When we asked the Parents’ Place community what you serve your kids, an overwhelming majority — 83 percent — said they opt for a mix of homemade, takeout and prepackaged foods. That’s 71 people out of the 86 who voted.

The next most-popular strategy was “homemade all the way,” with 14 percent of can-do parents cooking from scratch. Two percent of parents said “if it’s not from a box, we don’t eat it.” And just one parent admitted to having takeout on the speed dial.

Thanks for voting! And to those hearty moms and dads who go for homemade all the time — share your recipes! We’d love to know how you do it.

Teaching our kids to love nutritious, healthy food and to prepare it for themselves is one of the best gifts a parent can give. Mixing flour, sugar and eggs and watching the concoction transform into cookies through the oven window can give kids an amazing sense of accomplishment that opening a box of Oreos can’t beat.

Today’s Questions & Parents feature, Q&P for short, is with Suzanne Fromm, a mom of three from Goldens Bridge who knows the pleasures that baking can bring to a family. For years, family and friends raved about her hand-rolled rugelach. She makes it with all-natural ingredients like fruit preserves, peanut butter and walnuts. Three years ago, she started her own rugelach business, Suzanne’s Sweets. Her children, Zachary, 16, Joshua, 14, and Carly, 11, were Suzanne’s first taste-testers and still associate the smell of cinnamon with the days when their mom was baking endless batches at home. As Suzanne said, “If I picked them up at school and they didn’t know I baked, they could tell anyway because they would always say I smelled of fresh ruggies!” Today, she’s sharing her secrets for instilling a love of good food and cooking in kids.

Q: As a baker and mom, how have you shared your talents in the kitchen with your children?

P: From a very early age, I shared my love of cooking and baking with my children. I have always cooked and baked fresh foods, never store bought. I have always made the preparation and actual cooking and baking a fun and enjoyable task and let my children know that nothing is difficult.

Q: How old does a child have to be to help with baking? What’s a good first food to make together?

P: Old enough to hold a spoon or able to dump a cup of flour or sugar in a bowl. A first food to make together is rolled-out cookies. The cutter is put in the spot and the child presses down. Scrambled eggs are good, too. The child cracks the egg in the bowl and helps mix the eggs. My children learned to cook breakfast very early on, probably in first or second grade. Now with teenagers, our house is known for huge breakfasts during the week or on weekends, which the kids all cook. Their friends love to come over for omelets, bagels, bacon, sausage, pancakes, French toast, etc.

Q: How have you encouraged your children to learn about baking and cooking?

P: The Food Network is always on in our kitchen, and they have grown to love watching many of the programs. I also have a tremendous collection of cookbooks and magazines that I keep in my kitchen. Whenever anyone says they are bored with what I am cooking I always encourage them to start looking for a new recipe that appeals to them in the books, magazines or online.

Q: What’s your favorite treat to bake with your kids? How do they divvy up the duties? And who gets to lick the spoon?

P: Cupcakes, apple cake or birthday cakes. My daughter (the youngest) now makes the cupcakes on her own. Of course, she won’t share the spoon with anyone, but she will share the cupcakes. Whoever asked for the cupcakes or apple cake gets to lick out the bowl! And … whoever has the birthday gets to lick the bowl too.

Q: Does everyone in your house bake? Are any of your kids rebels who like to eat Twinkies?

P: All three of my kids do like to cook and bake! The only outside treat they will indulge in are cookies at Stew Leonards!

Q: How have your children been involved with your baking business? (Here’s a picture of Suzanne’s rugelach at right.)

P: The kids have been great. They do all of my prep work for shipping: putting boxes together, inserting peanuts, placing order and gift cards, closing up boxes and putting the shipping labels on. Of course, they are the biggest taste testers! Honestly, at this point I can barely put a rugelach in my mouth. But, of course, I taste them every now and then. And yes, they are always thinking up new ideas for the special flavor of the month.

Q: What lessons have your kids gleaned from learning to bake that apply outside the kitchen?

P: The most important lesson I have taught them is to enjoy food, cooking and baking. All three are wonderful eaters and really enjoy and know good food! I am proud of this.

Q: What advice do you have for moms and dads to get their kids interested in eating healthy and preparing their own foods from scratch?

P: Start them early eating what you eat. If they have a bad bout of “not liking or wantingâ€? what you serve, remember that you are the parent and set rules. If you succumb to their craziness they will rule you. Make them a part of the process of preparing the meal and give them a job that’s age appropriate. They will be able to do more than you think.

Thanks very much to Suzanne for sharing her knowledge by doing a Q&P! Check back next Friday for another Q&P. If you know any parents who you think would be great to feature, please comment here on the blog or send me an e-mail at jalterio@lohud.com.

I am really getting desperate here. Pumpkin is on a major milk and milk-based food strike. In addition to refusing milk, she now says “all doneâ€? when tempted with yogurt, pudding and ice cream, too! At least she’s still eating cheese—for now! We even went yesterday to our favorite outdoor ice cream stand—King Kone on Route 35.

In my earlier post on this topic, I was upset because my daughter is missing out on fluids and calories, now I think I’m going to have to start counting calcium because there is a limit to how much cheese one person can eat.

I love milk. I drink at least two glasses a day. If someone offered me my choice of Ovaltine, Hershey’s Syrup or Strawberry Nesquik, I’d be in heaven. Not Pumpkin. She is on a milk strike, and I’m fresh out of negotiating tactics.

It all started a few weeks ago when she had a stomach bug. We kept her off milk for several days while the tummy upset was severe. After that, she hit a miserable patch of teething pain when her cuspids started coming in. Around this time, she began rejecting her bottle. When it was time for a feeding, she’d say, “all done,” which means “no” in Pumpkin-speak.

At first, I figured the phase would pass once her tooth pain subsided. After all, she used to love her “ba ba,” as you can see in this photo, at right, from last August. But last Friday, after a week and a half without a drop of milk crossing her lips, I was worried. Those four bottles of milk she had been drinking delivered 480 calories a day as well as 24 ounces of liquid.

My first thought was that maybe this was a way to assert toddler independence. So I tried giving her the milk in her sippy cup. That was immediately rejected. I even went to the grocery store and stocked up on the aforementioned sugary milk additives. Still no go. She refuses to drink anything from her sippy that’s not clear. I believe it’s because we’ve always given her water mixed with a splash of white grape juice in the sippy. But, tell me, what child rejects chocolate milk!?

This past Saturday, I called her bluff. When she refused her morning bottle, I held off on breakfast to see if hunger would make the milk more appealing. The strategy worked and she drank a nice full bottle before her nap. She even drank another bottle later that day. But every day since, it’s gotten a little harder. Yesterday, she took just one 6-ounce bottle. I’ve never heard of this. I looked through my Dr. Spock, my “What to Expect” and other toddler books and found nothing helpful.

Any thoughts? She’s too young to give up milk!

Nothing prepared me for how much food a recovering child can consume in a day, but Pumpkin has become an eating machine in the last few days. She is almost back to normal after a week-long bout with a stomach virus — her first ever. Here is a sample day’s menu: Two slices of whole-wheat toast, two bananas, two bowls of chicken rice soup, a yogurt, some applesauce and a few million Cheerios.

This is definitely a LOT more than usual. Pumpkin weighs in at just 21 and a half pounds, which puts her in the 3rd percentile for her age and height. That means that just about every other child her age is chubbier. What was actually kind of scary in the week she was sick was how much thinner she became so fast. She lost what little padding she had accumulated under the chin and around the middle.

We’ve always tried to get her to gain weight. But usually, despite our best efforts to ply her with full-fat dairy of all descriptions, she doesn’t eat a whole lot every day. But since her sickness, now that she’s finally able to eat and keep it down, somehow her body knows that she has to make up for lost weight. This might seem obvious to other parents who’ve witnessed this phenomenon in their own kids, but it amazes me to see the brilliance of the human body in action.

I’ll be posting more this week now that Pumpkin is feeling better. I’ve missed catching up with you all on the blog.

What would you do if you couldn’t afford health insurance for your child? What if you didn’t have enough money to buy healthy food at the grocery store? What if you had to say no to an afterschool basketball program because it cost too much? These question aren’t just hypothetical for many parents in the Lower Hudson Valley.

As part of my research for a story on the health gap among the working poor, I met these parents. I met a mom who works full time at Mrs. Green’s in Katonah but can’t dream of buying the organic produce sold there — even with an employee discount. Her grocery budget for herself, her husband and baby is $60 a week.

I met Annette Medina of Yonkers, another mom who works full time but doesn’t get health benefits as part of her job. But in Annette’s case, that fact is a bit of an eye-popper because she is a medical assistant. When she received a $1 an hour raise, she no longer qualified for the state-supported Child Health Plus insurance plan. So now her 11-year-old son is without insurance. Her pain over this is great. She also feels keenly the lack of the healthiest organic food and produce in her home. This is how she put it to me: “I wish I could always eat healthy, especially with my son. He’s a heavyset boy, and I worry so much about what I put into him. I wish I could buy whole grains and the salmon and the blueberries and the good stuff.” Here a link to a video of her talking about this in her own words.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have health benefits and don’t have to check the prices before we decide whether or not to buy a bag of salad, this might seem remote. But you might be surprised to learn that some of your neighbors and friends are in the same situation.

When I talked to Nyack resident Georganne Chapin, the CEO of Hudson Health Plan, she told me she’s met a lot of people without health insurance — because she asks about it. She had some electrical work done recently, and when she asked the electrician about his health coverage, it turned out he didn’t have any. The reason so many of us don’t know about this is people are too ashamed to talk about it. “There is such fear and stigma attached to not being able to take care of yourself or your family, and people don’t like to admit they don’t have insurance,” Georganne told me.

Georganne wishes people would pay more attention to the nearly 47 million people without health insurance in our country. While there’s a lot of talk about providing help to children, she wants us to remember the parents, too. “We make it easy for children to qualify for subsidized health insurance. It’s a feel-good thing. But maybe we should cover the parents so they can take care of their kids,” she argues.

I’d love to hear from other parents who might be struggling with some of same problems or have insight into this issue. Also check out other stories in our special report on the “Cost of Health.â€?

Cheerios. Check. Spaghetti. Yup. Bananas. You bet. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to put bananas into the “loves it” category. In fact, “hates it” was putting it too mildly, as you can see in the photo at right. I took that picture on Jan. 30, 2006, the first day Pumpkin tried bananas. Both her father and I were disappointed she didn’t like bananas since we both love the fruit ourselves. Plus, it’s so nutritious. (I must say, her Grandma, who hates bananas, took a certain satisfaction in their shared dislike — especially since picking up my discarded banana peels when I was a child grossed her out.)

But now, a little over a year later, Pumpkin loves bananas. It’s one of the snacks that gets a hearty “Yum!” every time. Go figure.

What about the rest of you moms and dads — what foods are your children’s favorites, and which ones did they have to grow into to like?

I am officially a bad mother (or a real mother, depending on your perspective). I just bribed my child. To be good. We were leaving the grocery store and she was having a meltdown because A.) she didn’t want to leave; and B.) she hates getting in the car. I said: “If you quiet down and let mommy get you in the car seat, you can have ice cream when we go home.� And she did.

This is amazing to me on several fronts. I can’t believe she understood such a complex exchange of ideas. (She’s really growing up!) I also can’t believe she even remembers ice cream that well. She has only eaten it a few times since the summer. I just happened to pick up some tonight. Lucky me!

So, what do you think? I am irredeemably on a path that will lead to me buying her a car in exchange for not turning into the 2021 equivalent of Paris Hilton? What about the rest of you: Have you ever bribed your child?

(And, in case you are wondering, I came through with the ice cream. I keep my shady deals.)

Tonight, when I made dinner for Pumpkin, I sprinkled parmesan on her whole wheat elbow macaroni and tomato sauce and watched the cheese get all melty and gooey. Then, as I do before every meal, I tucked her plate in the freezer for three minutes to remove any vestiges of warmth from the food. Pumpkin decidedly does not like hot food. Even slightly warm food gets a “hot, hot” and a face. If you dare to put something very warm in her mouth, she opens wide and lets it fall out.

She eats everything at room temperature or with a slight chill, including oatmeal, chicken soup and sweet potatoes. Her preference doesn’t bother me, but it drives her Grandma a bit bananas. She simply can’t believe that scrambled eggs can taste good cold. She keeps trying to introduce Pumpkin to the joys of warm food — so far without success.

So, is my child just quirky, or is this typical toddler behavior? What weird food preferences did your wee ones exhibit in their early years?

Incidentally, I got the idea for this post after reading my colleague Katie Ryan O’Connor’s new blog about feeding your kids without losing your sanity. It’s called “Ice cream is not for breakfast.” (A statement I’d like to heartily dispute!)

I think I like to bake. I say “I think” because sometimes, I really do like to bake.

But as I sit here at 12:19 a.m., waiting for the oven timer to signal the end of baking a batch of cupcakes for my son’s third-grade class, I’m not so sure that I like baking.

I volunteered to bake cupcakes for the class’ Valentine’s Day party, which is tomorrow. (Uh, that would be today, since it’s now after midnight on Thursday.) I typically don’t mind doing this, except that I forgot all about the cupcakes today, until the thought struck me at about 11 p.m.

I remembered the task well on Sunday afternoon, when I stood in Stop and Shop, looking at a package of 24 beautifully decorated cupcakes, already perfect in a ready-to-carry case, for well under $10. I picked them up. Put them in the cart. Then remembered my son’s words: “I can’t wait to make the cupcakes with you, Mom.” So I put back the pretty, ready-made, easy-to-carry, reasonably priced cupcakes. Instead, I picked up some pink and white sprinkles, cake mix, canned frosting (there is no reason in the world to make cupcakes from scratch for 8-year-olds) and headed home.

Tonight, my son had nothing to do with the baking of these cupcakes, since I  started them long after his bedtime. But since he has a two-hour school delay tomorrow, I’ll save the frosting and sprinkling and we can do that together after he gets up. He’ll be happy. I’ll be sleepy.

But as I sit here, waiting for the timer to ring, I’m really thinking of the beautifully decorated Stop & Shop cupcakes. With the awful weather, I bet they’re still there. My husband even offered to go out and buy them. But no. I promised my child I’d bake for his class, so I’m baking.

Am I crazy? 

Boing Boing, one of the Web’s most popular blogs, has some funny posts about food packages for children that are supposed to teach science, but instead spread misinformation. I like this gem from Pomodoro pasta: “Mars is the closest planet to the sun, but it’s not the hottest — Venus is!”

(Incidentally, the way I memorized the planets’ order was this mnemonic: Many Very Early Men Jerked Sodas Up Near Pluto. Alas, since Pluto is not a planet anymore, this no longer works. Any suggestions for a new one?)

I felt myself cringe when I saw the headline and blurb on the front page of today’s Salon: “The bunny vs. the blue box: Annie’s Homegrown Macaroni & Cheese is the pantry staple of harried, organo-hipster parents everywhere. But is it any healthier than the day-glo noodles of our white-bread childhoods?”

I cringed because Annie’s is in my cupboard right now, and I, like other suckers customers have paid a premium for the brand with the idea that it’s better for Pumpkin than Kraft. This article dispels most of that comforting idea.

In a point-by-point comparison of ingredients and nutrients, writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo discovers that Annie’s and Kraft are pretty darn similar, even to the calorie count (Annie’s 270, Kraft 260) and protein content (Annie’s 10 g, Kraft 9 g).

She goes on to suggest that moms and dads would find it just as easy to grate some cheese on pasta and mix it up with a pat of butter and splash of milk. If you’re up to it, she also provides a recipe for white sauce, so the cheese doesn’t get clumpy:

White Sauce
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. white flour
1/2 to 2 cups milk

Melt butter in small frying pan over medium heat. Add flour and whisk until a smooth paste is formed. Add a tablespoon or so of milk and whisk until smooth. Repeat process until desired consistency is reached. For cheese sauce or as base for soup, this should be somewhere between ketchup and heavy cream. Remove from heat.

What I found interesting about the article is that it had me down pat. I’ve been buying Annie’s mac and cheese and snack crackers simply because the marketing touted them as “natural.” Now, I know that the term “natural” is pretty loosey goosey when it comes to the food industry. But even so, it somehow gave me the permission I needed to buy processed food for my daughter. In an ideal world—where I have ample time to schlep to Whole Foods every week—I would never buy processed food. But, in my life, the fact remains that despite my ideals to buy actual whole foods, we do end up eating boxed mac and cheese and store-bought cookies. (From Mrs. Green’s, no less.)

This story reminds me that it is almost as easy to grate your own cheese. (Ironically, I have a rectangle of Cracker Barrel chedder in my fridge, which I bought with the intention of making some homemade mac and cheese.) And cookies are actually one of the easiest foods to make. So maybe I’ll try to rely a bit less on Annie’s Homemade and more on Julie’s homemade.

(I do want to speak up a bit in Annie’s defense because some of the company’s products are certified organic, which is a priority for many parents.)

What about you other moms and dads: Do you buy Annie’s? And, if you do, do you think it’s healthier than other processed foods?

(Update: Vote in our new poll on what you feed your kids!)

When it comes to food, my boys are as different as night and day.

My 13-year-old will try just about anything. He likes sushi, curry goat, jerk chicken, most greens and just about any kind of fruit.

My 8-year-old sums up his palate this way: “I eat what I like, Mom.” He actually said this on Friday as he ate a Coney Island burger (burger with barbecue sauce and bacon – the bacon has to be on a separate plate) at Brooklyn’s Famous Subs and Pasta in White Plains. That’s about as far as his gastronomical repertoire expanded. Until Saturday, that is.

On a foray to Nyack, my husband and I decided that we were going to have a Saturday afternoon lunch that didn’t feature anything that came on a bun or cut into eighths. We ventured to the Thai House, a delightfully cozy place that was obviously once a diner. There, my 13-year-old studied the menu, asking about Pad Thai, duck and other dishes. My 8-year-old seemed initially content with water.

Now don’t get me wrong: My younger son isn’t a complete food Neanderthal. He LOVES Chinese food. Well, he thinks he does. Basically, he eats fried chicken wings and fried rice. Just like they make in old Shanghai. Right.

We chose Thai, thinking that seeing some rice on the plate would encourage him to try some other foods. You’re now thinking, “Ha! Fat chance.” You’re wrong! He actually loved the sauteed jumbo shrimp, chicken, pork, snow peas and broccoli, cauliflower in garlic sauce, along with the Thai-style fried rice. And he gobbles up the wontons and spring rolls. He ate baby corn! And asked me to buy some for dinner this week!

So the introduction to something different went well, this time.

How do you introduce new foods to your kids?

I have a week of vacation beginning Saturday, and in addition to finishing up holiday shopping and wrapping presents, I hope to bake at least one batch of cookies. The question is: What to make?

Looking back on our family’s traditional cookie recipes, they all seem to include nuts of some kind. To prevent allergies, I’m not serving Pumpkin any peanuts or tree nuts until she’s 2. So, that rules out favorites like thumbprints (rolled in walnuts), Mexican wedding cakes (walnuts, again), and cupcake cookies (pecans). Chocolate chip cookies also are problematic because while the chips are gooey and soft when they’re warm, they get rather hard when they cool — definitely not friendly to people without molars.

I know one good option: sugar cookies, but to be honest, I just can’t spend that much time (refrigerating, rolling, cutting out, baking carefully, decorating, etc.). I am looking for a fairly easy, tasty, nut-free cookie that will appeal to a toddler. Any suggestions?

Today, Pumpkin had baked potato and corn for lunch — and so did I. And then for dinner, she had macaroni and cheese with peas — and so did I. Yikes! It is a rare day when I can resist sneaking at least a mouthful whatever carbohydrate she’s eating — whether it’s pasta or potato or buttered toast.

This is not good. I want to follow the South Beach Diet, but the food I need to fix for Pumpkin constantly sabotages me. It’s hard to imagine a worse menu than Pumpkin’s for someone who wants to avoid daily forays into the wonderful world of carbs. Her favorite foods include toast, spaghetti and pancakes. All whole wheat, but still loaded with carbs.

It’s not all bad news. Often, feeding Pumpkin has actually turned out to be a boon to my own nutrition because I feel obligated to provide her with a hot vegetable once a day. (If I were preparing food just for myself and my husband, I’d probably toss a salad, especially on deadline days.)

A couple of years back my husband, mother and I stuck to South Beach for nearly six months. (I lost almost 30 pounds — then I got pregnant and felt free to eat pizza again.) The only reason we succeeded was because we did a whole kitchen cleaning, tossing out all the goodies we didn’t want around.

I know for a fact that all moms do not have this problem. (And I’m not just talking about Britney with her preternaturally fit abs.) Some people are able to resist the tempting foods they keep on hand for baby. Some people don’t say to themselves, “Wow, Pumpkin, you shoved that whole graham cracker in your mouth. It must be good. Let me try it.”

And I can’t blame Pumpkin for ordering takeout, even if the phone is one of her favorite toys. While she did enjoy munching on green beans in black bean sauce and tofu this past weekend, she didn’t call Q’s Garden.

What about you other moms (and dads) — do you find yourself tempted by the tasty, high-calorie food you feed your little ones? What are your tricks for resisting their sweet snacks and yummy full-fat cheeses? (I recently bought some whole-milk organic cottage cheese for Pumpkin. It was delicious. I didn’t even know it was possible for cottage cheese to be so good. You see what I mean.)