I recently attended an all-expenses paid meeting at The J. M. Smucker Company on behalf of SpanglishBaby to learn more about Smucker’s Brand Products and  helpful holiday tips. I want to share some of the fun and easy recipes I learned using Smucker’s Brand Products that will surely add some love to your holiday fiestas.

During my visit I learned how to make delicious tasting treats and dishes that would make family gatherings for the holidays extra special. My family is big and when we get together there are so many different foods to enjoy. It’s great to have our traditional dishes, but occasionally it’s fun to surprise the kids with some yummy treats.

I tried these recipes at Smucker’s Headquarters and they were delicious, so putting my kids to the test when I got home was a must — my kids enjoyed both! Here are the two recipes I will definitely be sharing and making with my family this holiday.

Caramel Apple Popcorn by Pillsbury

Yields 4 servings(refer to site recipe for larger servings)

Ingredients:

1/2 container of Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Caramel Apple Flavored Frosting

1 bag of microwave popcorn

1 cup of pecans

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

2 cups of apple chips (freezer dry works too)

pinch of salt

Directions:

•Preheat oven at 250°F and prepare a baking sheet. Either line with parchment paper or coat with Crisco cooking spray.

•Microwave frosting in separate bowl for approximately 20 seconds.  (If making large serving where a whole container is called for, remove all foil and lid before microwaving. Pour over popped popcorn.

•Add pecans and mix until fully coated. Bake for at least 2o minutes or until crunchy. Remove from oven and toss in cinnamon, salt, and apple chips.

Popcorn stores for up to a week in an airtight container.

Cran Raspberry Snowball Punch by Smuckers

Yields 6- 1 cup servings

Ingredients:

16oz or 2 cups of cranberry juice

6oz of Smucker’s Seedless Red Raspberry Jam

1 liter of lemon lime soda, chilled

at least 4 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream(you can add one to each cup to make it a super snowball punch!

Directions:

•In a pitcher or punch bowl, mix in cranberry juice, raspberry jam and lemon lime soda.

•Add scoops of ice cream and stir until frothy.

•Top with ice cream scoops forming snowballs.

Serve and enjoy! ¡Qué rico!

Summer is officially here and in many parts of the country the first heat waves are already hitting. What better way to cool down than with paletas!

We are sharing five delicious popsicle recipes, some of which might surprise you. Not everyone has a sweet tooth so we are including two refreshing recipes that call for a little chile instead! It’s great to have sugar-free recipes for our niños during the summer. And if you or your niños don’t like chile you can always omit that part from the recipe. Just click on the links below for the recipes by amazing latina bloggers pictured above.

1.Paletas Heladas de Pepino {Con chilito Tajin} by Elida of Simple Y Delicioso.

2. Natural fruit paletas with watermelon and Tajín by Maura of The Other Side of the Tortilla. 

3. Aguas Frescas Popsicles: Sandia & Melon by Angie of Little Inspiration.

4. Paleta de batata (Sweet potato popsicles) by Clara of Aunt Clara’s Kitchen. 

5. Paletas de Fresa y Aguacate by Vianney of Sweet Life. 

We’ve rounded five Lent-friendly recipes for you to enjoy! Even if you don’t observe Lent, these dishes are yummy meatless alternatives to everyday meals and great opportunities to try new recipes with your niños.

Chorizo, Potato, and Egg Tacos 

These chorizo breakfast tacos were made with soyrizo by Opera Singer in the Kitchen. The recipe works with regular chorizo if you’d like as well. Check out the full recipe here.

 Gluten & Grain-Free Pizza Crust Recipe

This gluten and grain-free pizza crust recipe by Momables is made from cauliflower. Check out the surprisingly simple way to make this pizza here. It is sure to be a hit with kids!

 La Rancherita’s Pot of Beans

If you want a good story and a classic pot-of-beans check out Clementina’s recipe for la rancherita’s pot of beans.  Clementina shares a story about a rancherita and how her delicious pot of beans won over a charro’s heart. Clementina blogs at A Little Cup of Hot Chocolate.

Tarta Pascualina – Spinach and Ricotta Tart with Peppers

From Argentina With Love comes this decadent recipe for a tarta pascualina or a spinach and ricotta tart with peppers. Enjoy it with friends while celebrating easter or anytime of year. This recipe was passed on to Rebecca by her friend Tom and you can find the full recipe here.

Grilled Salmon with Corn Salsa

This healthy dish by Layla of Las Recetas de Laylita will put you in the mood to grill and spend some time outdoors. Check out the full recipe here.

What we loved even more is that these recipes where created by a familiar face to SpanglishBaby, our amiga Ericka Sanchez of Nibbles & Feasts and also our main contributor to The Culture Of Food here in SpanglishBaby. Ericka has joined the National Honey Board as a food expert and spokesperson to bring us these easy to make appetizers. Check them out below!

Honey-Lime Chicken Skewers

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

2 tbsps honey

3 tbsps soy sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lime, juiced

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast strips

Preparation:

In a small bowl, whisk all liquid ingredients together until completely blended. Pour mixture into a freezer bag and add in chicken strips. Reseal bag and gently shake to cover chicken strips. Allow to marinade for 2 hours.

Next, prepare skewers by soaking bamboo sticks in water for 15 minutes. Remove chicken strips from marinade and skewer onto bamboo sticks. Grill on medium to high heat for 8 minutes or until juices are clear and chicken is fully cooked.

Mini Buñuelos with Honey Cream

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup honey

8, 8-inch flour tortillas

Oil for frying (canola or vegetable oil)

1 cup crème fraiche

1 tsp cinnamon

Preparation:

Cut out each tortilla with 4″-inch round cookie cutters. Fold each side of the cut out piece over on opposite sides so as to allow both folds to meet in the center, forming a pocket. Heat 1-inch of cooking oil in large skillet. Once hot, fry each tortilla pocket until golden brown. Place on paper towels to drain excess oil. Let cool. Next, place ½ cup honey in a small bowl. Once tortillas are cool, carefully brush each one with honey.

In a small saucepan over low heat, warm the remaining ½ cup of honey until easily stirred. Add crème fraiche and cinnamon. Continue stirring until all ingredients have thoroughly combined. Serve buñuelos drizzled with the honey cream or on the side for dipping.

*For a fun, festive look, you can cut tortillas out using 2” to 4”-inch star cookie cutters.

We are so excited to be co-hosting the first annual Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Hop Fiesta!

Hispanic Heritage Month is going on now through October 15, so join us as we celebrate the rich cultural heritage given to our country by generations of Hispanics. The term Hispanic or Latino, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

Link up below any posts related to activities, crafts, music, recipes, and more for celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The blog hop will be open through October 15, so feel free to come back and share additional posts throughout the month.

We will be featuring posts from the blog hop throughout the month on our Facebook page and Raising Global Citizens Pinterest board.

As if that weren’t enough, simply by linking up you will be entered to win a great prize from Boca Beth! (See details below).

5 Blogs Co-hosting:

We are proud to be co-hosting with five amazing blogs. This means that by linking up below your post will automatically appear on all of these blogs as well. They are great resources, so be sure to visit them!

Though it is not necessary in order to participate in our Fiesta Blog Hop, please visit these great blogs and consider following them. They are all wonderful: All Done Monkey, Inspired by Family Magazine, Spanglish Baby, Bicultural Mom and Spanish Playground.

Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Hop Fiesta!

Here are the guidelines:

• Link up any family friendly crafts, music, recipes,and articles related to Hispanic heritage or the cultures of Latin America
• Please grab our button or add a text link to us in your post
• No giveaways or shops, please
• You can return throughout the month to share any additional posts
• Though it’s not necessary to follow us in order to participate in our Fiesta Blog Hop we would love it if you do! We would love to keep in touch with you via Facebook, Twitter or Feedburner.

Now let’s see what you’ve been up to y ¡que empiece la fiesta!

Our Giveaway: Boca Beth Starter Set of Spanish Learning Fun!

We are so pleased to announce that we will be giving away the Boca Beth Beginner Backpack to one lucky winner! This prize, valued at $49.99, includes a Starter Set of Spanish Learning Fun: DVD, CD, Boca Puppet, back pack and much more! You may have seen Boca Beth Videos on educational channels and the U.S. Department of Education recommends them. Stop by and check out their fabulous products.

To enter, simply link up your ideas for Hispanic Heritage Month above (the blue frog). Each project submitted will be considered an entry. Must have a US shipping address to win.

One of my biggest challenges this summer has been cooking for three kids, three times a day. Although I like to cook when I have time, space and money, those factors have been seriously lacking of late. We have certain staples that are always a hit (cinnamon pancakes…for dinner!), but I’ve discovered a roadblock that I didn’t expect. The greatest obstacle to keeping their bellies happy? Requests for Latin foods that I don’t know how to make, or (more often) that I refuse to make because they are unhealthy.

My son wants some arroz con habichuelas and lechón like his abuela makes, and my stepdaughters are constantly requesting flan and tostones. Basically, they want salt, sugar, and grease! I’m the last person on the planet that anyone should look to for unhealthy foods. I can bake up a storm, but usually only do so for special occasions.

I’m a huge fan of the flavors in Mexican, Cuban, and other varieties of Latin food, but I try to avoid the ones that are fried or soaked in lard. Nor am I the drive-thru mom. I run in the other direction when I see a greasy plate of anything, and unfortunately, I associate a lot of Latin foods with this very image.

Part of this reluctance on my part to venture into true Latino cooking is my paranoia that the kids will end up like all of their grandparents: with diabetes and high blood pressure from years of sugar and salt overload. Hispanic Americans are nearly twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with diabetes, and it freaks me out that our children already have the genetic odds stacked against them. Half the time (with the other parents), they are exposed to the dietary factors that may eventually create health issues, which makes me feel pressured to fight that with healthier habits at our house.

Does this mean I’m denying them an important cultural ritual, or looking out for them?

I don’t want to leave a bad taste in their mouths about the foods they love and associate with family, but there must be a better way to preserve the positives than to feed them the lethal goodies, right?

I love the healthy, flavorful recipes that have been shared on SpanglishBaby, and wish there were more resources for those of us who did not grow up cooking traditional Latin recipes. I’m searching for ways to make healthy foods, disguised as the Puerto Rican meals they love.

How do you balance nutritional concerns with your kids’ taste for the bad stuff? Any advice on how to cook up culture with a little less grasa?

{Image via Daquella manera}

Brave will finally hit theaters Friday June 22! Many of our little ones are super exited for this new movie. And as you can tell, so are we! With the many posts we’ve shared with you about the process that went into making this movie we’ve become very familiar with the fiery Merida and are thrilled that the debut is soon approaching.

The best part is that we don’t only get to rant and rave about Brave, but we are also hosting a giveaway so that eighteen SpanglishBaby families get the chance to see Brave before anyone else ! In the meantime we’ve rounded up some awesome Brave activities for our niños to enjoy. The total of eleven activities even include two yummy Brave inspired recipes!

Click here to download the printable Brave activities.

Below you will find a fun and easy recipe for Kermit cupcakes and printable activities for your kids to make while those cupcakes are baking!

The Muppets return to the big screen next week on November 23rd! What a better way to spend this holiday than with cupcakes and The Muppets?!

Click on the images below to download the printable version of each activity and recipe.

click on image for full and printable version

click on image for printable version

click on image for printable version

Tortillas, tamales, pupusas, arepas, empanadas are words that need no translation because they are becoming such a rich part of the culinary tradition of las Américas. These traditional foods have one ingredient in common: Maseca, instant corn masa flour.

And why is Maseca part of every Latina´s kitchen? Because corn is a healthy tradition in our diets and part of our history, especially if you are from Mexican descent where corn has been a staple grain since Aztec times.

Since we believe food is one of the bridges to our culture, we are thrilled to be partnering with Maseca, a brand that represents our culture so well, as one of their ten Amigas Blogueras.

If you go to the Maseca brand new website here, you´ll meet all the Amigas Blogueras and see that we´re in great company! If you browse around you´ll find the Mi Chef section with tons of great recipe ideas using Maseca Amarilla, Regular and Para Tamales, which have been cleverly categorized under Niños, Recetas Tradicionales, El Lado Light and, my favorite, Sorprende a tu suegra. I totally need to spend some time exploring those recipes!

And how about this collection of eight tamale recipes from all over the Americas? Nicaragua, Mexico, Perú, Honduras, Guatemala and even the U.S.! I had no idea we had so many variations, and since these are made with Maseca they are simpler to prepare and delve into tasting them all. Forget Taco Tuesday. Let´s make it Tamale Thursdays!

Aside from browsing through some delicious recipes on the new site, you´ll also learn about the nutritional values of la tortilla we love so much and take for granted how healthy of a food it is.

For the next three months we´ll share more with you and the Maseca visitors over at their site. We´ll also let you know about cool new promotions, like this one called Raspa y Gana where you can instantly win Maseca products or even have them pay for your grocery bill.

For now, we´d love to know if you use Maseca and what you make with it.

Follow Maseca on Facebook and on Twitter. Join the Amigas Blogueras by following our conversations with the hashtag #MiClubMaseca and share with us your Maseca love!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored campaign on behalf of Maseca and Latina Bloggers Connect. All opinions are our own. We are thrilled to partner with brands which are an ideal fit.

All Photos Courtesy of Nicole Presley

Editor´s note: We invited one of our favorite food bloggers, Nicole Presley from Presley´s Pantry, to share with us a kid-friendly recipe using the New No-Stick Performance spray by PAM and she came up with something quite delectable.

I’ve wanted to try my hand at making lasagna cups for quite a while now, but due to fear of them sticking to the pan I’ve always reserved the occasion for another time. To my delight I stumbled across a New No-Stick Performance spray by PAM, and couldn’t resist the challenge to build my very own lasagna cups. The results… FLAWLESS! I was tickled pink at how easy they were to remove from the pan. I even pulled some out effortlessly with my hand. I’m praising this little NO-STICK sensation in the yellow can with the highest regard. Do you know what kind of baking/cooking possibilities PAM just opened up for me? The proof will be in the recipe below and when your kids ask for ¡Más, porfavor!. Enjoy!

Lasagna Cups Recipe

Ingredients

14 – lasagna noodles (cooked according to package)
1 – cup shredded mozzarella
12 – thinly sliced zucchini rounds (about 1/4 of a zucchini)
1/4 – cup ricotta
1/3 – sauteed or fresh chopped mushrooms
1/4 – cup pesto
1/4 – cup pine nuts
1/2 – cup shredded cheddar cheese
12 – thinly sliced tomato rounds (about 2 medium sized tomatoes)

What you’ll need:

1 – can Pam Ultimate No-Stick performance spray
1 – standard size muffin pan

Directions:

Boil lasagna noodles according to package. Drain water and carefully cut off ridged edges of all noodles. Then cut 12 of the noodles in half, you will need two halves per muffin cup. Cut the last 2 noodles into 6 pieces, making 12 squares total. Let’s get working.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lightly spray muffin pan with Pam Ultimate No-Stick Performance spray. Then take two pieces of lasagna noodles and form a cross inside muffin cup. Take a pinch of mozzarella cheese and place it in the center of overlapping noodles.

Add a sliced zucchini to the top of mozzarella cheese. Then dollop a teaspoon of ricotta cheese, add a teaspoon layer of mushrooms, a teaspoon of pesto, a few pine nuts, and a small pinch of cheddar cheese.

Then take two sides and fold into cheese, there should be a small gap showing. Take one of the noodles squares and place on top to bridge the gap.

Then take the other two sides and close. Will overlap slightly. Lastly place a sliced tomato on top and mound with a pinch of mozzarella cheese.

Repeat until done. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until cheese on top is golden crisp. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Removal is so easy you can use your hand, or spoon, or a little spatula.

Lasagna Cup Tip: You can eat them with your hand or served in a bowl of pasta sauce. These are also just the right size to put in your kids lunchbox!

Disclosure:  This post is part of a sponsored campaign on behalf of PAM Cooking Spray and ConAgra . We received compensation, a toolkit and PAM promotional items from ConAgra Foods to make this post possible.

Nicole Presley is a culinary enthusiast who lives to cook, eat, breathe and talk food. She writes an original recipe food blog called Presley’s Pantry from her home in East Los Angeles. Apart from working on her blog everyday, she dedicates her time to raising her 2-year-old son along with her fiance, and dotes on her Mother. Any small left-overs from her blog recipes are fed to her two grumpy chihuahuas, Oso and Penny.