4 Time-Saving & Nutritious Choices for Stocking Your Freezer

Not only can you feel good about serving these nutritious spins on some of your family's favorites, but you can also save yourself a little time with these easy & convenient choices...

This post is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.com on behalf of Conagra Brands

It is no big secret in the blogging world that the holiday season is the busiest time of the year for most of us food bloggers. Even if you are not a food blogger, I think everyone feels the time crunch around this time of the year. The kids are full-on into the whole back to school thing with after school practices and homework. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are just around the corner. And it seems our daily to-do lists gets a little longer the closer that we get to each holiday. Am I right?

Some evenings I find myself hard pressed for time, but I still want to provide smarter choices for myself & my daughter for dinner time. For nights when I just don't have it in me to whip up a nutritious dinner from scratch, I keep our freezer stocked with a few of our favorites from Gardein, Healthy Choice, & Birds Eye. 

Not only can I feel good about serving these nutritious spins on some of our favorites to my family, but I can also save myself a little time with these convenient choices...

10 Secretly Healthy Mac & Cheese Recipes

Easily sneak in more whole grains & veggies into your family's diet with these 10 Secretly Healthy Mac & Cheese Recipes...

It's that time of the year when we find ourselves making resolutions & goals to try to eat better, healthier in the new year. I know most of us (myself included) start out with really good intentions for the first few weeks of a brand new year, and then we get sidetracked. Most often than not, it is my family that is my #1 distraction from healthier eating. 

And while I am the primary cook in the home, if my family refuses to eat what I make then it goes to waste. My almost 4 year old is pretty good about trying new foods & eating her veggies, but my husband and teenage son are a whole other beast. 

My husband turns up his nose at just about anything green other than iceberg lettuce in a bowl covered with shredded cheese & croutons and drowning in Ranch dressing. And my teenager can detect even the slightest bit of whole grains in a recipe & instantly becomes repulsed. 

I cannot even begin to tell you why that is (I LOVE whole grain pasta myself!), but instead of wasting my breath & time trying to convince my son & husband why they should be eating healthier I have decided to just be sneaky with it. What they don't know can't hurt them, right? ;) In fact, it can only do the opposite- help them!

Hidden veggies and sneaking in whole grains has become my regular thing when cooking for my family. Whether ground in, pureed and mixed in, and or super finely chopped & shredded, I squeeze in the good stuff whenever & wherever I can. And it usually goes more or less undetected. 

One of my family's favorite dishes is macaroni and cheese. I mean, who doesn't like a creamy, cheesy mac & cheese? So I went on a quest to search some of my favorite food blogs for the best secretly healthy mac & recipes I could find. :) 

From fun edible cups made from macaroni cheese to creamy mac & cheese dishes packed with veggies (some hidden, some not), you are sure to find a homemade macaroni & cheese recipe in this collection that your entire family will love...

Blueberry Zucchini Cream Cheese Muffins

These moist and flavorful Blueberry Zucchini Cream Cheese Muffins are a perfectly tasty way to use up that garden zucchini...

This is it folks. These Blueberry Zucchini Cream Cheese Muffins are my very last ode to summer 2014.  Fall will officially be here in just 4 short days.  

And while I know everyone has pumpkin and apples on the brain already (don't worry... plenty of fall yummy recipes are on their way here very soon, folks!), I also know that everyone is still picking those end-of-season zucchinis from their gardens and snatching them up at super cheap prices at their local farmers markets and grocery stores.

Not only are these moist, tasty muffins the perfect way to use to up that fresh zucchini, they also happen to be a lightened up version of one of the all-time most popular recipes on this blog, my Blueberry Lemon Cream Cheese Muffins.  

Plus, this is another one of my infamous hidden veggie recipes. ;) And you all know how much I just love hiding veggies in my recipes from my husband and son...