Oobleck
I don’t have much patience for childish things.
I have zero desire to play legos. I don’t think The Very Hungry Caterpillar is great literature. I definitely don’t understand screaming all things all the time while jumping up and down and spinning and lookwhatIcandooooo!!!!!
Admittedly, this is something I need to work on. While I don’t need to necessarily enjoy these things, I do need to tolerate them for the sake of my kids. One thing I’ve found I do enjoy is Oobleck. I share it with you today because it’s technically made from food and is actually a lot of fun. I thought so at least, my strange kids were a little stand-offish. My daughter won’t eat pizza though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Chocolate Covered Banana Bread Bites
I would be curious to know what other kids are like.
All I really know are my own kids. Half the time I’m thinking, “There must be something wrong with them!” They are unreasonable, unpredictable, and downright annoying at times. Is my child simply in the midst of the terrible twos or is he whining his head off because he has a stomach ache/cavity/diabetes/a tumor? Can you tell I tend to snowball in my concerns?
While I’m trying to figure things out, I’m eating every day foods covered in chocolate. Its cheap therapy. Banana bread should always contain chocolate chips anyways, and coating the whole thing in chocolate is a first rate idea. You can use whatever your favorite chocolate is, but I enjoyed a good-quality dark chocolate here. The coconut oil keeps it smooth and shiny (swapping in vegetable oil would do the same thing).
The Monday Menu 5/20/2013
Welcome to The Monday Menu! I’m in a total brain fog today. I got really sick last week but still managed to make most of the food that was in my meal plan. It has been really interesting in my sickness to see how important healthy food is for my body. I wasn’t able to eat anything for a few days and with nursing a baby it really took a lot out of me. I’ve been a little lightheaded and unable to focus my mind for the last few days because even though I’m not sick anymore my stomach can’t hold as much food as I think I need. Its really encouraging to see how the way I normally eat nourishes my body and helps me do the things I need to do.
My husband and I celebrate 8 years of marriage on Tuesday, but we won’t really be celebrating until the weekend. He has a busy week of band practice since their drummer in town from LA but we’ll be having a “band family” dinner tonight. We’ll probably just be going out to dinner on Saturday to celebrate our anniversary. I don’t plan on making anything too special on Tuesday, but I did buy some shrimp (it was on sale, shhh) for later in the week (its his favorite). Here’s the plan:
Monday – Band Family Taco Dinner
Tuesday – Pesto Chicken Sandwiches with carrots and fruit
Wednesday – Penne with Tomato, Feta, and Basil and packaged salad
Thursday – Shakshuka with french bread
Friday – Shrimp Burritos
What’s on your menu this week?
Baked BBQ Chicken Nachos
If you’ve been on Facebook for any amount of time, you know that it can be hard.
You’re talking about the wrong things, you’re posting too many pictures, and why are you sending me so many invitations to Candy Crush??? I recently had a friend I hadn’t seen in a while go through my timeline and “like” a bunch of my pictures, one of which was an ultrasound picture from the baby I had LAST OCTOBER. Totally fine, nothing wrong with that, except that caused it to show up in my friends’ news feeds. It turns out grown up people with college degrees can’t read a date on a picture and Facebook started blowing up with congratulations on my (not) expected baby.
Let me just clear the air and say – I am not pregnant. This recipe isn’t going to help the rumors. Barbecue chicken is my jam when I’m pregnant. When I was pregnant with my second baby we were visiting our sweet friends in California and I’m pretty sure I demanded barbecue chicken every day for a week. I’m sorry/not sorry.
Pillowy Maple Nut Breakfast Cookies
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I want to spend my time.
The only conclusion I’ve really come to is that I need more of it. I want to paint every surface in my house (no, REALLY) which requires the sacrifice of evenings and weekends when the kids aren’t around. I want to spend time outside with my kids running in the grass, filling up the kiddie pool, and planting an herb garden. I really can’t figure out how to fit outside time into my busy day. Am I too committed to cooking and cleaning? I really don’t know how to get those things done if I’m spending my twenty non-nursing, non-napping baby minutes outside. I want to go on bike rides with my family but oh. my. gosh. Its so nerve-wracking taking three kids on a long distance bike ride. I get all nervous the whole way out because if someone starts fussing/pooping/SCREAMING we still have to turn around and ride all the way home. Do I just let them cry and keep having fun? These are the obstacles in my life.
The Monday Menu 5/13/2013
Welcome to The Monday Menu! I hope you all had a lovely mother’s day and weekend. I’m still up to my eyeballs in our house painting project, leaving me tired and rather uninterested in cooking. Still, I must carry on. I mean we have to eat, right? I already really miss sharing The Sunday Brunch Buffet with you, so if you still want to keep up with what I’m finding around the web make sure to follow me on Pinterest. I also highly recommend keeping up via Bloglovin. If Facebook or Twitter are your jam, you can befriend me there too! All that being said, here’s my plan for the week:
Monday – Baked Tilapia with asparagus and mashed potatoes
Tuesday – BBQ Chicken Nachos
Wednesday – Hot and Crispy Ravioli with marinara and packaged salad
Thursday – Loaded Baked Potatoes with whole grain dinner rolls
Friday – Shells with Peas and Alfredo
What’s on your menu this week?
Refrigerator Bakery Brownies
There are three holidays that I acknowledge. Let me rephrase that. There are three holidays that I want to be acknowledged on. One is my birthday, obvi. The second is Christmas because what is a world without Christmas? The third is mother’s day.
Bake me brownies, take me out to eat, paint the sky purple – anything to acknowledge that you know what I do is hard work. Of course you know that what I do is hard work, but do you really KNOW? Most days I don’t want to do it. The dishes always reappear. Someone always needs some body part wiped. Sometimes I have a panic attack in the middle of the night because I know they’re still upstairs and in the morning they’re going to come after me. They are the most adorable terrorists in the world and they’re holding me hostage for a pack of raisins.
My Favorite (Kitchen) Things
It was so much fun sharing my favorite things with you a while back. It has been great talking with others about their favorite things as well, and someone mentioned that I should do a favorites list specific to the kitchen. Please know that while the products below contain affiliate links (meaning if you click and buy anything I receive a small percentage of the sale which goes towards the costs involved in running this blog), I have not been compensated by any companies owning these products. I just really love the things I’m sharing with you! Here’s what I’m loving lately:
The Monday Menu 5/6/2013
Welcome to The Monday Menu! I feel like I need to start off by acknowledging yesterday’s silence where there is usually The Sunday Brunch Buffet. I’ve decided to take a break from that weekly feature for the foreseeable future, at least through the summer. I’d like to focus my energy on projects around the house and spending time outside with my family. I may still do the occasional post on things I’ve found around the web, but I really need to take the pressure off of having a weekly feature.
Meal planning breaks for no one, so here goes this week. We started a major painting project in our house so its hard to say what kind of priority dinner will make. I found some great inspiration from Martha Stewart’s Meatless, which I got from the library last week. I also have tons of eggs to use up, so its breakfast for dinner! Here’s the plan:
Monday – White Bean and Sage Patties with oven roasted broccoli
Tuesday – Huevos Rancheros Tacos
Wednesday – Butternut Squash Sage Pizza
Thursday – Tostada Bar
Friday – Spaghetti Aglio Olio with spinach and white beans
What’s on your menu this week?
Penne with Vodka Sauce
Can we talk about favorites?
I shared my favorite things with you a few weeks back. Certainly nothing has changed there. I’m also working on a favorite things in the kitchen post for you, which I’m pretty excited about. (Spoiler) Avocados are a current favorite. I’ve been eating at least one every day. On top of however many my husband and kids eat during the week I look like a crazy person in the check out line of the grocery store with my 20 pound bag of avocados.
