Healthy Lunches

Sorry for the lack of posts on this blog lately.  I guess you can tell that it has not been a priority lately.  I don't allow myself too much computer time (other than quickly checking fb on my phone...I don't blog while the kids are awake), and most of my computer time over the past few months has been monopolized by my online recertification class and making the yearbook for our local Montessori school.  Luckily, I'm finished with my class, and I'm almost finished with the yearbook, so I should be back to regular blogging soon :)

Since food posts are easy and quick (and generate a lot of emails and hits!), here you go!  On this day, we had grapes, scrambled eggs and broccoli, and raw carrots.  I LOVE raw carrots, and I'm actually a little obsessed with eating them (strange, I know).  The girls always tell me that my skin is turning orange because I eat too many carrots, and lately I have realized that they are right!!!

On this day, we had baked sweet potatoes, salad (with carrots, of course!), baked salmon, and oranges.  I try to feed the girls baked salmon every other week, and they eat oranges almost every day.

This was a Friday  movie night dinner!  We had pizza (Digorno's), raw carrots and pea pods, cucumbers, and hummus.

Yummy Lunch

It always surprises me that the posts about the girls' lunches generate so many emails and hits. So, since this is an easy post to write and since Elliott mistakenly made the comment that he thought the kids weren't eating healthy enough (this highly offended me and I now take frequent pics of their food...he quickly rescinded his complaint!), I'll be sharing more of their simple and healthy meals.

The girls loved this lunch...they had watermelon, boiled shrimp, salad, and walnuts. Deeeelicious!

Healthy Lunches/Dinners While Traveling

We recently went on a road trip to New Orleans, and it was SO much fun...one of our best vacations ever!  We spent 4 days in the car, and I was determined that we would  not feed the children fast food while we were traveling.  I am happy to say that we only stopped at one fast food restaurant during the whole trip (chick fila), and that was just because they have an indoor playground, and it was pouring down rain (we liked for the kids to run, jump, and play every time we stopped).

On our way to New Orleans, we ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.  The girls had oranges, grapes, baby carrots, bell pepper, peanut butter and jelly spins, celery, and organic lollypops for dessert.

When we got to the hotel, they had cheese melts on whole wheat bread, avocado, apples, grapes, and oranges.

 Shortly after leaving New Orleans, we stopped at Target and stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables for the long drive home.  We had hummus and guacamole for dipping, string cheese, turkey, carrots, grapes, and raw green beans.  Delicious, easy, and healthy!!!

A Delicious and Healthy Dinner

Thanks to everyone for your wonderfully kind comments!  You've inspired me to keep this blog going for a while longer.  I've been searching through my pics for inspiration for a post, and since I don't like to show my girls' faces here, I'm having trouble finding any pics that I can use.  So, a food post will work for now :)

My mom recently brought us a bag of Israeli couscous (from Whole Foods), and it was a HUGE hit with the girls.  I cooked it with pesto sauce and added in fresh tomatoes and rotisserie chicken.  E(3) said "I LOVE "raylee" couscous!!!"

Along with the Israeli couscous and pesto, we had avocados, steamed baby carrots and green beans, and oranges.  Both girls ate all of their dinner!

Muffin Tin Monday

O was excited about Muffin Tin Monday today. She had bell pepper strips, frozen blueberries, cantalope, pizza pocket (made in our sandwich maker with whole wheat bread with spaghetti sauce in the middle), cottage cheese, and mini dill pickles. She LOVED the pickles and was disappointed that these were the last 3.

Homemade Tortillas

O and I made homemade tortillas for lunch yesterday, and they were delicious! The recipe came from her Highlights High Five magazine (we LOVE this magazine!), and I adapted it a little. You need flour, salt, vegetable oil, vegetable oil spray, shredded cheese, and water.

1) Mix together 3 cups of flour (we used 2 cups of white flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour) and 1 teaspoon of salt

2) add 1 cup of water and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (we used olive oil, and I added a little more water since we used whole wheat flour)

3) stir until mixture forms a ball

4) make 12 balls of dough

5) flatten the dough with your hands or a rolling pin

6) spray a pan with the vegetable oil spray (we didn't have any spray, so we just used olive oil), and cook each tortilla over medium heat for 2 minutes (we cooked ours a little longer because I like them when they are a bit crispy). Turn it over, add cheese, and cook until the cheese melts.



I was excited by how easy and fun this was! O had a great time tasting the dough. She kept asking "O taste?" Pouring the flour in the bowl
Mashing the dough with her hands
Rolling the dough with her rolling pin
Eating her cheese quesadilla. They were a little greasy since we used olive oil instead of cooking spray. Next time, I'll use a bit more whole wheat flour. O had lunch a delicious lunch of cheese quesadillas, blueberries, and tomatoes while standing in her kitchen helper while I cooked all of the tortillas :)

Muffin Tin Monday

We missed last week, so O was very excited to see her muffin "tin" today. She had grape tomatoes, goldfish crackers and raisins (I'll be so glad to see the last of these goldfish. We only buy them for special occasions, and we had LOTS leftover from O's birthday party), banana peppers and prunes (the girl LOVES prunes and begs for more!), blueberries, and organic peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread (O's new "fave-it" sandwich!).

Btw- I want to make sure readers know that I am not promoting goldfish colors by making a felt set of these goldfish. We do not let O eat these because we avoid dyes, preservatives, and pretty much anything artificial as much as possible. However, I really think they are cute, but just for play food not real food :)

Tray Tuesday

We forgot about Muffin Tin Monday, so we planned to do it on Tuesday. My sister didn't like the looks of my muffin tins, so we decided to have Tray Tuesday! Its not quite as fun as Muffin Tin Monday, but it worked for us! O had stewed grape tomatoes with bell peppers served on brown rice, crab and pasta salad, tomatos, cucumbers, avocados, and banana peppers, and grilled chicken and yellow squash.
My niece had basically the same thing, but she also has dip-dip for her cucumbers and tomatoes and for her chicken. I added O's dip-dip later.

Muffin Tin Monday

Here's O's Muffin Tin lunch for today- tomato sandwich triangle, cucumber slices and mini pickles, grape tomatoes and banana pepers, raisins, avocado, and grilled chicken. She was SO excited about her muffin tin lunch today!

Homemade Pizza Night

I'm trying to get back into the routine of having homemade pizza for supper on Friday nights. I couldn't find the recipe that I've used in the past, so my friend, Becca, sent me her recipe. I decided to share it since the pizza was DELICIOUS. Since we don't eat red meat, we always make vegetarian pizzas and the bell pepper and tomatoes from our garden were delicious on it. We usually have leftovers, but we ate the whole thing tonight. Here it is:

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (do not substitute flours - must be exact)

1 Cup Water (80 degrees) I just use hot water & don’t check temp.2 TBL Oil (I use Olive Oil)1 TBL Sugar1 tsp Salt1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour1 ½ Cups Bread Flour 1 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Select Pizza Dough Course if your machine has one.

Dough takes about an hour in my machine.

Place finished dough on a lightly floured surface. Divide in half and press onto a 12 inch pizza pan raising the edges. (Very Thin crust) -

Sprinkle the pan with a little cornmeal. It keeps the dough from sticking to the pan and gives the crust a little more texture. I use about a teaspoon and a half if that much.

Generously prick the dough with a fork. Rub a little olive oil all over the pizza especially the raised edges.

Bake in a preheated oven at 425 for 10 minutes.
Take out when the edges of the crust begin to turn a light golden brown.
Remove, add toppings and return to oven to bak and additional 15 - 20 minutes.

Yikes! I just read the recipe a little closer after I pasted it from my email, and I really didn't follow the directions. Oops! I put the toppings on right after I coated it with the olive oil, then I cooked it for about 15 minutes. This worked GREAT, but I might try the real directions next time :) Also, I didn't have any cornmeal, so I used whole wheat flour on my pizza stone. In the past, I've preheated the pizza stone but I didn't tonight because its so hard to transfer the pizza to a hot pizza stone. I was afraid that the crust would not be crispy, but it was perfect. The best thing about it is that I have enough dough left over, so we'll have pizza again Sunday night :)

Muffin Tin Monday

We were excited to participate in Muffin Tin Monday again! Today O had fresh pineapple, cottage cheese, yellow squash, grape tomatoes, diced avocado, and pasta salad. Please excuse the muffin tin. It looks dirty, but I promise that its clean!

Muffin Tin Monday (a little late)

When I saw the idea for Muffin Tin Mondays on this blog, I thought it was a GREAT idea, so I decided we'd join in. Today O had cucumbers, grape tomatoes, squash, cheese, avocado, and blue cheese dip-dip for lunch. Surprisingly, she didn't eat everything (normally she would eat everything shown here and ask for more). We'll be out of town next Monday, but we hope to join in on Muffin Tin Mondays again after we return home.

Our 1st Weekly Pizza Night

I really don't like to cook, and the thing I dislike most about it is figuring out what to cook (my mom always said this when I was a kid, and I thought it was just silly. Now I understand). I decided that a weekly pizza night would be a fun way to get O involved in cooking while providing me with a great idea for a healthy supper. Thanks for the idea, Mom and Kiddo from the blog, What do we do all day?
We used our bread machine to make the pizza dough yesterday. I've been feeling guilty about not using my bread machine lately, so I was thrilled to use it again. We used whole wheat flour along with all purpose flour to make the pizza a little healthier than usual. O loved pouring in the ingredients and mixing.

I struggled to roll out the dough for a LONG time. O was very patient, but she did leave for a little while to go cut her wooden food. I coaxed her back with the promise that she could paint the dough with olive oil. Obviously, I did something wrong (I really had no idea what I was doing)! The dough was crumbly and almost impossible to roll.
O stuffed more cheese into her mouth than made it onto the pizza.
She also stuffed lots of veggies in her mouth. I didn't mind :)
Here it is! We put onions, bell pepper, mushrooms, brocolli, and organic cheese on it. It looks a little crazy, but it tasted great. I think we'll make another pizza tomorrow because I have more of all of the ingredients that I need to use before they go bad.