Toasted Cinnamon Squares® Sweet Potato Bake

First, make some Toasted Cinnamon Squares “Granola”:
2 cups coarsely crumbled Mom’s Best Naturals Toasted Cinnamon Squares cereal
1/2 cups melted butter
1/2 cups chopped pecans
1/2 cups shredded coconut

Then, assemble the Sweet Potato Bake:
4 sweet potatoes
2 ripe bananas, skins on
1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup butter, divided
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups Malt-O-Meal Toasted Cinnamon Squares® cereal
1 small can crushed pineapple with juice

Combine all “granola” ingredients. Spread on parchment lined baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until crispy; set aside. Pierce sweet potatoes with fork and bake at 350 degrees until tender (about 45 minutes to one hour, depending on your oven). Roast bananas with the skins on for the last 15 minutes. When cool enough to handle, peel the potatoes and bananas. Mash (or puree) to desired consistency. Add syrup and 1/2 cup butter to mixture. Add cinnamon, pie spice and salt. Spread half of mixture into a casserole dish sprayed with cooking oil. Sprinkle half of granola mixture over potatoes. Spoon rest of sweet potato mixture over granola. Top with remaining granola mixture, and serve!

Joy Paley is a guest blogger for

It’s certainly not getting easier to sit around the table with your family and a wholesome dinner. If you’re a working mom, you probably drive straight from work to pick your kids up from practice or another after-school activity. Grabbing a few burgers on the way home or eating sandwiches in front of the TV can be an inviting option when you’ve such had a long day. And, it’s hard to make kids themselves sit still for 30 minutes to share a little time around the dinner table. There are benefits to making the effort to have a family meal, however. Even if you can’t do it every night, consider making it a tradition two to three times a week.

Being Here Now: Sitting down to eat is a form of thoughtful meditation. It’s a time to relax and reflect on the day, in a conscious manner. Try it sometime—eating while standing in front of the fridge or while watching TV just isn’t the same. Sitting around a table lets everyone in your family have a little chill out time from work, from homework, from cell phones and other technology. It’s a type of relaxation that we don’t get enough of these days.

Create Stability: For kids, stability is created by events they can anticipate, that happen again and again. Making family dinner a usual occurrence in your household is one easy way to provide this stability, and to give your kids a sense of control in their lives. Several scientific studies have found a significant positive correlation between a family’s eating habits and the amount of conflict they experience. Families with healthy, stable eating habits had less turbulent relationships than those who ate junk in front of the TV.

My own family, while growing up, was not without problems. My older brother decided to drop out of high school and fought with my dad constantly. Through it all, we still had family dinner (although my brother didn’t always attend). As a younger kid, this stability helped me understand that we were going to get through the difficult period and that things were going to be okay.

Make Time to Talk: Especially as your kids move into their teen years, actually talking to them about anything of note can become difficult. They clam up, and respond to any questions with a head nod or a mumbling “uh huh.” Eating around a table naturally encourages talking; it’s a low-stress environment for sharing and communicating with one another. It’s a great opportunity to sneak meaningful discussions into your time with your preteen or teen, without them even noticing.

Eat Better: With nearly three quarters of the U.S. population overweight or obese, many people are doing all they can to stay healthy. Eating meals around a table is a simple step you can take for you and your family, to ensure that everyone eats better. Why? The more conscious you are of eating, the likelier you are to only eat the amount of food you actually need. Unlike eating in front of the TV, you won’t be shoveling food into your mouth without even noticing it.

And, meals served around a table are likelier themselves to be healthier. When is the last time you served a butter-laden bowl of instant mac and cheese for a family meal around the table? You’re more likely to put together a balanced dinner when it’s served in a bit more formal setting. So what’s the bottom line about family dinners? They help you relax, reconnect, eat, and feel better. They take a little more energy, but will certainly pay off over time for you and your family.

Of course, there’s always the “sneak” method where you can hide it inside your recipes. There are several good cookbooks on the market with wonderfully tasty ideas on how to do that.

But, says dietitian Elizabeth Ward, that doesn’t mean that your kids can’t still enjoy healthy meals throughout the day. She suggests incorporating some simple staple foods for snacks and meals, such as fruit cups and salads, to ensure that your family is eating well even when pressed for time.

Check out the video below for more of Elizabeth’s tips on solving the convenience conundrum with healthy, quick meal ideas!

It’s not that I don’t need improvement: I could be more patient with my three children, organize my office so that I can actually find things without wasting time, and eat fewer sweets after dinner, and so on.

Like nearly 50% of Americans who pledge to make drastic lifestyle changes -including giving up all their favorite foods and going to the gym every day -  I was once tempted to make unreasonable demands on myself with each new year.

One year, I resolved to stop resolving.

I still try to change for the better, however. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I look at every day as a clean slate.

I struggle with eating healthy and getting the exercise I need during the holidays, but I’ve found that doing my best to eat right and work out (in any way that I can) from Thanksgiving to December 31 is easier than resolving to do everything right, at all times, starting on January 1.

You can improve your lifestyle this minute in ways that could keep you from setting goals for 2011 that are too extreme to keep.  Start working on eating better and moving around more during December, and you’ll feel better when all the seasonal eating madness ends.  Here’s how:

Set reasonable goals

Don’t try for weight loss during the holiday season, but do strive for weight control by curbing calories whenever possible. Your exercise routine may suffer because you’re busy, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Try to move as much as possible. For example, purchase a pedometer and strive for 10,000 steps a day when you can’t make it to your pilates or spinning class.

Be mindful of your eating

Certain cues in the environment can prompt you to eat more, even when you’re not hungry. Keep portions (and calories) under control by using smaller plates, bowls, and glasses; you may save hundreds of calories a day and you’ll feel more satisfied.

Focus on what to include, not exclude

Don’t think about what you’re giving up for weight control this month, and beyond. Think about what healthy foods to include to help you feel your best.

Most adults need a total of five servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and at least three servings of whole grains, such as Mom’s Best Naturals Raisin Bran and Quick Oats.  Focus on eating the nutrient-rich foods you need first before reaching for cookies and chips.  Nutrient-rich foods in their most natural state, like a baked potato, tend to be lower in calories and higher in nutrients than processed foods, such as french fries.

Allow for structured cheating

Keep healthy eating on track by planning to “cheat.”  You must make room for favorite foods, especially during the holidays.  Why? Because feeling deprived will kill your resolve to eat better.  Go ahead, include small portions of your all-time favorites, such as mashed potatoes with gravy, egg nog, and chocolate chip cookies, and improve your chances of eating a balanced diet for the rest of the year.

If they didn’t like something, I didn’t substitute a whole other meal. I just didn’t want to cater to a picky palate too much because it wasn’t something I wanted to encourage.

Mariana Perez

Bio:
Mariana is a Texas transplant living the suburbs of Washington, DC. As a stay-at-home mom to two active little girls (a toddler and a preschooler), she understands the importance of a nutritious, yet convenient breakfast. While her kids are napping you can often find her writing at The Domestic Buzz, where she blogs about motherhood, marriage, and everything it entails, including hundreds of reviews of products her family loves. When she’s not blogging or taking care of her girls, she loves to do crossword puzzles, watch TV, and dabble in photography and web design.

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