This is sponsored content from BlogHer and The Laughing Cow.

We eat a lot vegetables in our house. In fact, I like to think that I cook a way above average amount of vegetables. Black beans, blackeyed peas, green beans, asparagus, butterbeans, corn, squash, carrots, tomatoes, okra, sweet potatoes, eggplant – all of these things are regular parts of our diet.

But.

I was born and raised in Mississippi. I spent the first three years of my married life in south Louisiana. And I now live in Alabama. And while we do eat healthily for the most part, I occasionally call upon my Southern cooking heritage when it comes to adding bacon and butter to our vegetables. So while I feel confident telling you that you could stop by our house on almost any night of the week and find several vegetables from which to choose, you should probably know in advance that you might not be eating them steamed and flavored with the teeniest bit of olive oil when you visit.

However, I think you’ll find that you’ll appreciate the temporary vacation from worries about your cholesterol when you experience that first taste of bacon fat in your peas.

Yes ma’am. Pass the cornbread. Please and thank you.

So just in case you’ve never experienced the joy of preparing and eating vegetables in the Deep South – I thought I’d offer a brief tutorial here today. You probably wouldn’t want to follow these rules all the time, but every once in awhile it’s good to kick up your soul food heels. And while it is not necessary for you to visit your cardiologist before implementing these methods in your own cooking, it is certainly recommended. As I always like to say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of really good butter.

Amen.

1) If there’s no form of pork product in your vegetable, you’re doing something wrong.

I grew up knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that pigs and vegetables are BFFs. They go together like peas and, well, ham hocks. And even when I cook vegetables that aren’t traditional Southern staple – like black beans – I like to fry a little bacon, remove it from the pan, and then use those bacon drippings to season my beans. Which leads us straight to tip #2…

2) A little bit of bacon makes every vegetable better.

Sprinkle some crumbled bacon on a cooked sweet potato. Or mix it up in some green beans with sugar and vinegar. Or stir it up with some eggplant, onion, garlic and butter. Or add it to your bread crumbs when you’re dredging green tomatoes. YOU CAN’T GO WRONG. And more importantly? Your life will never be the same.

3) Go big with real butter or go home.

Now contrary to what you might think, I’m not advocating that you use large quantities of butter when you cook vegetables. But I am advocating that you use real butter. Nothing from a tub. Nothing that “tastes like” butter. I’m talking about the real deal butter – the best thing that ever happened to baked sweet potatoes or fresh squash. I’d rather use a teaspoon of the real stuff than a tablespoon of the fake stuff. Let’s embrace the real-live butter. It’s the right thing to do.

So. There you have it. The three primary ways I like to take perfectly healthy foods and occasionally make them significantly less healthy. And I’m so grateful that you’ve joined me on this somewhat fat-laden portion of my culinary journey.

One more thing: if you’d like to win a $150 Visa gift card, leave a comment on this post that answers the following question:

Share a funny cooking-related story, video clip, picture, etc. in the comment section and you will be entered to win $150. Please keep your comments G-rated as any profanity or offensive content will automatically disqualify you from sweepstakes entry. You should also visit The Daily Laugh hub to read funny content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share something really funny, we may even use it in The Daily Laugh!

And don’t miss the other bloggers’ posts – you have 11 other chances to win each month!

Questions about the sweepstakes? Check out the official rules.

Happy Laughing, everybody!

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This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Juicy Juice.

All righty, people of the interweb: I have a parenting confession.

Ready?

Here we go.

My child doesn’t really like fruit.

I mean, he tolerates it. He’ll eat bananas or strawberries or pineapple. He enjoys the occasional mango or peach. But he’s not so big on grapes. Or blueberries. Or cantaloupe. Thank goodness that he usually has a great attitude about trying fruit, but as a general rule it’s just not his favorite food group. He’ll eat vegetables all the live-long day, and I always say that he’s never met a bean or pea that he didn’t like.

But the fruit? Not his favorite.

So, as a mama who wants him to be strong and healthy and whathaveyou, the burden falls on me to make sure that he’s getting all the vitamins and nutrients that he needs. I want him to learn how to make good food choices, to look at option A, option B and option C and be able to determine which option is healthiest.

And in cases where he’s not completely carried away with what’s available – like if he were to, say, find himself in the midst of an endless array of fruit platters – well, I want him to know how to make good substitutions. And I want him to understand that fruit-flavored candy is not in fact the same thing as actual fruit.

It’s good to have some nutrition goals, don’t you think?

We’ve always liked Juicy Juice in our house because it’s 100% juice – no added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup – and now that the little guy is seven and has some definite food preferences (including the fact that all fruits are not his friend), it’s nice to know that I can give him a small glass of Juicy Juice and it counts as a serving of fruit. He loves almost every flavor we’ve ever tried. And when BlogHer contacted me about sending me some samples of Juicy Juice punch and sparkling apple juice, I was totally on board.

We actually had ourselves a little taste test when the big box of Juicy Juice 100% (punch) and Sparkling Juicy Juice (apple) arrived at our house. Since Alex’s 3 1/2 year-old cousin was spending a few days at our house at the time, he decided that he wanted to join the fun, too.

The verdict?

Alex, who’s 7, still loves Juicy Juice 100% punch best of all. It’s what he’s used to. But the sparkling apple juice intrigues him. It comes in a really cool can, and I have to say that it is TASTY. There’s a fizz like you’re drinking a lemon-lime soda, but the taste is definitely apple juice (it’s 70% real juice, 30% water).

When J sampled the punch, he immediately said, “TASTES GOOD!” Alex tried the sparkling apple juice and said, “It’s good – but it’s just a little bit sour” (it’s much more of a green apple flavor than a red apple flavor). Then he took back-to-back sips of the sparkling apple and the punch and said, “If I could drink something with these two flavors together, I would call it ‘PARTY!'”

So I think we’ll be trying the sparkling berry very soon.

If you’d like to win a $100 Visa gift card plus a Juicy Juice prize pack, leave a comment that answers this question: What’s your very best tip for raising healthy eaters?

Mine? Make kids try everything on their plates. We have a rule in our house that you have to at least try every single food, and if you don’t like it, fine. But if you do? All the better.

Be sure to check out the BlogHer.com Juicy Juice 2010 Round-up page for more chances to win. And no giveaway post would be complete if I didn’t direct you to the BlogHer.com Juicy Juice 2010 official rules.

Happy Juicy Juice-ing, y’all!

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This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

As much as I may occasionally get frustrated with the NON-STOP RELENTLESS HUMID during the summers here in central Alabama, I really do treasure the time from May until August. We try to pack as much as we can into the weeks when we don’t have to be on any set schedule, and I pretty much revel in our freedom. It may be hot as all get out, but it really is the most wonderful part of the year.

For the last few years we’ve wrapped up our summer vacation with a trip to the beach. This is a special beach trip because we go with my cousins and their kids – and this year my sister-in-law and nephews joined us, too. It’s probably the only time all year when we have wide-open, uninterrupted patches of time to visit and cook and laugh and play. And since there’s no hectic holiday craziness surrounding us, we really do relax. Granted, it’s a special brand of relaxing that requires adjusting to the sound of many very loud children, but the whole trip is so laid-back that it doesn’t even matter. It’s just a joy.

This year, on our last night at the beach, the kids did something they’ve never done before: they organized a massive hide-and-seek game. We made all of the big kids responsible for at least one of the smaller kids, and then we opened the door and let them hide (and seek) all over the lobby area of our condo building (it’s not a huge area, so we knew we could keep an eye on them). They’d play a round, come inside for freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, play another round of hide-and-seek, come inside for another round of cookies – and so it went for almost two hours. Every once in awhile one of the grown-ups would walk outside the door to check on them, and we never had to look far; their laughter led us straight to them. It’s a memory I think they’ll keep forever – and hopefully a tradition they’ll continue for years to come.

Even the youngest cousin – who’s almost 4 – looked at his mama after the final game and said, “Mama, that was the funnin’-est time I ever did have.”

So I think it’s safe to say that the beach trip hide-and-seek was a hit.

So what about you? What’s your favorite thing to do with the kids in your life during the summer? Leave a comment with your answer, and you’ll be entered to win a $100 Visa gift card (and come back next week to enter again – because these giveaways will continue for the next 11 weeks).

And be sure to visit the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page – you have 24 other chances to win $100 every single week that this program is running! Here are the official rules.

Mom’s Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids’ cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. To learn more about the program, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

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