Day 19

Little man had an awesome day at school today! He made  3 new friends today! Next week is going to be busy for us. School pictures, pay day, start of his chore chart/reward system, crazy rush time at work. Good times, and hectic times. 

Lunch today is pb and j on cracked wheat, sesame sticks, carrots, broccoli, applesauce, water and stv.

Outfit of the day was the Bazinga shirt, and jeans. It was on the 50s today when we left, and got up into the 70s. Quite chili considering it was upper 80s 2 days ago :/ he's eatting out first ripe green zebra here. He enjoyed it. I loved it, tang without the acidity. Regi liked it. Google liked it. Planting like 10 plants next year :) it was his new, healthy food of the day.

I mean look at that sexy mater!

Like all true beauties, it was pretty inside too :) 

Day 17

Little man is learning about nutrition in school. They're challenge for the week was to try new foods. So far, he has tried purple peppers, and raspberry oatmeal.  He didn't care for the pepper (cooked or raw), but he was all about the oatmeal! He even asked for a second bowl. Victory! At school, they tried different types of apples from a local orchard, and got their nutrition bingo cards for the month. This is a new concept to me, as he was in a different state for school last year, and I did attend school here, but we didn't have fun stuff like this when we were kids. Then again 2/3 of the people in town are obese, so this could be why... Anyway, they get to mark off a space for doing exercise activities, or eating the healthy foods on the board. This could be fun!  

Trying the raspberry oatmeal. Yay monkey brains :)

Lunch today was pb and j on late July crackers. Carrots with smokey tomato vinaigrette, applesauce, and celery with pb on it. And a package of surf sweets fruity hearts that came in our conscious box this month. 

Outfit for the day was a striped v neck, khaki shorts, and mismatched socks. 

Day 16

Lunch today is a tomato sandwich with fresh tomatoes from the garden, carrot, celery, and broccoli with smoky tomato vinaigrette to dip them in, almond milk, and applesauce. Little man was sick yesterday and missed day 14, but their challenge this week is to try as many new, healthy foods as possible. Sounds like a fun challenge to me!

Day 9

Lunch today was leftover tofu lomein, sesame sticks, organic raspberries, vanilla soy milk, and Annie's bunny fruit snacks.

Outfit today was major rock star t shirt and brown shorts. Little man had a good day at school today. Looking forward to staying with his grandma this weekend and the family reunion.

Day 8

 I totally missed the lunchbox pic today :/ lunch was challah with peanut butter, apples and agave, a slice of apples and agave cake, carrots, and a hansen's jr flavored water. We had Chinese tonight and went to the malL to try to look at the Halloween store which wasn't open yet. It's a sad ghost town of a mall with maybe 10 stores left in it, but it has a play part and a hot topic, so *shrug* we wereboth  happy.

Day 7

Today was little man's 7th day of school. Lunch was hansen's tropical junior waters, Annie's organic fruit snacks, oranges, pb and j, and smokehouse almond crackers.

Outfit of the day was the skater outfit again. He looks pissed because he wasn't "school ready" for the pic (aka no backpack on).

Our butternut squash was finally ready, and was turned into some delicious apple butternut soup.

So much yummy squash, with such small seed pockets. Is that what the cavities are called? Lol

Roma harvest today.

Round pomegranate, cherry, and apricot challah.

Today at school little man had a goal to come up with three healthy goals. One was to make apple and agave cake because it's a "healthy" dessert. One was to do somersaults. And one was to not go outside when there are people smoking. He had fun in music, and they played the three littligs game in p.e.. P.E. sounds a lot more fun than I remember it being. 

Spooky buddies... Vegan MoFo post 1

Little man picked out the movie Spooky Buddies. So I made haunted hot dogs  with cashew chili cheese sauce, using the seitan hotdogs recipe from my vegan cookbook.Little man picked out the movie Spooky Buddies. So I made haunted hot dogs  with cashew chili cheese sauce, using the seitan hotdogs recipe from MyVeganCookbook (http://www.myvegancookbook.com/blog/2012/03/04/seitan-hot-dogs/), ghastly green beans, 

and spooky salad with Woodstock dressing for me, and smokey tomato vinaigrette for monkeybutt. 

Recipe for cashew chili cheese is as follows:

3/4 c raw cashews soaked overnight, or blanched for 10 minutes or so to soften them quickly

1/4 cup nooch 

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

Enough water to blend until smooth. Set aside until beans are ready.

1/2 cup of kidney beans drained  (left over from the hot dogs)

1 tbsp tomato paste (or ketchup if you want it a lil sweet and tangy)

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

3 hearty grinds of Melissa's organic chile seasoning

1 tsp dehydrated onions

Mix beans with tomato paste/ketchup and add 1/4 cup of water at a time to keep it just a tad saucy, and from 

sticking to the pan. I cooked them and kept stirring and adding water while waiting for the hotdogs to finish 

steaming over low heat, when the hot dogs were almost done, I threw in about half of the cheese sauce to warm 

it up, and scooped it all over the dogs. The sauce is definitely a keeper. The hot dogs still seemed a little soft, and

  I turned them back on to see if another 15 minutes or so would help. I'll keep you posted on that. It was probably

 my half assed steaming with a metal colander that did it. 

 

 

Day 6

Today's outfit was the think green shirt, brown shorts, and mismatched socks. He's back to normal now with his mismatched socks lol. 

Lunch today was a VitaCoco kids cherry drink, a car pb and j sandwich, carrot slices with ketchup, an applesauce and a triple chocolate brownie. He ate everything but half the brownie, because he was full, and he already insisted on no dessert tonight because he's had too many sweets today. I'm guessing they were talking about health at school today lol. 

He had Spanish again today and says they have yet to learn any Spanish yet, but that the teacher talks. In Spanglish to them. Maybe next class. I got a possibly promotion today. And tonight is our first VeganMoFo post. Looking forward to dinner and a movie time.

VeganMoFo2013

                                          

     

So I decided to go with a theme this year to try something new. I will keep blogging about little man and his school adventures, but am going to add extra posts. We tend to have very little down time generally, so I thought that a movie and meal theme would be nice.  Starting tomorrow evening the MoFo posts will start posting. I want to do a kid friendly (or at least kid approved) movie for the first one for sure, and at least 3/4 of the MoFo posts. Looking for a good movie for tomorrow. Check back in to see what I come up with. 

Day 5

Outfit of the day was another skating shirt and khaki shorts.

The poor boy's allergies were going crazy this morning :(

Lunch today was leftover tofu helper, crackers, nana slices, mango yummy earth lollipop, applesauce, and apple and eve fruit punch.

Dinner tonight was nice. Nothing like good food and cherry wine :) and a napkin monkeybutt custom designed for me. It says I love you times infinity :)

A close up of the meal. Teriyaki tofu, Frenched green beans, salad with Woodstock dressing, and bilkelekh rolls, with a glass of cherry wine. 

It was a nice relaxing evening and I accidentally fell asleep while cuddling with lil man after a story.

4th day of school

Little man had a rough day today at school, and I had a rough day at work. His lunch today (or what didn't get dropped on the floor anyway) was a pb&j Sammie, pistachios, crackers, chocolate soy milk, applesauce, and a pomegranate pucker yummy earth organic lollipop.

Little man wore his zombie shirt today. Dinner was tofu helper, zucchini fries (he hates zucchini, but I can now get him to eat it in bread, cookie or fry form), and a small salad with baby greens, cukes and red beans. 

3rd day

Little man had a blast in p.e. today! They had races and then a tag/foam noodle fight. Outfit for today was his Bazinga shirt. Standing in front of his Sheldon poster. With his DKNY black and graylaid shorts. 

Lunch today was an airplane pb &j Sammie, carrot fries with ketchup, organic applesauce, cashews, pistachios, and white chocolate chips, and a couple of club crackers, with a vanilla almond milk.

For dinner tonight, we made blue corn, teff and whole wheat pizzas. Mine with jalapeño, olive, and onion, his with just olives. And a little daiya provolone as it was the only "cheese" we had in abundance at the time. The sauce was made from fresh Romas from out garden.

Look at that sauce simmering away!

After dinner we went swimming (I can't believe it's the end of August and it was 99 today) and worked on his spelling words, and word scramble homework. A good day overall!

Day 2

Little man had Spanish class today. I think it's great to introduce a second language while they're young, and their brains are still little sponges. I also think it's great because his lil satito butt needs to learn Spanish. He had fun today at school. He eagerly explained the rules that they follow, and the consequences at each step when they don't listen. They did a activity to get to know each other like class room bingo, and one with numbers where each number represents something about their home life. (I.e. 0 I have 0 cats. 1 I have 1 pug. 2 I have 2 living sea monkeys. 3 there are 3 people in our house.) it was a cute way to learn about each other. His teacher seems really sweet, and I am relieved that there are no nut restrictions in his class this year. This simplifies the lunch making for me, and gives us tons of different options :) lunch today was sliced pink pearl apples with peanut butter to dip them in, banana slices, peanut butter and jelly tug boats, fish, and whale mini-sammies on Rudi's multigrain oat bread, with carrot waves, fish, and sun. Carrot sticks with ketchup (weird,  I know, but I guess at least he isn't a ranch junkie lol.)  Veggie pirates booty, cashews, and vanilla almond milk. The joke today was "why did the elementary school student get a ladder? So he could go to HIGH school"  The outfit for today was a black and white striped polo shirt that says "grind shred sk8 park" with orange shorts. 

Such silly faces and poses from this guy!

The lunch

And so it begins...

80's first day of second grade went well. He made a new friend named Creighton, and they played Skylanders (3D pretend to be characters version, they don't have gaming systems at recess.) He made a Darth Vader ladybug in art, and they red "First Day Jitters" to break the ice and ease them into their first day. His new teacher seems really nice, and it was good to see him excited to go to school. His joke note of the day was "what did one math book say to the other? I've got a lot of problems" his outfit was a red shirt with Darth Vader skate boarding, his cool new shoes, and plaid shorts.  (The Star Wars theme is kinda ironic because neither of us has ever actually seen Star Wars. His birthday theme this year was angry birds Star Wars, and we just finished off the first two books in the Origami Yoda series.) Lunch today was baked tofu penguins, bear, frog, and bunnies, on top of rotini in smoky tomato vinaigrette with olives, and the tofu animal crew, had carrot accent, with Oppenheimer white chocolate chips, organic pink pearl apples, agave in the little bear, and a chocolate almond milk. Oh, and he loved the Origami Yoda I left for him in the bathroom :)

Lunch

Oatmeal and oranges for breakfast

'twas the night before 2nd grade

'Twas the night before second grade, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the pug.  His backpack was hung from the dining room chair, loaded with notebooks and back to school gear.  Monkey butt was nestled, all snug in his bed, while visions of zombie killing pea shooters danced in his head. Regi and her Mac book, and I, with iPad, had just settled down for an episode of Breaking Bad. Then in the kitchen there arose such a clatter, I sprung from the sofa to see what was the matter. Away to the doorway I flew like a flash, tripped over the vacuum and caused quite a crash. The moon light reflecting off Hootie the Beta's fish bowl, illuminated the counters, and floor down below. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a new, shiny red bento, and cutlery set from last year. With tofu bunnies, and penguins, and frog, atop of rotini they sat like a dog. With agave in a bear, and a sliced pink pearl apple, and chocolate almond milk, so much better than Snapple! There was a sprinkling of Oppenheimer white chocolate chips, and carrot expressions on the tofu critters, to cross over his lips. Sliced olives, and rotini, in a smoky tomato vinaigrette sauce,and a little note card, with a funny joke about math, I thought "Surely this is a lunch he won't toss." And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the stove, the zipping of a sparkly Spider-Man lunch bag; what a trove! As I drew in my head and was turning around, down onto the floor it fell without sound.  He was made of green paper, of the construction sort. In a green hue similar to that of a caper. An origami yoda to help brighten his morn, "Great first day of school, have you will" he would say. His eyes, they were drawn on, and his mouth was too. His ears were crumpled bits of tree pulp, but alas, the poor fellow's saber was gone.  I folded, and creased, and used a bit of tape. i hope in the morning, the boy's mouth is agape. i shall hide him some where, with out a rest break. i know, by the potty, that's his first stop once he's awake! Now I am quite tired, and anxious with delight, so  Happy eve of school to all, and to all a good night!

Zucchini almond chocolate chip cookies

Zucchini almond chocolate chip cookies

1 cup sugar

1 cup grated zucchini (I used the second smallest size on my "cheese" grater)

1/2 cup sunflower oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 cups all purpose flour

1/8 cup sliced almonds

1/3 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. I let the zucchini sit for a few minutes after I grated it and drained the excess liquid, and gently squeezed it a little bit. You don't want it dry, but you don't want gobs of zucchini juice going in it either. minutes.  Cool on parchment or wire rack. Makes about 3.5 dozen cookies.  Mix the wet and the dry ingredients. Roll about a hefty tbsp of the dough into a ball. Plop onto a pre-greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-14 . Have some ice cold almond milk on hand to wash them down :)

Brunch is served!

Strawberry lime muffins, organic grapes (major score at wholefoods on Friday, only 99 cents per lb!), sautéed kale and chard with mushrooms and scallions in ginger ponzu sauce, and scrambled tofu. Haven't blogged in a while. Trying to get back into it now that I got me a fancy, schmancy, iPad. Enjoying my Sunday off with the family, about to hit up some yard sales. Maybe I'll post some finds later.