Boost your family’s brain power with this chia and blueberry-packed breakfast recipe! These pancakes serve up antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, iron, and calcium to help fuel your family’s day. And take a peek into The Creative Kitchen Founder Cricket Azima’s kitchen below and follow along!

Brainy Breakfast Pancakes

1. Mix up a batch of your favorite pancake mix according to package directions*

2. Stir in two mashed, overripe bananas.

3. Add 1/2 cup chia seeds.

4. Add one pint of blueberries.

5. Cook according to package directions**

*Cricket likes to make a double batch and freeze half of the cooked pancakes to enjoy on mornings when she’s too tired or doesn’t have the time to cook.
**Cricket sometimes bakes the pancakes on sheet trays in effort to cook a large batch at once.

The Creative Kitchen™, LLC, teaches children about food and how to cook in a fun, safe, and educational manner. Targeting families with children ages two to teen, the company focuses on teaching, writing creative content and curriculum, special events, recipe development, spokesperson work, webisode production and consulting to present educational and entertaining content through food-related activities. The founder, Cricket Azima, is an expert in cooking for and with children. She inspires kids to express themselves creatively through food and cooking, while complementing lessons with traditional educational material such as social studies, math, arts, science, and more. Visit www.thecreativekitchen.com for more information.

When kids are immersed in enjoyable activities, they absorb and retain information more effectively. The Kids Food Festival embodies this philosophy of learning through fun with its weekend of family events hosted on November 2^nd and 3^rd at Union Market in Washington DC. Families will cook, dance, laugh, and taste their way to making balanced food choices!

At the Kids Food Festival, presented by The Creative Kitchen, kids engage all five senses through hands-on, food-related activities. The magic of the festival is rooted in the fact that kids are having so much fun participating in the flavorful activities, they don’t realize how much they are learning! Enthusiastic eaters and little epicures alike can attend hands-on cooking classes at the James Beard Foundation Future Foodies Pavilion, where renowned chefs pass on their recipes, skills, and love for all things culinary to a new generation of learners. The Balanced Plate Scavenger Hunt (based on USDA ChooseMyPlate.gov guidelines) is the core educational element of the Festival. Kids bounce between exhibitors and activities to sample tasty, wholesome snacks while learning the importance of achieving balance in their food choices. Families will enjoy live musical performances, a disco dance party, fitness workshops, and more, with each of the activities relaying special messages about healthful eating!

The Kids Food Festival founder and Big Cheese of The Creative Kitchen, Cricket Azima, has a passion for providing cooking classes to children in New York City, “The Kids Food Festival is wonderful because it combats the very serious issue of childhood obesity in such a fun and effective way. We are able to promote and support companies that make healthful living delicious, and kids go home from the events excited about the new, better-for-you foods that they embraced,” Cricket explains. “Through the Festival we get to reach thousands of families in one weekend, and that in itself is incredible.”

General admission to the event is free, and tickets to the hands-on cooking classes in the James Beard Foundation Future Foodies Pavilion can be purchased at http://kidsfoodfestivaldc2013.eventbrite.com. The KFF is excited to support Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

Visit www.kidsfoodfestival.com, on the Kids Food Festival Facebook page, and on Twitter at @KidsFoodFestFun!

The Creative Kitchen™, LLC, teaches children about food and how to cook in a fun, safe, and educational manner.  Targeting families with children ages two to teen, the company focuses on teaching, writing creative content and curriculum, special events, recipe development, spokesperson work, webisode production and consulting to present educational and entertaining content through food-related activities. The founder, Cricket Azima, is an expert in cooking for and with children.  She inspires kids to express themselves creatively through food and cooking, while complementing lessons with traditional educational material such as social studies, math, arts, science, and more. Visit www.thecreativekitchen.com for more information.

Food Day is a nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainably produced food, and a grassroots campaign for better food policies. It builds all year long and culminates on October 24.

Food Day aims to help people Eat Real. That means cutting back on sugar drinks and overly salted packaged foods in favor of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and sustainably raised protein.

In 2013, Food Day has a special focus on activities aimed at teaching kids to cook. We’ll never be able to match the resources of America’s junk-food manufacturers that discourage cooking. But all over the country, activities are underway to ensure that kids are as familiar with vegetable peelers, cutting boards, and mixing bowls as they are with iPads, iPhones, and video games. Thousands of kids will discover a new vegetable, chop their first salad, or make their first soup on October 24.

Here are a few suggestions for how you can celebrate Food Day with your students or family:

• Join us on Food Day to teach kids to cook around the country, at school or at home, and register your cooking class on the national map of Food Day events with the title “Let’s Get Cooking with Kids.” Check out the recipes from a new cookbook, 20 Recipes to Get Kids Cooking! 
• Use Food Day School Curriculum for the nutrition and food education lessons in the classroom.
• Spread the word about Food Day with this social media post:

Add your voice to support eating real! Join our October 24 #FoodDay2013 #ThunderClap on Twitter: http://thndr.it/19q8OAb_

You can also find an event in your hometown or get in touch with Food Day organizers in your area. For more information, visit www.foodday.org.

Lilia Smelkova is Food Day Campaign Manager at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The Creative Kitchen™, LLC, teaches children about food and how to cook in a fun, safe, and educational manner.  Targeting families with children ages two to teen, the company focuses on teaching, writing creative content and curriculum, special events, recipe development, spokesperson work, webisode production and consulting to present educational and entertaining content through food-related activities. The founder, Cricket Azima, is an expert in cooking for and with children.  She inspires kids to express themselves creatively through food and cooking, while complementing lessons with traditional educational material such as social studies, math, arts, science, and more. Visit www.thecreativekitchen.com for more information.