Keeping lunch simple

My kids love breakfast, they love snacking and they eat a pretty good dinner, but I could never get them to eat a good lunch. They would usually take one or two bites then be done, but then they were starving by 3:00. I tried everything to try and get them to eat but it wouldn't work. That went on for about a year or so. It wasn't until my oldest daughter started pre-K that she started eating more lunch, but she still wasn't all that hungry. I didn't really pay much attention to what I was feeding them. We ate a lot of corn dogs, pizza rolls, mac n cheese, I would also give them fruit with their meals(kinda hoping the healthy fruit would counteract the bad of the corndog.  haha Yeeeah, it doesn't work that way)

As time went on and I started getting into eating more healthy, I decided to change up the way we ate during the day, and to try implamenting a eating schedule. I did a trial run first and started with assigning a snack time everyday. So everyday they would wake up from their nap and we would have snack time at 3:00(right at the time they were usually starving). That went over very well. It only took two days and they were waking up from their naps and asking what snack could they have that day.

 So from there I decided to have their breakfast ready at 7:30am everyday as well. Again, no problem and it actually made our morning run smoother. I wasn't scrambling around and then just handing them a sugary pop tart as we ran out the door. I would plan the night before what we would have and set everything out, making it simple in the morning.( if you are a organized person you could even make a breakfast plan for a whole week at a time, but I'm not quite that organized so I do the night before). a few samples of our weekday breakfast would be organic honey nut Cheerios, bananas, toast with organic blueberries spread, fruit smoothies with a bagel, scrambled eggs or a egg sandwich etc. I started noticing they were eating better and even asking for second helpings sometimes.

Lastly I changed lunch time. Lunch is at noon everyday. I also changed the portions and what I was fixing. Instead of corndogs and pizza rolls I make my own "lunchable" size portion of fruit, cheese and crackers, carrots sticks, turkey sausages, just different things that are light, more healthy but still appealing for them to eat. I was amazed when they both were making "happy plates". Some of their lunches I can make ahead and place in the fridge for the next day. This is also the time I let them have juice. So here is what we had for lunch today, simple and easy!



Organic baby carrot sticks, organic mozzarella string cheese, organic apples, and organic Annie's whole wheat cracker bunnies(good alternative to goldfish, I'm working on making my own cheese crackers today though) 1 organic pear juice box.


My daughter ate two plates and my son ate all of his! In the future I will post some different things we eat for lunch including my lunches, also my alternatives to sandwiches and why I don't buy lunch meat anymore, and yummy healthy pizzas!

School snack week

This week is my daughters turn to bring snacks for her pre-K class at school. Her teacher requests healthy snacks and not a ton of sugar. Since I have been trying to feed my kids more healthy I had to change up our regular snacks a bit without making it too obvious for my kids(I can get away with quite a bit with my 2yr old son who would eat anything, but my 4yr old daughter is getting pretty picky as she is getting older). So for school snacks I decided to take things my kids love to eat, only re-vamping the ingredients to organic and less sugary/chemical free. Here are snacks for day 1. Very simple! My husband did a taste test first and he really loved it and asked if I would make a mix for at home, so it looks like ill be making another trip back to the store. Snack mixes are my kids favorite snack time food! So here is my healthy version of a more sweet snack mix.

Ingredients:
2 boxes of Annie's bunny mix(I got the chocolate and chocolate chip flavored, these taste just like teddy Graham's only better and less sugar, whole wheat and organic so no harmful chemicals or dyes)
1 box cascadian farm organic cinnamon raisin granola cereal(this tastes awesome, not too much sugar but the honey in it makes it sweet. It is also all organic and whole grains)

I scooped out handfuls of each and place it in little snack sized zip lock baggies. It made enough for 20bags full. The mixture of these two taste great together and it's a sweet treat without tons and tons of sugar! For day 2 I'm taking organic Bananas and I will post day three later in the week!

I found these items at the health food store and spent around $12 to feed 20 kids.

Triple berry smoothie recipe

I do not like to eat breakfast. Mostly because I'm never hungry in the morning time, and also because I'm usually in a hurry to rush out the door to get my daughter to school on time. Since I have a 6month old baby I am currently breast feeding it is important for me to eat breakfast, otherwise all my energy disappears pretty quickly. So something that works great for me is a fruit smoothie. I usually drink it and eat a piece of whole grain toast or a whole wheat bagel, I love this breakfast because its filling, quick and easy to make, tastes great and is healthy. So here is my favorite fruit smoothie recipe. You can add protein to it if you want or you can supplement the milk for almond or rice milk if you want to make it diary free. Enjoy!

Triple Berry Organic Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 organic banana
1 1/2 to 1 cup of organic milk(start with half a cup and add more if its too thick)
Handful of organic frozen strawberries
Handful of organic frozen raspberries
Small handful of organic frozen blueberries
2 to 4 organic frozen pineapple junks

Add milk into a blender, then add all frozen ingredients and banana.  Blend to desired texture. Add more milk if it's too thick. Makes one large glass

Calories = 280 cal (estimate, a lot depends on the size of the fruit, could be a little more or less)
This estimate is also based off using 1cup of 2%milk.

Blogging

I'm pretty new to the whole blogging thing. I have followed other blogs for years, but never really broke down and made one of my own. I have a hard time doing more than one thing at a time. I started off with good ol MySpace, then came along Facebook. I tried to keep up with both pages for about three days and decided to just stick with Facebook. I used to really love Facebook, but I'm not diggin all the spam and ads that now fill my news feeds. I still keep my page, mainly because that's the only means of communication(sadly)between a lot of my family and I. I do also have a twitter for my craft business, but I have no idea how to use it.

I like trying new things, I try a lot of new recipes, I love Pinterest and I try a lot of things from that website. But I do have a bad habit of changing nearly every recipe I come across. I don't measure anything (I am getting better at that though)and I do a lot of the, "we'll this sounds like it would be good, so what the heck, Lets try it" recipes. (By the way, those kind of recipes don't always turn out like I imagine in my head and we end up ordering pizza or eating cereal, so my husband is always scared when he asks what is for dinner and I reply with, "I don't know what to call it, but I think it will taste good").
With that said, I mostly made this blog to share my recipes(don't worry, only the ones that have been tested out on my family and passed), Pinterest recipes that turned out great, maybe a few of my craft or Pinterest projects, or just whatever I feel like posting that is kinda too much to put on a Facebook status. Enjoy!


- Tiffany

Taco seasoning recipe

I have been trying to slowly weed out using canned items and seasoning packets. Mostly because of the ridiculous amounts of sodium in them,
(My hubby has high blood pressure and cholesterol so sodium is off limits for him) and also because of all the preservatives and added stuff. So here is a recipe I found on the Internet. I tweaked it just a bit, and I'm working on making a larger batch and will post that recipe with the larger amounts.



Ingredients:

1 Tbs chili powder
1/4 Tsp garlic powder
1/4 Tsp onion powder
1/4 Tsp crushed red pepper flakes(leave this out for a not so spicy seasoning)
1/4 Tsp dried oregano
1/2 Tsp Paprika
1 1/2 Tsp ground cumin
1 Tsp sea salt
1 Tsp black pepper(Also leave this out if you don't want it spicy)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and store in a air tight container.
I used all of this in one batch of taco meat(about 1 1/2lbs ground beef) added a little hot water and about 1/4tsp of flour. it was pretty spicy(a little bit goes a long way) so for a more mild taco meat I would say about half of this would work, or you could also cut out the red pepper and black pepper.  


Other than that it tasted wonderful! Much more flavor than a seasoning pack from the store.

I found nice clear plastic containers at Walmart for $2.50, and made my own label to put on the front, I also put the measurements on the back so I won't forget! I'll posts pics after I make my big batch :)

Enjoy