Last Minute Lunch

I had been planning on giving AJ more of the Waldorf chicken salad for his school lunch today. Luckily before I sent it I realized last time he took it it didn't have nuts. I added walnuts to it after I made his sandwich. His school has a no nut policy so I had to come up with something fast this morning. He ended up with a cream cheese and jam sandwich on a whole wheat bagel, grapes and a little salad. That was it, and he was thrilled! I would have liked a little more protein in there but it was the best I could do for the moment.

For breakfast this morning we had some great carrot smoothies. I used pureed steamed carrots (3 smallish ones) , pineapple juice, orange juice, plain yogurt (I discovered that the Trader Joe's brand organic is pretty good, no funny taste when you mix it into something), just a touch of honey and some ice.

They were really good and if I didn't know better I would have thought that the little bits of carrot were just pulp from fruit. We will be making them again for sure!

-Jen-

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Roasted Chickpeas

Roasted Chickpeas

Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas. Pat them dry. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Spread the chickpeas on the cookie sheet and spray them with olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt and grated parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. Try not to scarf them down too fast because your kids will also love them and will be very upset if they don't get any.

-Jen-

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Recipes

I have been meaning to post the recipes for the "Apricot Poo Bars" and the Granola bars I made. Here they are

Apricot Snack Bars



1/2 cup cream honey (I used cinnamon flavored cream honey)
1/2 cup almond butter
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
Mix altogether in bowl with a spoon. Then stir in (you may have to use your hand)

1 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup granola
1/2 cup chopped or sliced almonds
Mix all ingredients. Press into loaf pan and chill in the fridge.

I couldn't find cinnamon flavored creamed honey so I just used plain creamed honey (I didn't even know there was such a thing as creamed honey before this). And next time I make this recipe I would only put in 1/2 tsp of almond extract. 1 1/2 tsp was way too much for my taste.

And as I said before these were just to sticky for me to cut into bars so they got rolled into little logs instead. And they just looked very wrong like that but they were so good!

The blog I found the recipe on is wonderful and can be found here

Next is the recipe for The Worlds Best Granola Bars!



Homemade Granola Bars:
3 1/4 cups rolled Oats (or
combination of oats and other whole grains)
3/4 cups Whole Wheat flour (or all-purpose)
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 T. Vanilla Extract
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
1/2 cup honey, at least
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 cups "Stuff" (I used about a cup or so of chopped dried apricots and a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 325.
In a large mixing bowl combine oats, flour, baking soda, and any spices you want to use.
In a separate bowl, combine vanilla, oil, and honey.
Pour wet mix into dry and stir to combine.
Stir in the "stuff" you want to use.
Spray an edged cookie sheet or pan with cooking spray and press VERY firmly into cookie sheet. (I used a 7x11 pan that was perfect for this).
Bake at 325 for 18-20 minutes until top is turning golden brown.
Remove from oven and firmly press down bars again with a spatula or similar, and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.
Cut into bars--they are hard to cut if you allow it to completely cool.
Allow to finish cooling completely before removing from pan.

Two notes:
1. Press the bars firmly down in the pan with the flat edge of a spatula before baking. Do this again after baking, and once more before you cut it. If they aren't packed down, they will crumble.
2. Regarding the honey, start with the 1/2 cup. If the mixture seems too crumbly, keep adding honey by the teaspoon. The amount needed seems to depend on the fillings. The chocolate chips melt a bit, which seems to require less honey, whereas the apple-cinnamon ones seemed to require more, based on the dryness of the cinnamon.

This recipe is going to be lots of fun to play with. Personally, I thought they were perfect with the dried apricots and chocolate chips but Trav requested dried cranberries and nuts so that will be my next attempt.

I also found this recipe on an amazing blog that can be found here

If anyone else knows of a great blog with good healthy kid friendly recipes please share.

-Jen-

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Day 4...I think

I guess I'll stop labeling my posts but how many days we have been eating healthy. If I can't remember if today is day 4 or day 5 I'll really have problems in a few weeks!

I just typed up a nice long post and I don't know what happened to it. I'm to tired to think it all out again so I'll just show you AJ's school lunch today.



He had Waldorf salad (with chicken added) in whole wheat pita bread, fresh blueberries and plain yogurt with pureed blue berries mixed in (left over from breakfast this morning we had it on top of whole wheat pancakes), two bite sized oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe's and water to drink. In the small box he had fresh strawberries, veggie sticks from Trader Joe's and sliced cheddar cheese. Alan had all the same foods here at home. They both polished off just about every crumb. I don't know how I got so lucky as to have two such good eaters when I was so picky as a kid!

-Jen-

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Day 3

We had a great time last night with some good friends at our house for game night. We had some yummy food brought by everyone. I did let the boys each have one frosted sugar cookie that some one brought but other then that it was a good and healthy day.

One of the things I made were a big hit even if they did look a little funny.


They were supposed to be apricot almond bars. They are no bake and the sweetness in them comes from creamed honey and diced dried apricots. You mix everything, put it in a pan and let it chill in the refrigerator. Then you are supposed to cut them into bars. The cutting didn't go very well because they were pretty sticky. At first I rolled them into balls and thought that was fine. I gave one to each of the boys and Alan put the whole thing in his little mouth. I had to dig it out. So after that I took all the balls and rolled them into logs. After rolling several and seeing them on the plate they got a new name. We all really loved the Apricot Poo Bars! There weren't any left! There were frosted sugar cookies left. I guess there is something to be said for healthy desserts! I will beaming those again very soon!

-Jen-

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Why I Started

Trav and I are always saying we need to eat better, he needs to get back on his diet and we need to give the boys options besides sugar as treats.

Alan turned two about three weeks ago. We had two parties for him in one day (kids in the morning, family in the afternoon, it's just easier to do it all in one day). Then the next day the boys and I went to the beach with some friends for four days. As you can imagine it was a crazy week of party prep and packing for the trip for me. I figured we would have lots if leftover party food to take to the beach so I didn't plan a whole lot of shopping and meal prep for the trip like I usually would. We had an amazing time at the beach. We ate a lot of food. Some wasn't too bad health wise but most of it I honestly felt was just junk with every little nutritional value. Not much actual sugar, just a lot of very highly processed foods.

We got back from the beach on Alan's actual birthday. We went to Red Robin as a birthday treat. That was a Thursday. That weekend was a holiday weekend. We ended up eating out a couple more times, had some fried chicken from the grocery store (it wad SO good) and ate leftover food from our trip. By Monday I felt like my family hadn't eaten real food in over a week. It was time to make some changes.

I have always had a hard time with organization. Planning a menu, shopping for it and sticking to it is a struggle for me. Coming up with ideas of what to feed my family for three meals a day and two or three snacks a day gets very overwhelming and exhausting for me. Most nights I find myself opening the refrigerator at 4:30 trying to come up with something for dinner that we will all like, we have the stuff to make and is fast.

Last week I started looking around online for some fun blogs that were centered around healthy cooking for families with kids. I found a few that I liked. Then I found one that I loved! It was all healthy foods for young kids. The recipes were all pretty basic and simple, sounded good and were made with things I usually buy. Then I found THIS and got very excited! It is a 30 Day Meal Plan. It includes a calendar for 30 days worth of meals plus one snack everyday, the recipes for all of it and even a shopping list broken down to what you need each week. It was only $9.99 and I liked the look of the other recipes on the blog so I went for it. It made everything seem much more manageable.

The shopping list that comes with the meal plan is a little bit useless since it tells you what to buy but not how much you need. I still had to go through each recipe and make a new list of what I needed and how much but since I prefer to have my shopping list on my phone it wasn't that big of a deal. Other then that I really love this program! Almost everything I made has been wonderful. Everything has been easy and best if all everything is healthy balanced meals!

I now find that for the first time in a really long time I am enjoying cooking!


-Jen-

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Day 2 - Do French Fries Count As A Vegetable?

Don't worry. I know that French Fries don't count as a veggie...

So day 2 started healthy and ended healthy. The middle on the other hand, not so much.

We started the day with egg sandwiches on whole wheat bread thins with fruit salad mixed with a little bit of plain yogurt. The boys loved it!

We just had apples for a quick and easy morning snack today and then we were off on a field trip to The Rainforest Cafe. This is where our healthy eating went right out the window.

It was a fun trip for the boys. They got to walk through the dinning area of the restaurant and some one told them all about the different animals of the rainforest. AJ loved it. Alan wasn't very into the tour but loved walking around and just looking.

Then the kids were served lunch family style. There was no ordering for the kids. It was pre planned meal for them.


Not the best picture because it was pretty dark. The choices were chicken nuggets, mini hamburgers, French fries, cheese pizza and some kind of bright red drink. That was it. Not even an option of a fruit or veggie anywhere. The boys really dug in. As always they ate a lot and then ate some more. And then they brought out cookies for dessert! The parents were able to order their food from the menu. I had a salad that was drowning in dressing and Alan had a few bites of it too. AJ wasn't interested. He mostly ate a whole pizza himself.

We got back on track with afternoon snack. We had some of the worlds best homemade granola bars and bananas. Then for dinner I made chicken nuggets (from real chicken, hand dipped, breaded and baked) and some very yummy broccoli salad. We all four really enjoyed dinner. The broccoli salad was a wonderful treat. I don't usually care for raw broccoli but this was some pretty good stuff!

So that was our day in food. I didn't rate the food today. Trav thought my monkey thumbs up system was a little confusing so I'm going to rethink how I do it. Hoping to get to that tomorrow.

My weekend goal is to stick to our healthy eating while at home. AJ has a birthday party to go to that will be a lost cause. But we will stick to it tomorrow when we have friends over for a game night! And on Sunday I will be taking my brother something yummy but healthy when I go visit him (he broke his ankle and had to have surgery) and I will leave behind a healthy dinner and snack for my guys while I'm gone.

It should be a great weekend. Looks like some sun!

P.S. Does anyone have a suggestion for keeping homemade chicken nuggets from getting soggy when they are baked? They were dipped in plain yogurt and then a bread crumb mixture. Maybe milk next time instead of yogurt?

-Jen-

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Day 1

We started the day off really well with cottage cheese pancakes. They are made from uncooked oatmeal, cottage cheese, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. I just put it all in my Magic Bullet and that was that! While they cooked I put some blueberries and strawberries in the Magic Bullet and used that as a topping. I think this picture tells what the boys thought of this meal...


We rate this meal with four monkey thumbs up!

Morning snack was homemade black bean dip and cheddar cheese on whole wheat sandwich thins and blue berries on the side. The snack also gets 4 monkey thumbs up.


I have lots of different little boxes and containers I like to use to give the boys meals and snacks in. It makes things a little more fun.

Lunch was black beans and rice it was really pretty!


But none of us were crazy about it. I had to suppress the urge to smother it in cheese to make it more exciting. It did have diced tomatoes and peas in it. I think next time I'll try it with some salsa. That is if I make it again. We give this just one monkey thumb up.

Afternoon snack was another big hit.


Whole wheat mini bagels with some really yummy hummus from Trader Joe's (I have been wanting to try to make my own but this stuff is do good there isn't much point!), blue berries and strawberries. Four monkey thumbs up!

Dinner was chicken and broccoli pie. I added a little zucchini and frozen corn and made whole wheat crust from scratch.


It wasn't very pretty to start with. The crust was pretty crumbly. Not sure if this was because it was whole wheat or maybe because I had to use olive oil instead of vegetable oil but either way it was good!


I was very happy with how it turned out. We all really liked it. Four monkey thumbs up for this one too!

If anyone has any advice about the pie crust I would love for you to leave a comment. Even with the way it came out I would make it again but it would be nice if I could make it a little prettier next time.

I probably won't post every single thing we eat everyday but with it being our first day I thought it would be fun.

Now my goal for the rest of the week is to read about the nutritional benefits of flaxseed, figure out when to use it as seed and when to use it as meal and then start using it!

And I do realize that my pictures are pretty shadowy. I just use my phone and we have a solotube in the kitchen so I can't seem to get the lighting right. I'll keep trying though:)

-Jen-


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The Beginning

So here we go. Starting today I am feeding my family better. I will have tasty, healthy meals and snacks that are planned out ahead of time and shopped for accordingly. I will no longer open the refrigerator at 4:30 PM and try to come up with something edible. I will stop buying things made from processed white flour. I will keep processed sugar to a very minimum. I will not be a crazy health food fanatic but we will eat good healthy food and it will taste wonderful and we will enjoy a newer healthier lifestyle!

This is my pledge to myself and my family. So here it goes! Wish me luck and I hope you will follow along.


-Jen-

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