BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!

August 2, 2017 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Six years ago, I was struggling with the path my life had taken. I had two very small children, I had left my career working with trauma survivors, and I was doing erratic consulting work that bored me to death. I knew I needed a change and so I wrote an email to my closest friends and former colleagues and asked them a question: “If you could see me doing anything, what would it be?” I encouraged them to be creative, to be crazy, to think outside of the box. Every single person responded, and everyone said the same thing: something with food! As soon as I saw the word food, I knew I had found my answer.

Within the year, I completed a training program to become a health coach and launched The Balanced Kitchen. I had found my true calling! I was able to share my belief that cooking could be a simple, easy, healthy, and delicious part of life. I got to help people who really wanted to eat a healthier diet and cook for themselves and their families, but didn’t know where to begin. In short, I had the best job ever!

Today, I am sharing the latest development in this wonderful, challenging, exciting journey. I am SO excited to announce that I have become the new CEO (and owner) of The Six O’Clock Scramble!

What’s The Scramble?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, The Six O’Clock Scramble, founded and run by the amazing Aviva Goldfarb, is an online meal planning service committed to helping busy people get quick, easy, and delicious meals on the table every night. Aviva and I share the same philosophy: making dinner should be a low stress and enjoyable experience and that family dinners are one of the most rewarding and important opportunities to connect with and nourish the people we love and ourselves!

The Scramble will give me a platform to encourage even more people to get back into the kitchen, to experiment with new tastes and cooking techniques, and to feed their friends and families healthy, delicious meals that are simple to prepare.

But What About The Balanced Kitchen?

Some of you may be asking, what will happen to The Balanced Kitchen, to the recipes found here, and to my weekly musings on food, feeding kids, feeding ourselves, and life balance? The answer is twofold: my recipes will stay archived here on The Balanced Kitchen, but my new recipes and posts will all be on The Scramble.

I invite you to join me at The Scramble to continue getting inspiration and ideas for feeding yourself and your family well. In an effort to make that as simple for you as possible, I will be merging my list with The Scramble’s. What this means is that you will continue to receive emails from me from time to time with recipes, cooking ideas, and lots of other opportunities to experiment with cooking and eating, just from The Scramble rather than from The Balanced Kitchen.

Join The Scramble Family!

Finally (and perhaps most importantly), as an enticement and in celebration of this big change, I am offering a Friends & Family discount if you’d like to join The Scramble’s meal planning service. I love and believe in this service because it helps to make cooking that much easier and more accessible. So, if getting a meal plan delivered to your inbox or phone each week sounds appealing, if a generated-for-you shopping list sounds amazing, if access to a database of over 1,000 carefully curated recipes sounds wonderful, then join us! (And if you aren’t sure we have a 2 week free trial, so there’s no risk!)

Thank you for your support of The Balanced Kitchen over these past years. I have loved carving out my space in the food and cooking conversation. I have loved working with you as clients, meeting you at workshops, and sharing ideas with you online. I look forward to our relationship growing over at The Scramble! Sign up for a free trial now (and use the code FANDF17 to get 25% off all memberships now through August 16th).

Happy Cooking, Happy Eating, and Happy Scrambling!

3 Ways to Let Go of Stress in the Kitchen: Lessons I Learned When I Became the Cooking Student

March 16, 2017 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Last week I had a humbling and wonderful cooking experience that taught me three important lessons that I wanted to share with you. We had the great treat of welcoming an international student, Jing, into our home for part of her Spring Break. It was wonderful to provide a comfortable (I hope!) home for someone who is so far away from her own and also to have the opportunity to share about our cultures. The best part, for me at least, was the fact that she loves to cook and was eager to teach me how to make some of her favorite comfort foods from her childhood in China. So on Monday we made a field trip to the Chinese grocery store, stocked up on ingredients, and then came home to cook!

For Jing, one of the biggest sources of culture shock when she moved here was meal times when one main dish with perhaps a vegetable side was served. You see, in China there are usually many dishes all served family style. So when we were deciding what to cook together in order to make a traditional Chinese meal, she wanted to make sure that there would be many dishes on the table. In the end we made five dishes: winter melon soup, dumplings, pork and green peppers, eggs and tomatoes, and, of course, rice….

St. Patty’s Day Surprise Muffins: A Fun and Healthy Treat

March 16, 2016 By Jessica Braider 1 Comment

Green. Green is the color of St. Patrick’s Day. When I was a kid growing up in Boston, if you weren’t wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day you’d get punched in the arm. Then, in college (and beyond) it was all about the green beer. Well instead of punches and terrible hangovers, I’ve got a fun treat for you that everyone will love: green muffins!…

4 Ways to Make Trying Something New a Success (with Kids or Yourself)

March 10, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Each Monday I teach a cooking class to a group of first through fourth graders at a local school. The focus of the class is on cooking healthy snacks and goodies, but it is also a way for me to start to teach them some fundamental cooking skills and concepts. This week I wanted to work with them on the idea of building flavor. So we started with a common ingredient, yogurt, and then made two sauces from it, one that was savory (tzatziki) and one that was sweet (honey, cinnamon, and vanilla).

Many (most) of the students were very skeptical about either one or both of the sauces and a few declared that it was going to be disgusting and that they wouldn’t eat them. I calmly reminded the students to please choose their words carefully (we have a rule in the class, “don’t yuck someone else’s yum”) and I asked that everyone try at least a tiny bit of each, even if it was just a lick. Some were nervous, but everyone agreed. So when it came time to try the two sauces I went around and put a tiny bit on each kid’s plate (less than 1/8 of a teaspoon). They had apples, carrots, and pretzels to dip in the sauces. And this is where some really cool things happened….

Chocolate Truffles: A Healthy Treat for the Holidays

November 12, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

We’re in it folks. That crazy time of year that starts with Halloween and goes all the way through New Year’s Eve. That time when we are bombarded with candies, cookies, cakes, and rich foods of many sorts. That time of year when we are running from one thing to the next. That time of year when we skip lunch since we are so busy, only to find ourselves stuffing our face with a giant cookie at the mall because we are about to fall over with hunger (or maybe that is just me). Yup. It is that time of year.

For many of us this is a time of year when we regret a lot of our food decisions. Sometimes it is because we overeat. Sometimes it is because we stress eat. Sometimes it is because the options aren’t the best and so we settle for less-than-ideal meals. No matter what the reason, this recipe might a little glimmer of hope for you.

These energy balls are so simple to make that a 6-year-old could make them on their own. Really! In fact, these would be a great holiday afternoon activity—have your kid make them and then bring the results to a party as a treat to share. Your kid will be proud, your friends and family will be impressed, and you’ll be bringing something that is surprisingly healthy! They are sweet and chocolatey, and really quite healthy—packed with dark chocolate and protein….

Cooking Projects for When You’re Homebound

October 1, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

As you have very likely heard, the East Coast is bracing for a weekend full of rain (if not a hurricane), which means many of us will be stuck indoors quite a bit in the coming days. I’m not going to lie, weather events like this and snow days (which hopefully we won’t get too many of this year) can be stressful and loooong when you are stuck at home. But instead of looking at these as an annoyance, it can be helpful to shift our perspective and look at them as an opportunity to get some cooking projects done!

So I thought I would share with you my steps to making an impending day at home a culinary hit. Plus I’ll share some recipes that might be fun to try….

4 Cooking Projects to Do with Your Kids, Plus Watermelon Water

June 4, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

I am in the midst of three (3!) weeks with the kids home without summer camp, which means that I am doing that juggling act many of us experience at some point during the summer when we are trying to get work done and also provide fun and engaging activities for our kids (although I am definitely also a believer in free time when kids entertain themselves and even get bored!). Our plans for these weeks include some house projects (cleaning and reorganizing the playroom!), some fun out-of-the-house activities, and cooking projects to stock of the freezer for camp lunches.

As I have written about before, cooking with kids is great for many reasons including decreasing picky eating, introducing new foods, helping them to understand where their food comes from, giving them confidence, and introducing them to math concepts, but it is also a lot of fun, especially when they can get their hands dirty!

If cooking with your kids is a daunting thought, try one of these recipes to get you started. They are favorites in our house!…

Spinach Pesto and the Power of Preparing Foods in New Ways

April 2, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

I am currently co-teaching a cooking class to a group of 6-9 year olds. Our goals have been helping all of the kids to gain confidence in the kitchen, introducing them to new healthy foods, and exploring new foods and food preparations.

Over the course of the past weeks we have been working with them to be open to trying new foods, even if the foods being offered are ones that they would normally be resistant to eating. We have done this in a few ways….

My Favorite Cheap, but Healthy Ingredients

October 8, 2014 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

As the final installment of my series on saving money in the kitchen I want to talk about some ingredients that I depend on to keep my own family’s grocery bills down and that I also recommend to my clients a lot. These ingredients are staples in my house for two reasons: 1) they are cheap and 2) you can do a lot with them without much effort. So without further ado, let’s jump in….

100 Days of Real Food Recipe Review: Veggie Corn Chowder

September 2, 2014 By Jessica Braider 2 Comments

When I got the email from Lisa Leake of 100 Days of Real Food inviting me to write about her new book/cookbook, I was incredibly honored and excited. Lisa is such an inspiration to me! Her passion for healthy food as well as her incredibly realistic and down-to-earth approach to cooking has inspired millions to rethink their approach to feeding themselves and their families.

The book, 100 Days of Real Food: How we did it, what we learned, and 100 easy, wholesome recipes your family will love!, continues the great work she has been doing on her blog and website. The first half starts off with a moving and inspiring explanation of how she and her family took on the challenge of eating in a much more conscious and conscientious way. She then lays out ways that others can start to add more wholesome foods into their own diets and lifestyles. It really takes a lot of the mystery and intimidation out of cutting out processed foods and cooking from scratch….