So many blogs, so little time! Have you seen this one?  Although I am the world’s worst crafter, I love to look.   I wish I could make this Christmas Advent calendar, but I know if I tried, my dove would look like a piece of felt with a spec of blue dirt on it.  So, I won’t try. I’ll just enjoy what others can do.

My pumpkin hummus flopped like many of my crafting attempts.  I don’t feel bad.  I liked it of course.  My husband thought it tasted like baby food (but he doesn’t like hummus anyway), and the kids wouldn’t try it at all.

Here is the recipe from allrecipes. (I cut the recipe in half to fit my tiny food processor). If you like hummus, I’m pretty sure you will like this.

Give it a try!  The sourdough bread made it all that much better.

And hurry, before it’s too late. Enter Cathy’s giveaway to try some organic fruit puree!

There are so many different ways to make a smoothie, your kids should never be bored.  While not packed full of fruits and veggies, this smoothie sure made a great treat. We called it the Orange creamsicle smoothie.  I’ve seen different versions on many different websites, but I kept ours simple:

• 1 Cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup Orange juice
• 24 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in a blender.

  And drink

(Those are sunglasses that the lenses broke out of. She loves to wear them and “trick” people into thinking she wears glasses.  She wants braces too. Remember those days?)

Today’s post is brought to you by my 8 year old daughter!

chop  the    carits. cut  the  strobarys. put  in frozen bluebarys. cut a appel. chop up  frozen   charys. put it in a bole and eat.

With over 60 nutrients including a special fiber (beta-glucan) that helps to lower cholesterol, oats are a high quality source of whole grains.

I love oatmeal because it is so versatile. You can literally make a bowl of oatmeal, hundreds of different ways.  Here is one way my kids like it.

I prefer instant oats or quick oats (I think its less gummy and obviously quicker.  So, I use 1/2 cup quick oats, and approximately 3/4 cup water.

I cook the oatmeal with water in the microwave for one minute

Then I add a shake of cinnamon, and chopped apples.  Return to the microwave for 30 seconds to soften up the apples.

After mixed, I add applesauce and a tsp or two of brown sugar.

Then we eat!! This is so delicious and so filling.

Oats are

• inexpensive.
• You can always have some on hand since their shelf life is long.
• They are so satisfying on a cold fall morning.
• Kids love oatmeal if you start them young.  If they don’t like oatmeal because of the texture, try oat groats, rolled oats, or quick oats to see if it makes a difference with them.

Here is what cereal boy thought of it.

Other oatmeal posts:

Strawberry oatmeal

Oatmealpalooza

A proud moment:  Yesterday a friend from church gave us a package of microwave popcorn.  I didn’t realize how long its been since we bought microwave popcorn until one of my kids said, “You’ve got to be kidding! They put the butter IN the bag of popcorn!  Amazing!” Then the other child said, “Did they put salt in the bag too?”

I love the days when my husband makes dinner.  He has been getting really creative lately.  His meals are always super fast, because he doesn’t think about dinner till 5:00pm.  His meals are always with ingredients we have (no last minute grocery store trips).  They are always inexpensive  And usually they include tomatoes and beans.

Here was the most recent meal he’s made for us:

• Tomatoes
• peppers
• can of black beans
• frozen corn

He grilled a tortilla, cheese, and the veggie mixture and called it taco pizza.

The kids liked it, I loved it. But I already made something called Taco pizza a few months ago. His was faster though.  Mine included making whole wheat pizza dough, etc.

My husband wanted me to let my blog  readers know, he’s there for you!  When I am too busy studying chemistry to take pictures of meals.. when I’m preoccuppied with the PTA that I’m not thinking  of ideas to help y’all get more fruits and veggies into your kids,  he’ll step up and do it for me!  He really is great!

This week, we are doing our best to eat a variety of food by focusing on eating a rainbow!  So, today is devoted to GREEN FOOD.

Dark Green/Green fruits and veggies include:  Kale, Spinach, leafy greens, broccoli, Honeydew, peas, kiwi.  Green produce is high in Lutein and Indoles also fiber, potassium, folic acid and some B vitamins. Greens are known for maintaining good vision, reducing risk of tumor growth in cancer patients.

GREENS have the highest nutrient density of all, happen to be greens!  Greens should be included EVERYDAY in our diet.

We do get some good greens in via spinach shakes, salads, and our favorite, roasted broccoli.  But my kids, nor I had never tried broccoli soup…. So we did.

Despite being told it looked like baby food, and my 6 year old, throwing up a little bit in his mouth, they did eat it.  With a huge roll of course.

Juice Week!!

This syrup is so delicious I couldn’t wait to share it!  I used an bottle of a strawberry/ banana fruit juice blend that was in my pantry. 

I made my kids pancakes this morning, using my Master Pancake homemade mix.

Then I made the syrup using

• 2 cups juice (I used the strawberry banana blend)
• 2 TBL corn starch (mixed with a little cold water so it would dissolve.

On the stove top, I stirred the juice and corn starch together on medium heat for about 8 minutes, turned the heat off and let it sit for a few extra minutes.  When used the morning of making it, its PERFECT.  If let to sit, it tends to get a little gelatany, but can be warmed up and shaken to get it a little more syrupy.

I LOVE syrup made from juice.  Unless you want to fork out tons of money at the grocery store for a sugar free, HFCS free variety, its an economical way to get your kids to love some whole grain pancakes, french toast, or waffles.  Its like topping your pancakes with berries, only not because some kids rather have syrup!

Tip of the day:  Keep some juice pouches or juice boxes (100% juice) on hand for some impromptu syrup.  Then you don’t have to open an entire bottle of juice.

Other juices you could try to make syrup with: Coconut juice! Apparently its all the rage right now.

Don’t forget to enter the Tropicana giveaway!

I can’t believe how busy we have been this summer.  Which is why this tip is so important!  When you have too much produce, freeze it! 

My mom gave us a HUGE bowlful of cherries from her neighbors tree that they needed to pick right away.   They were all ripe, and I knew we wouldn’t eat them all before they went bad.  Immediately, I kept a bowlful out for snacking, and the rest I washed and spread onto a cookie sheet for the freezer.  I put the cookie sheet in the freezer for a few hours, and then bagged the cherries (pit and all) into freezer bags.  Freezing on a cookie sheet first, prevents clumping that would occur if you threw all the cherries into a bag at once, and then froze.

The frozen cherries, EVEN though pit is still in tact, have been a perfect snack.  They are not rock solid.  They are kind of like grapes.  We can take one cherry out of the bag and eat it immediately, and its this slushy, delicious, refreshing snack. 

Other things I have been doing with the frozen cherries:

• Chopping for smoothies.
• Topping on salads
• Mixed in with plain yogurt.
• And taught my kids how to have a cherry spitting contest.  Truly a lost art!  Even the kids who were, not so interested in having a cherry, ate several just so they could spit the seed.

Freezing is so much faster than canning or other methods of preserving.  I probably will never can something again!   Other things we have frozen when there was a great sale, our garden produced it faster than we could eat it, or a neighbors tree was overflowing:

• Zucchini (I store this shredded and used in bread)
• Summer squash ( I puree and then freeze to add to baked goods, macaroni and cheese, or soups)
• Onions (chopped first and then frozen)
• Strawberries (usually because there is a great sale)
• Other berries (We have a blackberry bush and this is our first year of getting a real good amount).
• Celery! (only because I forget to use it out of my fridge and its about to go bad…but it works)
• bananas! (for smoothies, because fresh ones go REALLY FAST at my house.)
• Corn
• Broccoli

WHAT PRODUCE DOES YOUR FAMILY FREEZE?

I am ready to plug back in!  Not only to the computer, but to more mindful eating!  It has been a crazy 2 weeks.  Full of distractions, parties, feasting, playing, socializing, working, and eating.  As fun as it all is, isn’t it nice to be back into a routine again.

Today’s idea is apple chips!  For some kids (and parents) with fruit texture issues… this one is for you.  My flip-flopper does not like cooked fruit, but crunchy or crispy she can handle.  So we sliced up some apples to make into apple chips.

• First boil apple juice with either a cinnamon stick or cinnamon. 
• Then we sliced apples as thinly as possible. (crosswise so the core was in the center.  No need to seed it, they just fall right out)
• Then we boiled the apples in the apple juice till they were somewhat transparent. 
• Then we took the apple slices out of the boiling juice, and patted them dry.
• I laid them on a cookie rack (the kind you cool cookies on) and placed the entire rack in the oven at 250 degrees.
• We baked until they were dry and slightly browned.
• Final product:  Delicious apple chips!! So much tastier than potato chips.

  Come back tomorrow for a giveaway!!

Wednesday: Dinner

As a mom with young kids, dinner is the meal you can’t get out of.  Breakfast can slide (toast/ cereal), lunch can be thrown together in a hurry with whatever you have on hand.  But most kids (and husbands) expect something a little more substantial for dinner.  I keep thinking, once they all move out of the house, I will be able to eat salad every night and no one can complain… Ahhh the life!

Here is how dinner shakes down at my house.  I make a delicous, one pot dish.  Some will eat it altogether, but there is always one (usually ketchup boy) who must have everything seperated after its completed. 

For this dinner I had bow tie pasta

This one pot dish had

• walnuts
• bow tie pasta
• chicken
• feta cheese
• celery
• and red onion.

The dressing was

• Orange juice
• Lemon juice
• olive oil
• dried mustard
• sugar
• salt
• and rice vinegar

Of course, all of it had to be seperated when it hit ketchup boy’s plate.  Thank goodness for divided plates!  This meal would have been so much better without the red onion. Its much too strong for my kids.  The flavor kind of took over the entire dish.

This dinner was Crusted Chicken, mashed potatoes, and another sweet salad.  The crusted chicken was

• chicken thighs
• dipped in a mix of egg whites with dijon mustard
• Then dipped in a bread crumb/ parmesan cheese mix. (for a tutorial on making your own bread crumbs, go here.

For the salad dressing I used:

• 1/2 cup pureed strawberries
• 1/2 cup raspberry vinegar
• 1 TBL honey
• 1 TBL olive oil

I’m working today because my husband is home.  Its the one day a week I get a break from making dinner.  He always has something delicious waiting for me when I get home.