your child is hungry because she hasn’t eaten since lunchtime, because you’ve been at various holiday events. (Not to mention that she hasn’t napped in 4 days). She fills up on pre-dinner snacks and then it’s time to sit down to dinner.  Your extended family member tells your child she needs to eat or she won’t get cookies later. You cringe inside. (You’ve been reading Sunny Side Up Nutrition and haven’t been using food as rewards.) The family member then looks at you and says they can make your child something different since she isn’t eating. You’re thinking, “She just ate pretzels, cheese and crackers and mixed nuts, she’s full.”  You want everyone to go back to eating and chatting and take the focus off of your child’s eating. That pressure can feel overwhelming and sometimes feel like a judgment of your parenting, even if that’s not the intention. …

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Our Favorite Cookbooks – The 4th and Final Gift Guide in Our Series

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Gift Guides

I don’t know about you, but I love gift guides.  They give me new ideas and they’re just fun to read.   We’re on a gift list roll right now!  This is our 4th and final gift list in our series.  Click these links to read the previous guides if you missed them or want to revisit them: 13 Favorite Kitchen Essentials That Make Great Gifts, Nutrition and Body Books for Parents and Kids and 7 Nutrition and Body Books for Adults.  We hope ours have helped you find some great gifts for loved ones or for yourself.

Cookbook Love

Anyone who has been to my house has seen my shelves of cookbooks (and there are even more on shelves in the basement). I absolutely love cookbooks! I read them like novels. There’s always a stack next to my bed sitting amidst the other books I’m reading. A babysitter gave me my first cookbook when I was 9 or 10. I still have it! Our Favorite Cookbooks

You can always learn something new when you open up a cookbook. A great cookbook will teach you to cook with easy to follow instructions and a reasonable number of easy to find ingredients. (There are great cookbooks that teach challenging techniques that include recipes with lots of ingredients, but that’s not what this guide is about). A cookbook can also offer a trip to new parts of the world, history lessons, and even some science. Cookbooks offer opportunities for creativity – combining taste, texture, and colors in new or different ways. In great cookbooks, each author’s writing style and the photography or drawings also pull you in. Wonderful cookbooks will make you feel inspired and empowered to cook.

Our Current Favorite Cookbooks

For this post, I decided to stick with just a few recommendations for cookbooks that make cooking accessible. I’ve also included a few that delve into cooking that’s not quite as simple, but fun for anyone who enjoys cooking. It was hard to narrow them down!

Cookbooks for the New or Experienced Cook

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

 Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

This book is the first on the list, because it’s my current favorite.  I love everything about this book!  The first half of the book is divided into 4 sections that correspond to the 4 words of the title. You’ll learn how each element works and how to use them in your cooking. The illustrations are more intricate than those you find in most cookbooks. In “How to Use This Book,” Nosrat writes that the choice to use illustrations instead of photos is to prevent you from feeling like there’s only one way for a dish to look.  If you’re interested in food and the science of cooking and want to learn the essential elements, get this book!   Most of the recipes are easy to follow with just a few ingredients.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Netflix episodes, (you can watch the trailer here) make sure you put this at the top of your list.  This 4 part series warms my heart.  I know that might seem hard to believe, but it’s such a pleasure to watch.  

Our Favorite Cookbooks - 4th and Final Gift GuideHow to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

This is one of Anna and her husband, Dan’s, go-to cookbooks. Anna loves the book because everything is explained in a straightforward way. The recipes are simple and have just a few ingredients. Dan likes the book because the recipes don’t require buying unusual ingredients that are only used once and then end up sitting in the refrigerator for ages.  

Our Favorite Cookbooks - 4th and Final Gift Guide in Our SeriesHow to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

I love this book because it’s filled with easy to follow techniques and a ton of ideas for vegetarian meals.  Throughout the book, Bittman provides lists like “39 Vegetable and Legume Dishes That Can be Tossed with Pasta” and “39 Dishes That Can Be Stir-Fried with Asian Noodles” and the page numbers where you can find these easy recipes. These are just 2 of the many useful lists that direct you to recipes throughout the book. If you want to own only one cookbook about basic vegetarian cooking you can’t go wrong with this one. …

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Gift Ideas: Nutrition & Body Books for Adults

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Are you looking for a gift with a theme of body positivity, self care, or leaving diets behind? We hope you enjoyed our first post with a list of books for parents, caregivers and kids that would make great gifts. We’ve now pulled together a list of our favorite nutrition and body books for adults. There’s so much media out there telling us that we need to do more and that we’re not enough. These books strive to be the antithesis of that. Do you or someone on your list need a bit more self focus or TLC? Would you like to spread the non-diet message this holiday season?  Maybe, introduce or reintroduce someone on your list to the idea that controlling your body or making yourself smaller doesn’t solve problems. Or, buy one of these fabulous books for yourself and focus on your own self care next year.

7 Nutrition and Body Books for Adults:

1. Eating Instinct by: Virginia Sole-Smith Sole-Smith became interested in how we learn to eat the way we do, when her own infant daughter stopped eating. She realized that so many of us struggle with eating and set out to understand why. This book asks three important questions: How did we learn to eat this way? Why is it so hard to feel good about food? And how can we make it better?  It is so refreshing for someone outside of the eating disorders field to fully “get” the complexities of food, nutrition and why people eat the way they do.

2. Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight  by: Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor Linda Bacon, the author of Health at Every Size, co-wrote this book that is powerful and eye-opening!  It’s a quicker and easier read than Bacon’s first book and breaks down both the research, but also importance, of treating people with respect and kindness, including ourselves. This is a great book for anyone who is ready to leave diets behind and wants to understand why weight does not define health.

         

3. Intuitive Eating book or workbook by: Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole Intuitive Eating helps the reader break free from diet culture and return to using internal cues.  The authors published The Intuitive Eating Workbook in 2016 and it has been a fabulous resource with actionable steps.

4. EveryBody Yoga: Let Go of the Fear, Get on the Mat, Love Your Body by: Jessamyn Stanley  This book, complete with fabulous photos of yoga poses for the reader to be able to learn, is the first of its kind. You see many different bodies in the photos and it is certainly free of body based or diet talk, as many “fitness” books include. Stanley, a native North Carolinian, shares her own journey into the yoga field.  

5. Your Body is Not An Apology – Sonya Renee Taylor During a time when the world feels so unjust and unkind, Taylor offers the concept that radical self-love as a place to start to not only change our relationship with our own body, but also can be a powerful catalyst for change in our world.  Taylor challenges to reader to leave behind shame and not apologize for the powerful body you have.

6. Eating in the Light of the Moon by: Anita Johnson This book, first published in 1996, uses metaphors and stories to help the reader investigate their relationship with food and weight.  This is one of my very favorite books and truly a gem to have on one’s bedside table.

7. Mindful Eating Workbook by: Vincci Tsui  This brand new book can be preordered now. Written by an expert HAES Registered Dietitian in the field, this workbook is sure to be a fabulous resource for my clients. The cover looks beautiful and will make a very special gift.  I’v preordered mine!

Do you have one of these books? We’d love to hear what your favorite book is and how it has helped you.

*Sunny Side Up Nutrition is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the books listed above are affiliate links.  Thank you for supporting our efforts to promote positive relationships with food.

Gift Ideas: Nutrition & Body Books for Parents and Kids

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If you’ve been to my house, you can see that books are something my family loves to give and receive.  Books can be a personal gift that someone can use and go back to over and over. Elizabeth and I often get asked about food and nutrition book recommendations from clients, friends and social media followers. We’ve pulled together 2 lists of our favorite feeding, nutrition, and body image books to give as gifts. This post includes books for parents and kids. Look for a Part 2 post in the next week with books for adults about developing or continuing a healthy relationship with food and your body.

Books for People that Care for Children:

1. Child of Mine or Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter: Do you know someone who is either expecting a baby or a family that may be interested in learning more about how to take the stress out of feeding? Child of Mine is great for a new or expectant parent and leads the reader through feeding from birth. Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family may be a good gift for a family of young to older children. It also supports parents in establishing the Division of Responsibility in Eating and includes easy recipes to get dinner on the table. My favorite thing about these books is that they decrease pressure and stress on parents, when many “self help” books may leave someone feeling like they have a big “to do” list.

2. Love Me, Feed Me: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Ending the Worry about Weight, Picky Eating, Power Struggles and More by: Katja Rowell: This book, about feeding children, is easy to read and implement. Satter’s Division of the Responsibility is present throughout and Rowell further translates feeding into doable steps. It is specifically written for adoptive parents, but I recommend this book to anyone feeding children.

3. Born to Eat by: Wendy Jo Peterson and Leslie Schilling: Born to Eat is a fabulous book about child led weaning for a parent of a baby getting ready to transition to eating solids. However, this book is also a guide on how the whole family can approach food, weight and bodies from a weight neutral perspective. This is a resource that can be used for many years to come.

4. Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World by: Ana Homayoun As a parent of a 6th grader, I’m finding myself being less concerned about how I feed my daughter and more focused on how I handle electronics. I love Homayoun’s approach to how to think about teens’ use of electronics, using a wellness model. This is a great resource!

Children’s Books About How Awesome Bodies Are:

5. Shapesville by: Andy Mills and Becky Osborn: This is a picture book for young children (preschool) that highlights that people have different sizes, shapes, colors and talents. Talking to children about their own unique talents can model what is truly important. The book includes discussion questions for parents and educators.

6. Listening to My Body by: Gaby Garcia and Ying Hui Tan: Elementary aged children enjoy this book about listening to the very wise signals of our bodies.  When so many messages we receive is about controlling or overriding messages from our bodies, it’s awesome to reinforce the wisdom of our bodies to kids.

7. I like Myself by: Karen Beaumont and David Catrow  This is a fun and important picture book about self esteem.  It encourages kids to love and accept themselves just as they are!

Non-Diet, Body Positive Books for Tweens/Teens:

8. Celebrate Your Body (And It’s Changes, too) by: Sonya Renee Taylor  I bought this book for my daughter as soon as it was released. I loved the feeling of handing her a book about puberty that I knew had images and discussion of all different bodies and no diet talk!

9. Coming in April: The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens: A Non-Diet, Body Positive Approach to Building a Healthy Relationship with Food by: Elyse Reach You can preorder it now!  I can’t wait to have this as a resource for teens!

10. Conquer Picky Eating for Teens and Adults by: Jenny McGlothlin and Katya Rowell  I have already purchased 3 copies of this workbook for me and my clients. This workbook walks the reader through thinking about what has influenced the way they eat and helps them takes steps forward.

I love giving and receiving books as gifts.  What are your favorite books for parents, kids and caregivers about food, nutrition, bodies and self care?  We’d love to hear about your gift ideas.

The links in this post link to items at Amazon.com.  We are members of the Amazon Affiliate program which means we receive payment from Amazon when our readers purchase items from links in this post.