Blog Posts by The Editors of EatingWell Magazine

As a kid, my sister didn't eat anything except macaroni and cheese. This presented a challenge for our mom, especially during breakfast when mac and cheese wasn't on the menu. Then Mom started making smoothies for breakfast. For some reason, the fresh fruit in a bowl that my sister refused to eat was suddenly "so yummy" after being blended with yogurt, milk or even tofu-something my sister wouldn't have otherwise touched with a 10-foot pole. And the best part for Mom, was that smoothies take 5 minutes or less to make.

Here are some kids' breakfast-smoothie recipes all ready in 5 minutes or less:

Wake-Up Smoothie (see recipe below) - You can jump-start your day in just minutes with this nutritious, tasty smoothie, which uses frozen berries. It provides vitamin C, fiber, potassium and soy protein.

Apricot Smoothie - Canned apricot halves blend with yogurt in this tangy and refreshing smoothie.

Banana-Berry Smoothie - This bright and easy breakfast packs two servings of

I recently visited Washington, D.C., and hosted a cooking demo at the small, up-and-coming H Street market to promote our new EatingWell in Season book. The most popular dishes? The amazing tomato recipes we made with farm-fresh tomatoes from the table in the picture below.

We made recipes that were easy enough to prepare right at the market with nothing more than a knife and cutting board. I worked with kids from Through the Kitchen Door, a nonprofit group that teaches inner-city kids and recent immigrants how to cook healthy meals. Here they are dicing tomatoes for Raw Tomato Sauce. We tossed it with pasta and handed it out to people at the market. It was a big hit!

We also made a Tomato & Green Olive Salsa, an Italian-inspired salsa with fresh oregano, green olives and hot pepper relish. It takes just 10 minutes to make and tastes great with store-bought or easy homemade tortilla chips or baked pita chips.

After seeing all that gorgeous fresh produce I

I went out to dinner with my friend Dara and her 4-year-old daughter last week and watched in amazement as her little cutie picked every last bit of green vegetable out of her dinner.

I smiled (my son is only 5 months old so I don't have to deal with picky eating yet), but Dara was frustrated. "How can I get her to eat better?" she asked.

I'd just been gathering lots of great ideas for getting kids to eat healthier for EatingWell's new back-to-school guide so I told her I'd e-mail her a few to get her imagination going. Here's what I sent to help her get started. (Find 6 more tips for getting kids to eat healthier here.)

1. Fill them up with fiber. Few kids crave a fiber-rich meal. But fiber is filling and when combined with drinking plenty of water, helps prevent constipation. A high-fiber food has 5 grams or more of fiber per serving and a "good" source of fiber is one that provides 2.5 to 4.9 grams per serving. Get 20+ healthy dinner ideas for kids including recipes

I would love to wake up in the morning with plenty of time to sit down and enjoy a good healthy breakfast, but most days that doesn't happen. Do I skip breakfast and wait until lunch to eat? No way. I think I would starve to death.

Instead, I plan ahead. When I wrap up a granola bar for myself the night before I keep it on the kitchen counter next to my car keys so I don't forget it or I make muffins and wrap leftovers individually in plastic wrap so I can defrost them one at a time. As I'm rushing out the door, it's easy to just grab my breakfast and enjoy it once I get to work.

Here are some of my favorite grab and go breakfast recipes:

Apricot-Walnut Cereal Bars (see recipe below) - Crisp and chewy, this bar is a good-for-you alternative to store-bought cereal bars. The secret ingredient, silken tofu, will give your day a protein-packed start. The recipe also works with other fruit-and-nut combinations.

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins - The secret to the sparkling flavor

I'm a huge fan of tea. Hot or cold, I just love it. I drink it all day long in the winter and I always have a big pitcher of iced tea in my fridge in the summer. Luckily tea is a healthy addiction. (Find out how tea can help your health and get the secret to maximizing tea's health benefits.)

I must have inherited my love of iced tea from my Dad. Whenever I'm on the back patio at his house in the summer there are always at least two big glass containers filled with his special sun tea blend with mint and cloves.

Like lemonade and other refreshing summer drink recipes, making your own iced tea is easy. Pick your favorite types of tea and get started with these delicious iced-tea blends:

Hibiscus-Pomegranate Iced Tea: Steep 1/4 cup loose hibiscus tea (or 12 herbal tea bags that contain hibiscus) in 4 cups boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes. (If you have a large tea ball, you can use it to steep loose tea). Strain (or remove tea bags or ball) and pour into a large pitcher.

I'm growing a small garden in my yard and after some success last summer I decided to get adventurous this year: I added a tomatillo plant.

Tomatillos are tart, plum-size green fruits that look like small, husk-covered green tomatoes. They can be used raw but cooking enhances their flavor and softens their tough outer skin. Since I love them in fresh summer recipes for salsa, guacamole, sauces and more, I was easily inspired to plant a seedling in my garden. Not sure if tomatillos are for you? Here are 5 reasons to love tomatillos:

1. Their flavor is irresistible, with hints of lemon, green apple and herbs.
   
2. They're low-maintenance and can even be grown in a big pot. All they need is plenty of water and sun.
3. It's easy to spot a ripe one: its husk will be broken. The fruit grows faster than the papery husk and rips through as it reaches full size.
4. Vitamin C, vitamin K, potassium and fiber.
5. They're fit for a king…er, a President. The Obamas are growing

I like to call last summer "the summer of preservation." My most exciting project was sharing with a friend a bulk order of Amish peaches from Pennsylvania. Big, super-sweet and juicy, they were some of the best peaches I've ever had. When peaches are ripe this time of year you can usually find them on special for a dollar or two per pound at most supermarkets. If you pick some up and want some ideas to use them, here's what I did with my amazing peaches:

- Since the peaches were ripe, time was of the essence. First I got to work peeling and freezing some of them, so we could enjoy them later in the year.

- Then, in between eating them out of hand, my husband, Dan, and I invited a few friends over and cooked up some delicious peach recipes.

Here's what I made for dinner:

• For starters, I served Arugula Salad with Honey-Drizzled Peaches (recipe follows). It's one of my favorite salads to serve to guests because it's really beautiful but ridiculously simple to make.

As a kid I used to spend my summer vacation at the beach soaking up the sun. These days, not so much-I'm way too worried about keeping my skin wrinkle-free. But my fiancé Andy's job keeps him outside in the sun all day long. Not just in the summer, but all year round. Although he wears sunscreen, he's kind of given up on trying to ward off wrinkles, but skin cancer? That's scary stuff-and sunscreen can only do so much.

So to help protect our skin we're adding more salmon and tuna to our diet. (Find delicious salmon recipes here.) The omega-3 fatty acids in oily fish like salmon and tuna can boost your skin's defenses against UV damage, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that study participants who ate a little more than 5 ounces of omega-3-rich fish each week decreased the development of precancerous skin lesions by almost 30 percent. Scientists think the omega-3s act as a shield, protecting cell walls from free-radical