You know we are foodies.  You also know we recently moved to a small town, meaning that our dining-out options have been somewhat limited.  This means we’re doing even MORE cooking than we used to.  And, regardless of how much cooking we’re doing, I tend to get stuck in a rut of cooking the same old things.  So I love finding new, good recipes and have been enjoying the ‘Mama blogger/cook’ category lately.  Here are a few of my favorite places for recipes and food info (click on links to open windows in new tabs):

• Dash and Bella — This blogger is a former pastry chef turned stay-at-home-mom and she is an amazing cook.  I like that she encourages flexibility and experimentation with her recipes, I love that she cooks WITH her children, and I also like that she is perhaps a tad bit crazy (aren’t we all?) and not shy about sharing it.
• In Sock Monkey Slippers — This blogger’s daughter (whose name is Mia!) was born prematurely and with an especially sensitive digestive system, so this Mama uses organic and preservative free ingredients.  Go to her Recipes page and scroll down to bottom for useful notes on food and baby food recipes by age/stage.  One of our latest favorites comes from this blog: we’ve been making sweet potato pancakes almost every weekend.  Our Mia loves them and so do we.
  

  Look at this sweet potato pancake! (I’ve also been eating strawberries and yogurt, as you can see from my tray and face.)

  (One note, this blogger doesn’t include salt in baby food and I do NOT think salt is bad, in moderation, so I do include it in/on Mia’s food.)

• One Hungry Mama — This blogger is from Brooklyn (hope she and her fam are faring well through Hurricane Sandy!) and co-founder of ChowBaby foods.  She has a great guide on Introducing Solids and Feeding Baby, recipes by age and lots of good food facts.  I also like her philosophies about fast food (no, it is not actually food and it is not allowed in my house, but you will try it some day and hopefully realize it is crap and return to eating real food) and about disguising veggies for kids (don’t do it, they will go through phases of not wanting green/orange/red things, but keep modeling good veggie-eating behavior and they will eventually come around).
• The Nourished Kitchen — Jenny provides a wealth of information about real food, fantastic recipes, history of food, and more.  If you are contemplating the idea of eating more real food, or even if you just want to explore the concepts (what are all these crazy people talking about anyway?), her website is a great place to begin.  She even offers meal plans on subscription basis!  I haven’t tried those but, judging from her recipes and general professionalism, I can only imagine that they are great.

Yum, sweet tater cakes!

Most of these are mommy-bloggers but the recipes are for EVERYONE, not just parents and kids.  Remember you are what you eat, so eat well!