Yes, Valentine’s Day is two weeks away. And heart-shaped desserts do not have anything to do with “green” or “babies.” But I don’t care! It’s February and time to start thinking of chocolate and cheesecake.

We’ll start with the most obvious: heart-shaped sugar cookies. Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe or try these Heartfelt Cookies from delish.com. There are so many ways to decorate them—sprinkles or frosting or chocolate or jam.

You’ll need some heart cookie cutters.

This one’s from Reader’s Digest: Heart-shaped Strawberry Pavlova.

Naughty Ice Cream Sandwiches from Pinch My Salt.

Of course we can always count on Martha Stewart for the most adorable themed desserts. These heart-shaped meringues with passion fruit curd is just one example. Check out her mouth-watering gallery of Valentine’s Day desserts for more inspiration.

Valentine’s Strawberry Shortcakes from Kaboose.com. It’s not exactly strawberry season, but who can resist a shortcake?

I just came up with a great reason for posting this so early: you need time to try them all before the big day. Happy early Valentine’s Day!

Lara Bars are my newest addiction. Unlike most granola bars or energy bars, most of the flavors contain nothing but dried fruit and nuts. However, they aren’t cheap. They usually cost more than a dollar a bar, even if you buy the family pack. (This Lara Bar fruit and nut food bar pack costs $25.21 for 16, which comes out to $1.58/bar.)

Soon I found myself searching for ways to make homemade Lara Bars. I really like the Hot Fudge Brownie Lara Bars from Chocolate-Covered Katie. She has a huge list of Lara bar recipes to try. And these homemade Lara Bars from Foodie with Family look much fancier than mine, which I prefer to simply roll into balls and store in a glass container.

I’ve now made my own no-bake date and nut bars, which are naturally gluten-free, quite a few times. Here’s my method:

Basic Homemade Lara Bar Recipe

1 cup (120 g) nuts—whatever kind you like

1 1/3 cup (230 g) pitted dates

salt

Put everything in a food processor and process until everything is blended. Roll into little balls and store in a glass container in the fridge. If the mixture is too dry, add a little water; if it’s too sticky, add some more nuts. Enjoy!

Our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is packed with useful information for new parents who want to go green on a budget. (Are we biased? Absolutely!) Beyond the cloth diapering advice, tips on buying used gear, and a directory of the best green gear at every price point, we included recipes for homemade baby food.

Since chilly fall days are just starting to descend, we are sharing our Pumpkin Pancake recipe with our online readers. These pancakes can be made ahead of time in big batches and frozen so you can pull them out for easy breakfasts. They’re healthy, delicious, and your tot probably won’t mind if you make a stack of them up for yourself as well.

      Pumpkin Pancakes:

• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup canned organic pumpkin puree (you can also use bananas, sweet potatoes or squash)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 3 tablespoons whole milk
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Mix all moist ingredients in one bowl and dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine them, adding additional milk if needed to get the right consistency. Warm griddle or skillet to medium heat and coat with vegetable oil. Cook for approximately three minutes on each side and enjoy!

This recipe is absolutely fantastic, not just as a salad but as a colorful addition to your weekly meal plan. It’s perfect as a filling for burritos along with cheese and refried beans, and also makes a fabulous topping for taco salad, nachos or baked potatoes.  Or if you want to be really creative, you could make southwestern style fried rice.  It’s colorful, nutritious and delicious.  I made a double batch and filled it into various meals for days!

 



• 2  15 oz cans black beans (or approximately 7 cups cooked homemade beans)
• 7 cups fresh or frozen corn
• 8 chopped green onions
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 3 chopped red peppers
• 4 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 cup balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing

Optional:

• 1 finely chopped avocado
• 3 chopped tomatoes

(If you’re going to make a huge batch of this recipe and use it in other things, the tomato and avocado may not keep quite as well as the other ingredients)

Toss everything together and refrigerate overnight. Then enjoy it all week!

Our pantry purge has yielded some fantastic recipes, but this one is my absolute favorite.  My kids declared that these were the best popsicles they’ve ever eaten.  Little did they know there was a secret vegetable lurking within them! The pumpkin really brings out the peach flavor and augments the color beautifully.  Give this a try and your kids will never know!

• 2 Cups fresh or canned peaches
• 2 bananas (throw brown bananas in!  Overripe fruit will add the most sweetness)
• ½ C. apple juice concentrate
• ½ C. canned pumpkin
• 1 Cup ice
• 1 Cup water

Blend it up and add more fruit or juice until you like the taste and consistency.   Serve the first round as smoothies and pour the leftovers into popsicle molds for later.  It truly is delicious!

If you like this recipe, you might enjoy some of the others tucked between the covers of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Homemade teething cookies, pumpkin pancakes, or pear tofu pudding are just a few of the recipes for your young tot that we’ve enclosed in the book. (Of course it’s also packed with tips on buying new green gear, safe used gear, and every detail you can imagine about cloth diapering.) The book is still on sale for less than eight bucks on Amazon, which is a whopping 61% off. We’re not sure how long the crazy sale will last, but as eco-nomical souls ourselves, we hope that you get to take advantage of it!
 

Three cups of wheat germ have been sitting in my pantry for the last six months.  In my desperate efforts to clean out my cupboards before we move, I found a wheat germ cookie recipe and then tweaked it into utter deliciousness.

Now I shall make these on a regular basis and confidently stride past the granola bars in the grocery store.  These are far less expensive, more nutritious and utterly delicious.

• ½ Cup butter
• ½ Cup peanut butter
• 1/3 Cup cooking oil
• 1 Cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1.5 Cups rolled oats
• 1 Cup wheat germ
• ½ Cup wheat flour
• ½ Cup white flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Cup coconut flakes
• 2 cups chopped nuts (I used almond flour from Trader Joe’s)
• ½ cup raisins or chocolate chips (or both!)

Cream the butters and sugars together.  Then add the eggs.  Then dump in the other ingredients and blend. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake for about ten minutes at 350 degrees.  Let them solidify on the pan a bit before you move them to the cooling rack.  My kids ate the entire batch in less than two days without realizing they were healthy.  Victory!

What were we blogging about three years ago, in the dark ages of July, 2008? I had a two-year-old, Joy had just one baby, and we were one month away from signing a publishing contract for the Eco-nomical Baby Guide. Dipping into Green Baby Guide’s archives, I found a delightful assortment of posts (if I do say so myself), including our most popular post of all time: Flushable Diapers (gDiapers)–What Do You Think?

Some posts helped our readers settle into summer: Finding Free Organic Produce, Simple Steps to Fight Summer Heat and Limit Air Conditioning, A Thrifty Green Favorite: Cloth Swim Diapers, Disguise Vegetables in Fruity Popsicles (another one of our all-time favorites!), and Green Olympic Trials. But then, for some reason, I wrote about making Easy Oats for Two: A Cheap and Nutritious Breakfast for Mother and Child. I’m not sure I’d totally latched on to the idea of making my posts seasonally relevant!

We had our regular smattering of product reviews: Borax: A Budget Friendly, Eco-Friendly Wonder Product (alternate title: a million and one things to do with Borax);

Book Review: The Tightwad Gazette; Save Water with BPA and Phthalate-free Baby Bathtubs; and the Isabooties Product Review.

The rest of our July 2008 posts fit under a category I will describe as “eco-friendly lifestyle” posts: Easy Organic Cloth Diaper Stain Removal Techniques, Should Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women Avoid Eating Nuts?, Life with a Baby . . . and No Paper Towels, Sleep vs. The Planet, Save Some Trees–Never Buy Children’s Books, and What’s Your Walk Score?

I hope you enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane. Here’s to our fourth summer of blogging!

Over the years we’ve posted some of our favorite summer recipes–from vegetable popsicles to edible play-doh. Here’s the complete list:

Delicious summer treats

DIY Homemade Non-dairy Ice Cream

Disguise vegetables in fruity popsicles

Organic homemade popsicles (includes recipes for natural dripless popsicles and berry fudgcicles with silken tofu)

(Also–check out our recent BPA-free Popsicle Molds post.)

Summer Beverages

Green Iced Tea

How to Make Homemade Iced Tea

Infused water makes a beautiful, cheap summer beverage

Homemade lemonade without High Fructose Corn Syrup

Tomatoes and Zucchini

15 cent, 15 minute dinner for two

Tomato recipe ideas

What do I do with all these tomatoes? (includes a link to a great gazpacho recipe)

What are your favorite zucchini recipes?

For kids

Non-toxic homemade finger paints

Homemade non-toxic play dough (includes instructions for rubbery play-doh, edible play-doh, and nature’s play-doh)

Homemade bubbles

Enjoy!

Summer is just around the corner. It’s homemade ice pop time again! It’s often easy to find popsicle molds at thrift stores, but if you’re concerned about BPA and other potentially harmful chemicals in plastics, you’ll want to get your hands on some new molds. Here are some BPA-free options:

Stainless Steel Popsicle Mold ($39.95)

Norpro Ice Pop Maker ($15.59)

Annabel Karmel Fill and Freeze Puree Pops ($8.75) Use this one to freeze purees—great for teething babies

Kinderville Little Bites Ice Pop Molds ($14.99)

Prepara Volcanic Pop Molds Set of 4 ($8.99)

Now all you need are a couple recipes to get you started. How about these classics from some vintage Green Baby Guide posts?

Disguise vegetables in fruity popsicles

Organic homemade popsicles
Any more great popsicle mold suggestions? Send them our way!

Is it deciphering cloth diaper vocabulary?  (Like hybrid, chinese prefold, pocket diaper, all-in-one?)  Is it being able to afford the organic produce you’d like to buy?  Is it the physical challenge of early breastfeeding?  Do you need some homemade babyfood recipes? Or are you still trying to prepare for baby’s arrival with the planet in mind?

My children are now leaving the realm of babyhood and hearing your questions and challenges keeps us connected with what our readers need in those early days of parenting.  If you have a problem, chances are there are dozens of other women face the same dilemma.  Thanks for sharing ideas that we can present to our readers for future Friday questions!