We eat cereal for breakfast, I eat it frequently for a quick lunch, and sometimes, it’s even “What’s for Dinner.” (Hey, don’t judge me. The next time you’re racing between ballet class and soccer practice and it’s looking like there’s another drive-thru dinner on the horizon, try yelling, “Who wants Cereal Buffet Night?” Put out bowls, a few boxes of cereal, cut-up some bananas or throw some frozen raspberries in a serving bowl, and everyone gets to mix it up. It’s a lot healthier, and cheaper, than a drive-by fry fest.)

So, I’m always on the lookout for cereals that are good-tasting, nutritious enough for meals (snack cereals notwithstanding), made with real food components and not just a hodge-podge of chemicals, and that we can actually afford to eat as we please - nobody likes rationing on Cereal Buffet Night. Consequently, I jumped all over the chance to review the two new offerings by Mom’s Best Naturals: Honey Grahams and Toasted Cinnamon Squares.

I knew the cereals were coming, but when the box arrived on my doorstep, I didn’t recognize it at first. Although it looked about the right size for two boxes of cereal, it felt way too heavy. I am familiar with natural and organic cereals, and if you are too, you know that they boxes they come in are usually considerably smaller than those the mass-market cereals come in. But sure enough, opening the box, there were my cereals. In regular family-size boxes! Already I was impressed. 

But that would only go so far. We’d recently sampled another natural/organic cereal that ended up becoming food for landfill foragers. Trying to be something it was not, which is to say a fun-flavored health cereal, it tasted flat and weirdly stale straight from the newly opened box. So, I eyed these two analogs of popular cereals with a skeptical eye. 

I decided to draw up a mental list of criteria to judge the cereals by. First, economy. They’d done well on the box size - really well. Scanning through the press packet, I read that the boxes, which are truly “family size” at 17.5 ounces, retail for a suggested $2.29 to $3.29. That’s quite a bit cheaper than the big-brand versions, and I think it might even be cheaper than the less nutritionally discerning generic knock-offs that come in smaller boxes. Off to a good start.

But there was still the taste. The brand-name versions of these two cereals are family favorites (particularly for snacking), so this was a pretty stiff test. First, we sampled the Honey Grahams. And each of us gave a couple of thumbs up for taste, texture, and appearance. This stuff is delicious. Really, really good. In fact, one of us ventured to say that it was an improvement on the original.

The Toasted Cinnamon Squares fared just as well in our taste test. The two cereals met or exceeded our expectations, and in some ways, they were surprisingly superior to the original product. They held up better in milk, I thought. The boxes were bigger for the cost. And here’s the grab: they contain no high-fructose corn syrup, no hydrogenated oils, no artificial colors or flavors or preservatives. Reading the ingredients list is a bit like reading a recipe you could make yourself - inasmuch as you can identify all the ingredients.

Mom’s Best, it turns out, is a family-owned company that packages its cereals in boxes made from recycled paperboard. Plus, the company buys 100 percent of the electricity needed to produce its natural cereals from Windsource - that’s right, folks: wind-turbine energy is at work making these cereals. (Doesn’t knowing that make them even yummier?) Who wouldn’t love a cereal that’s good for our kids, our environment, and even gives us moms a pat on the back? According to the press materials, the brand name is a shout-out to the founder’s wife and to all moms “who teach their families about the importance of good food, as well as the value of stewardship.” 

I’m excited about Mom’s Best Naturals! I can’t wait to get to know the other eight varieties in the ready-to-eat cereal line. Who’s up for Cereal Buffet Night?

We didn’t exactly set out to make pumpkin whoopie pies. It was about 95 degrees out, and pumpkin was the furthest thing from our minds. In fact, my daughter had a recipe for cream-filled lemon sandwich cookies picked out and, lemon lover that I am, I was definitely on board. But there was that long-lost container of cream cheese frosting I’d found while rearranging my cupboards. It was within a week of its expiration date and not getting any fresher. So I talked my daughter out of her original baking plans and asked if she would come up with something that would work with cream cheese frosting. Game for the challenge, she chose pumpkin, and whoopie pies sounded like a fun summer dessert.

So, while she made up the pumpkin batter, I opened the frosting. And discovered that, ironically, the frosting was a goner. It smelled, and tasted, stale. Not exactly rancid, but definitely past its prime. Past usability, in fact. No way were we going to ruin our pumpkin whoopies with that stuff. Out it went.

Happily, cream cheese frosting is one of the easiest frostings to make from scratch, and we happened to have all the ingredients on hand. In just a few minutes, our cream cheese frosting was ready to go.

These whoopie pies are really good. The cake is moist and dense and lightly spiced with ginger and cinnamon. They’re so good, in fact, you can eat these little cakes on their own, without the frosting in the middle - but where’s the fun in that?

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling

• 1 cup shortening
• 2 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease baking sheets.
2. Cream shortening and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Add flour mixture to shortening mixture alternating with pumpkin puree.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls or a medium cookie scoop about 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 10 minutes. Let cool on wire rack before filling. 

For Cream Cheese Filling:

• 1 8-ounce package Neufchatel cheese or cream cheese, at room temp
• 1 stick butter, at room temp
• 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Beat Neufchatel or cream cheese and butter together with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Continue beating and gradually add sugar. Add vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. If filling is very loose after beating, chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes before using.

Makes about 16 good-sized whoopie pies.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pie recipe from Allrecipes.com

The thing that appeals most to me about fresh peaches is their smell. To me, a fresh, ripe peach is one of the definitive smells of summer (along with sea air, sunblock, the leaves of tomato plants, freshly cut grass, and fried dough).

When peaches appear at my farmstand market, the entire aisle they sit in is perfumed with the evocative scent of my favorite season. I can’t pass them by.

As far as eating peaches out of hand, I’ll admit that I’ve never been a big fan of their fuzzy hide - for this reason, I’m more of a nectarine girl. But in pies, cobblers, and sorbets, nothing beats fresh peaches.

This sorbet is a snap to make because you don’t have to peel the peaches first. Leaving the peel on imparts a lovely rosy-orange tint and nice texture to the sorbet. Removing the skins will result in a smoother, pale yellow sorbet. Older children can help with pitting and slicing the peaches; younger kids can measure and stir.

Fresh Peach Sorbet

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
6 fresh ripe peaches (about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds), washed, pitted, and sliced
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, water, and corn syrup. Stir over medium heat until boiling; let boil for 1 minute. Place pan in an ice-water bath or refrigerate to cool. Place sliced peaches in the bowl of a food processor and sprinkle with lemon juice. Pour cooled syrup over peach slices and puree until smooth. Pour pureed peach mixture into ice-cream machine and process according to manufacturer’s directions. Place sorbet in freezer to ripen for at least 3 hours before serving.

Makes about 1 quart.

Photo by me.

Then there are the kids’ cereals that kids love to eat and that are marketed toward kids but that are really not the greatest for kids, considering that kids are in the process of constructing the bodies they’ll be inhabiting for the rest of their lives out of the components in those cereals. Components like bright blue and green spheres and freeze-dried marshmallows. These cereals are usually shellacked with a sugar glaze and offer more chemically engineered ingredients than natural ones. These are the cereals the more nutritionally liberal parents of my (lucky!) friends (and probably yours) used to buy.The former cereals, austere whole grains with maybe some raisins for levity, make little attempt to reconcile themselves to children, knowing that the parents who buy them are the parents who will fill the cereal bowl and make sure the contents get eaten.

The latter group of cereals know that kids are often the ones who hold — or at least tug annoyingly at — the purse strings while Mom or Dad is grocery shopping. Enough begging coupled with the magic words, “It’s fortified, and it’s part of a healthy breakfast!” will usually end with neon-colored milk sloshing in the breakfast bowl the next morning.

At last, Nature’s Path has brought something different to the breakfast table in its new EnviroKidz Penguin Puffs cereal. The best of both worlds! A crunchy whole-grain blend of puffed kamut, quinoa, and corn along with crispy brown rice, Penguin Puffs are organic, non-GMO, low in sodium, fat and sugar, and a good source of fiber. All this, and they’re actually sweet enough to appeal to kids! That’s right, you heard me . . . this is a cereal that is good for kids and that will appeal to them. (I’m not exaggerating when I say that kids will probably ask for this one over and over again. It’s that good.) In our house, it was one of the first cereal boxes to be emptied. We ate it with milk for breakfast and dry as a snack.

If you are a fan of mixing cereals, you’ll want to try this as well. I found that the combination of textures in the different grains was really enjoyable. Adult cereal eaters will likely find Penguin Puffs as appealing as kids do. I did!

Look for Penguin Puffs and other good-for-you cereals online at Nature’s Path or in your favorite grocery or health food store.

The next time you bake a pie or quiche, don’t throw away those scraps of pie crust dough. Reroll the leftover dough scraps and use them to make these amazingly simple and addictive Cinnamon Pastry Flats. Of course, if you’d rather skip the pie and go straight to the flats, feel free! I like to use the following dough recipe (Never Fail Pie Dough), which comes from Alison Boteler’s The Great American Bake Sale.

This recipe is a great no-pressure way for kids to learn pastry dough techniques like rolling out dough and using a pastry wheel. These taste and look much more refined than their ingredients and construction would suggest!

Cinnamon Pastry Flats

For Never Fail Pie Dough: 

3 cups all-purpose flour (I use unbleached)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups shortening
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
5 tablespoons ice water
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Combine flour and salt and cut in shortening until the mixture forms crumbs. In a small bowl, beat egg, vinegar, and ice water together with a fork. Pour the egg mixture over the flour mixture and stir with a fork until the dough comes together.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll dough out on well-floured surface to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Cut dough into even strips about 1-inch wide and 4 inches long with a pastry wheel. Place strips on ungreased baking sheet.

Brush strips with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. If desired, flute edges. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes or until pastry is golden brown. Let cool on wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Pictures by Me.

For one, it’s the fact that my daughter made the sandwich pictured for me while I was working through lunch on a deadline. She decided to surprise me with lunch, and surprise me she did.

At age 12, she’s got enough chops in the kitchen to man a chef’s knife safely, so I didn’t think much of the sound of the knife tapping rhythmically against the chopping board upstairs. Until it stopped abruptly - then I was all ears.

She yelled down to my office, “Mom, when you make tuna, how much onion do you put in?” I explained that for a single can, a couple of slices, chopped, would do. “Oh,” she said. “Well, then this is going to be the tuna sandwich from you-know-where.”

I snapped off my desk lamp and headed toward the stairs. “Why?” I called up. “How much did you put in?”

“More than you do.” Which meant, as it turned out, half a large Bermuda onion. (One can of tuna. One half large onion. Surprise!)

I rounded the corner into the kitchen to find my daughter happily dicing the rest of the onion, swim goggles strapped over her face. “What’s with the goggles?” “No tears,” she said. Surprise number two: innovation in the kitchen!

I decided to take a lunch break after all; it isn’t every day you get table service. And I have to say, the tuna sandwich was pretty good. The large pieces of red onion added sweetness and crunch and made a regular tuna sandwich into something really interesting. Surprise!

Super Onion Tuna Fish

1 can white albacore tuna (packed in water), drained well

2 tablespoons mayonnaise, more or less to taste

Salt and pepper

1/2 large Bermuda onion, roughly chopped

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and serve on toasted kaiser rolls.

I really like Barilla brand pasta, and I love to use small pasta shapes in my cooking, so I was very interested in giving their new Piccolini line of miniature versions of their popular pasta shapes a try. Available in four fun mini-shapes — Mini Fusilli, Mini Wheels, Mini Farfalle (bowties), and Mini Penne — there’s a favorite for everyone.

Although Barilla is focusing on the kid-appeal of the new minis, utilizing a nicely conceived Scholastic Web site tie-in, I’d venture to say that kids aren’t the only ones who will appreciate the new shapes. For one thing, the smaller pasta shapes cook much quicker than their full-size counterparts — they’re done in only 7 minutes. For another, being bite-size, the shapes lend themselves very well to pasta salads and other lunch-box favorites of the adult brown-bag set.

Sure, younger kids will get a kick out of these little pasta shapes, but novelty-factor aside, I can’t wait to put these guys under chili, in casseroles, and in soups.

For recipes, a coupon, and pasta-themed activities, head on over to the promotional Web site.

Antipasto Pasta Salad with Mini Wheels

• 1/2 pound Barilla Piccolini Wheels
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 small red onion, diced
• 1 cup broccoli, broken into small florets
• 8 ounces part-skim mozzarella, diced
• 20 slices pepperoni, halved
• 2 tablespoons chiffonade-cut* fresh basil
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Rinse under cold running water to stop cooking and chill the noodles. Drain well and place in a large nonreactive mixing bowl.

2. Add tomatoes, onion, broccoli, mozzarella, and pepperoni to pasta. Sprinkle basil leaves over top. In a small bowl, combine olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and minced garlic. Mix well and pour over salad ingredients in bowl. Toss well to coat. Serve at room temperature.

Variations: If desired, add black olives, green olives, marinated artichoke hearts, marinated button mushrooms, pepperoncini, or chopped red and green peppers.

*To cut basil chiffonade-style, make a stack of leaves and then cut them crosswise with a chef’s knife into thin ribbons.

Makes 4 to 6 generous servings

We partnered up, tried to find a stove with the most working burners, and set about decoding the mysterious recipe calculus that would result in something edible. That year, we cooked three things, all from scratch: muffins (plain and grape-jelly filled), macaroni and cheese, and chocolate pudding. Yes, it was a carb overload, but who cares when you’re bringing home fresh-baked muffins on the bus and for once, you want to jump up and down and wave your arms when someone yells, “Hey, what’s that smell?”

I think I made macaroni and cheese twice a week for dinner every week for six months. We all survived, and no one had to wear an insulin pump. But then came the chocolate pudding. Ah, silky and rich, chocolaty and, unlike ice cream or candy bars, within my power to create! I won’t tell the tales of my preadolescent chocolate-pudding exploits, but suffice it to say, once its course was run (and certain parties in my household made pointed comments about how some of us should be riding our bike more and hunkering over a pot of simmering chocolate wonderfulness less), my romance with chocolate pudding fizzled out.

Sure, there was Jell-O pudding years later when my kids were in the mood for it, and once or twice I ate pudding at the diner for nostalgic purposes, but that was about it. Until this week, that is. I found myself with a surfeit of organic whole milk edging past its sell-by date and was in need of a few recipes that used up a good amount of milk at one time. Inspiration struck. Good old chocolate pudding, cooked from scratch on the stove.

With both of my kids watching, commenting on the smell, the texture, the anticipated taste (you’d think they’d been starved of chocolate their whole lives!), I stirred and stirred while the alchemy of cornstarch and milk and heat worked its magic to turn chocolate milk into bubbling chocolate pudding. Now I can make my own ice cream and I don’t eat that many candy bars, but chocolate pudding just might make a comeback in my household.

Old-School Chocolate Pudding

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• Pinch salt
• 2 3/4 cup milk (can use whole, 2%, 1%, or skim)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (can replace with almond)
• 2 tablespoons chopped almonds, toasted (optional)

Combine dry ingredients in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir to mix well. Stir in just enough of the milk (about 1/4 cup) to reach a thick, creamy consistency. Using a wire whisk, gradually stir (don’t whip) in remaining milk.

Place pudding mix over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Let it boil gently for half a minute or so and continue stirring. When pudding is thick and smooth, remove from heat. Gently stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour pudding into 1 serving bowl or 4 individual dishes and cover right away with a sheet of plastic wrap.* Refrigerate until set, about 4 hours. Garnish with chopped almonds before serving, if desired.

*Please, don’t forget to lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of your pudding ASAP or it will form a tough skin that will rival the Toughskins of your youth (or mine, at least).

In our household, ice-cream season is twelve months long. We eat it year-round, in all kinds of weather. But it’s true that come Memorial Day, our ice-cream consumption does seem to step up a bit, as we dive into warmer weather with an increased appetite for the cold, sweet stuff.

This year I’m looking forward to my inaugural summer with my two ice-cream machines. I’ve lost count of how many batches of ice cream, gelato, and sorbet I’ve made in those machines since I acquired them a couple of months ago, but I’ve already done some experimenting with flavors and textures and can’t wait to pursue my “research” into the hotter months.

Although I tend to like the exotic flavors and flexibility afforded by the fruit sorbets, my kids love a basic vanilla base with their favorite cookies or candy-bar pieces churned in. The following recipe is a Philly-style vanilla; that is, it does not require a custard base. Because of this, it works up in minutes. Freezing the cookie mix-ins before adding them helps prevent ice crystals from forming when the frozen ice-cream base meets the room-temperature cookies. Grab a spoon and get going!

Homemade Cookies and Cream Ice Cream ~ Philly Style

• 10 chocolate sandwich cookies, roughly chopped
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
• Pinch salt

Place chopped cookies in the freezer while you assemble the ice-cream mix and prepare the base. In a chilled stainless-steel mixing bowl, combine heavy cream, half-and-half, condensed milk, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. Mix with an electric mixer until well combined. Pour vanilla ice cream base into ice-cream machine and process according to manufacturer’s directions.

When ice cream is finished, stir in the frozen chopped sandwich cookies. Spoon ice cream into a freezer-safe plastic container with a lid and let harden in freezer for at least 3 hours before serving.

Yes, it’s May, and yes, it’s finally 75 lovely, sunny degrees out, but I defy you to find a child who will reject a dumpling on the sole basis of the weather outside. I know my own kids would happily consume dumplings in weather nearly as steamy as the stew those fluffy dough pillows are swimming in.

So, if you have lingering containers of stew, chili, or hearty soup in your freezer, now’s the time to use them up, before the really hot weather sets in. Whip up a batch of these super-quick dumplings and enjoy. Younger kids can help measure and stir; older kids can make the whole thing themselves, with some supervision as they drop the dough into the stewpot.

Be forewarned — you may find yourself making chicken and dumplings or beef stew all summer long just to have something to eat dumplings with!

Parsley Dumplings for Stew

(adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

• 2/3 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (I double this amount; you can omit if your kids think the green stuff is icky)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons oil

Combine flour, parsley, baking powder, thyme, and salt. Stir together milk and oil and add to dry ingredients. Mix with a fork until dough comes together. Drop tablespoons of dough into bubbling stew (or chili or hearty soup). Cover pot and lower heat; simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, or until a toothpick insert into the center of a dumpling comes out clean. Do not lift the lid while the dumplings are cooking.

Makes 4 to 6 dumplings