#joyinthekitchen

St. Patty’s Day celebrations usually call to mind pub crawls, pints of green beer and parade routes jammed with mischievous leprechauns. But if you’re thinking about celebrating in a more family friendly way, we’ve found plenty of easy ideas for having food and fun with the kids.

The Eating of the Greens (and Reds, Yellows, Blues and Oranges)

Corned beef and cabbage will always be a mainstay of the St. Patrick’s Day table, but given the “greenness” of the occasion, it’s a good time to get kids into the spirit by introducing new veggies and fruits.

Have a Green Smoothie Bar

Get kids interested in trying a wider variety of fruits and vegetables with yummy smoothies. Just let them “order” their own custom smoothie creation by having them pick from green vegetables like spinach or kale, various colorful fruits (fresh or frozen), fruit juices and nut milks. Then blend their concoctions to make a “green shake” (wink, wink) that’s as delicious as it is healthy.

Create a Rainbow Fruit Tray

Set out an array of colorful, bite-size fruits like orange smiles, kiwi, blueberries, strawberries and grapes in an arc to create a rainbow-themed fruit tray. If desired, at one end, add a “Pot of Gold” filled with pineapple or mango chunks.

Set Up a Potato Station

Nothing says “Irish” quite like a spud. Bake up a batch of McCain® Smiles® and create a station with a variety of toppings like chili, broccoli and cheese, alfredo sauce, roasted peppers, bacon and more. Kids will love building their own creations. Plus, you can make the display festive by using green plastic leprechaun hats from a party store as bowls.

Happy-Go-Lucky Fun Time

For a kid, the highlight of any party is game time. Keep them entertained with these easy ideas.

Make Festive T-Shirts

Get white T-shirts and a variety of green dye colors for an old-fashioned tie-dye craft party. Or, go the rainbow route and let them be extra colorful with lots of different colors.

Play Lucky Bingo

Use a traditional set of bingo cards or create your own St. Patrick’s Day-themed cards from construction paper and dollar store stickers featuring shamrocks, pots of gold, leprechaun hats and shoes, rainbows and horseshoes. If you can’t find stickers, have the kids draw shapes on a construction paper bingo card first. Then use gold paper or candy “coins” for the chips!

Pin the Shamrock on the Leprechaun

Pick up a large leprechaun wall or window decoration and use a cut-out paper shamrock to give the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game a new twist.

Hunt for Treasure

Between work, kids’ schedules, sports activities, lessons and so forth, creating a home-cooked weeknight meal (let alone trying to find time to eat it!) can be a real challenge. The hack that we love is the home-made freezer meal. It’s the trend the Internet is going crazy for and it’s a smart way to ensure your family gets the wholesome food that suits its dietary preferences from gluten-free to vegetarian to vegan or even paleo. You can customize with only ingredients your family loves.   

The secret is a little weekend preparation. Block off a couple of hours one afternoon to prep ingredients. The beauty of these freezer meals is that there’s no cooking involved until you put it in the crockpot so they’re always freshly prepared and delicious.

How To:   

Buy a box or two of gallon-size freezer bags as well as some quart-size that can tuck inside. 

Pick your recipes and print out in advance. The Web has plenty of great crockpot freezer recipes for every menu preference. 

Take advantage of sales that allow you to stock up on ingredients in bulk, and then serve those meals throughout the month. 

Get the whole family involved. Adults can cut up chicken or meats and veggies. Younger kids can help with filling bags with spices or creating cute recipe and date labels for each bag. 

Avoid menu monotony. Try to fix a different recipe or two every weekend (or every other weekend) so you always have plenty of variety in the freezer to choose from. 

Don’t be shy about “cheating” on prep a little. Frozen vegetables, frozen potatoes and premade sauces can go right into the freezer bag with your fresh ingredients. 

Keep in mind that certain ingredients, in particular dairy, may need to be added after the other ingredients cook—so package them separately. 

Invest in some crockpot liners for quick and easy cleanup after the meal. 

Try hosting a “freezer meal” party with friends so you can exchange recipes and have fun prepping your meals in the kitchen together.

Recipes for Inspiration:   

30+ Kid-Friendly Freezer Meals 

Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas 

19 Freezer Meal Prep Sessions That Take an Hour or Less 

31 Crockpot Freezer Meals for Busy Weeknights 

12 Make-Ahead Slow Cooker Freezer Meals     

The pumpkin may be the iconic squash of All Hallows’ Eve, but it’s not the only veggie that can be carved into stunning (and stunningly easy) creative jack-o-lanterns.   

In fact, long before pumpkins became the default Halloween favorite, the first ones were often carved from large root vegetables like beets and turnips. Villagers in old Ireland would carve scary faces into them and place them in windows to drive away evil spirits like Stingy Jack, for which the lantern is named.

Seeing as how we have a lot of potatoes around at McCain, we discovered they make pretty fine jack-o-lanterns too. And they can be just as cute or spooky as you’d like with a whole lot less clean up! 

Here’s how to make your own terrifying tuber:   

Start with fresh, cleaned, raw potatoes. Mark your design in pencil lightly on the surface of the skin. Use your potato’s own imperfections to your design advantage. An imperfect mark can make a cool-looking monster eye! Cut off the bottom of the potato so it can stand flat. Hollow out, carve, add a tea light and you’re done!

What’s even more festive? Carve a sweet potato!   

If you want to branch out from the standard potato, sweet potatoes make especially Halloween-right decorations. First of all, they grow in all kinds of gnarly shapes. And second, they’re orange beneath the skin so they’re already pumpkin-colored! Simply carve away a little outer potato skin and you’ve got glowing orange eyes and mouths right away.     

Experiment with what you’ve got. 

Nearly any veggie or fruit can be carved into a unique and creative jack-o-lanterns with the same techniques as carving a pumpkin or potato. Open your fridge and try lemons, oranges, bell peppers, acorn squash and more for a Halloween table that’s truly original.     

Be sure to share your spud-o-lanterns and other jack-o-lantern creations with us by tagging the McCain Facebook page!

Empowering Kids

Have you ever considered putting your kids in charge? Sounds crazy, right?! Let’s face it, as a group, a lot of parents aren’t known for a relaxed and laissez-faire approach to raising our kids. And while there are many upsides to the careful attention we pay to our offspring, it’s possible that our kids aren’t given the chance to develop a sense of autonomy.

Learning to do things for yourself is important. Especially when we pause and remind ourselves that one of our biggest goals as parents is to help our kids turn into independent adults! In fact, research shows that kids who are given opportunities to be in charge and make decisions grow to be more capable and grounded adults.

Independent Kids

In a Psychology Today article, “Raise Independent Children,” Dr. Jim Taylor points out that independence isn’t something that kids get on their own, since “[t]hey have neither the perspective, experience, nor skills to develop independence…” It’s up to parents to give their kids the tools they need to gain independence; this can be done by allowing kids to make choices for themselves, helping them build independence through responsibility, and allowing them to make mistakes.

Making choices and doing chores is empowering!

Regardless of age, everyone wants to feel like they’re in control of their own life. We can help our kids become independent by allowing them to make choices for themselves and by giving them responsibilities.

In fact, making choices teaches problem solving, since it allows children to develop reasoning tools they will need later in life. Sue Grossman, a professor of early childhood education at Eastern Michigan University writes that making decisions will help kids feel more in control of their own lives; kids who feel in control of their lives also have better self esteem, since part of developing self esteem is learning how to confidently take care of oneself.  Decision-making abilities are also a very important part of developing morality—since it’s hard to ask kids to make good choices if they never learned how to make choices in the first place.

Offering kids choices doesn’t have to be that hard, or even that ambitious—it can be as simple as discussing what after-school activity they’d like to participate in, or how they’d like to decorate their room. Asking kids for their input shows that we value their opinions, which helps reinforce that their say matters.

Another way to help kids develop a sense of independence is trusting them with chores. While it’s true that not all kids are thrilled at the prospect of cleaning the cat litter, or clearing the table, and it can feel simpler for us parents to just do it ourselves, family therapist Dr. Fred Provenzano points out that this sends the message that parents don’t trust kids to finish a task properly—plus it means they miss out on learning how to take care of themselves. Learning how to properly do something, like laundry, leaves a kid feeling empowered. This sense of empowerment then follows them into other areas of their life.

Mistakes as a Tool for Empowerment

Allowing kids to be independent and make their own choices means that (just like grownups) they will make mistakes. But mistakes are a very important chance for kids to develop independence!

Child psychologist, Dr. Michele Borba says that mistakes are an opportunity to help raise self-reliant, independent and resourceful children. Instead of trying immediately to “fix” the problem, disappointments are an opportunity to teach kids how to rebound, avoid making the same mistake and how to ultimately succeed where they initially failed. Dr. Borba also points out the importance of sharing your own mistakes as a way of helping teach kids, “Doing so will help your child recognize not only that everyone makes mistakes (including you!), but that they can also be learning opportunities in disguise. And that’s a big plus to your kid’s independence because she’ll be less likely to fear the mistake and more likely to rebound.”

Beat the Rainy Day in May

When the weather takes a turn for the worse, don’t let it keep you from enjoying your day. After all, the rain will stop eventually so don’t let it get you down.

Until it does, you might as well make the most of it by finding some fun rainy day activities, and celebrating the joys of staying at home!

Here is our guide to planning a rainy day so fun, you might not even notice the sun has come back out.

Have a Spa Day - Now is the perfect time to grab your face mask, favorite candles and run the bath. You’re all set to have yourself a relaxing spa day, so kick back and relax on this rainy day.

Board Games - Persuade your friends to come over and pull out your favorite board games to pass the time together.

Curl Up With A Book - If you’re more inclined to stay in alone, try catching up on that reading list you’ve been putting off for so long. Cuddle up under the blankets with your favorite book, get lost in another world and adventure to wait out the gloomy weather.

Learn Something New - Try learning something new today, whether you look it up online or you have your friends teach you interesting talents and facts (you’ll have to return the favor, though!) you’ll come out of the day smarter and more skilled.

Get Crafty- Take the opportunity to start a new project or try that craft you haven’t had the time to try today. Dig up that DIY project from Pinterest that you’ve had your eye on and cross another item off your DIY list.

Enjoy a Movie Marathon - If you’re feeling like doing the bare minimum, we won’t hold it against you. Set a theme to make it even easier to enjoy the ultimate movie marathon. A few examples of themes you can try include picking the movies based on your favorite genre, actor, series or director and press play! Simply queue them up on auto-play, sit back and enjoy.

Eat Good Food- Of course, you’re going to need to eat at some point and you’ll need to eat a good meal while you let your freshly baked goods cool down. To avoid that rainy trip to the grocery store, you’ll need a meal comprised of ingredients you already have at home. To give you some ideas, here’s a list of delicious and simple recipes. They’re all made up from ingredients you will likely have lying around the house, so you won’t have to venture far to satisfy your cravings.

BBQ Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet Fries with Honey Mustard

BabyCakes® with Apple Sour Cream Dip

Parmesan Potato Wedges

Beer Cheese Curly Fries