Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Oh the places you’ll go!  That has to be my favorite Dr. Seuss book of all, but tonight’s meal inspired by Dr. Seuss really focuses on The Cat and the Hat, of course.  The boys love the new show on PBS, I love the books, but I have to admit, I am a bit of a sucker for the show since it focuses on science.  Thing 1 and Thing 2 are great having my own set of “things” as well.  I was inspired by this post on one of my favorite blogs, How Does She.  We did not pack lunches today, instead we had a low key, enjoy the beautiful weather day at home, but by dinner time I was inspired to celebrate in style.  Here is what I came up with.

 

Green Eggs and Ham – of course, it was Dr. Seuss’s best selling book after all.  However, I did two plays on this.  First, scrambled green eggs, with help from a few blue and yellow food coloring drips.  Second, I made a bird’s “nest” out of angel hair pasta swirled around my favorite go-to item, a silicone cupcake mold.  Then, I put the green “eggs” in, which were peas.  The pasta was the biggest hit, but I was shocked that Gus ate ALL of his scrambled eggs…something he suddenly stopped eating a few months back. 

The Cat in the Hat – I made my interpretation of his iconic hat, using strawberries cut into what we call coins (works well with a pirate-themed lunch) and banana coins, stacked on top of each other and assembled with a colorful toothpick.   I also cut out a cat from a cookie cutter, and had a ham cat and fish, two of the things I knew the boys would recognize. 

Enjoy! Have fun. 

Sandwiches Without the Bread?

Hello Blog World!  Long time no blog!!!  We have been incredibly busy lately, and I just have not had a chance to write about our food adventures.  Plus, we’ve also had some stomach issues…which made for a few interesting days of basically not eating.  Now the boys are back with a vengeance, and my goal is to get better at posting some ideas for inspiration.  I know sometimes that is all I need to help us get through meal time with a little less fighting or bargaining!

 

The first thing I wanted to share is the boys FAVORITE snack right now.  They love, love, love apples sliced really thin, and then I cut out some shapes for the theme of the meal.  Today it was flowers, butterflies and hearts.  Very girlie sounding, but heck, these boys love them some flowers and butterflies! The favorite part is not the fun shapes, though they are fun, they love the dip that they get with them.  I mix smooth peanut butter and local honey with a sprinkle of cinnamon, and a teeny-tiny bit of real vanilla extract.   Swirl together for a little bit of heaven that packs some punch.  Great protein and fiber in each bite.  Another way to get a bit of protein into the boys without using chicken nuggets or ham slices and just as easy to prepare!!!

The second thing is the sandwich we enjoyed today that really is not much of a traditional sandwich, but since they can eat it just like one, we called it a veggie sandwich.  I took two slices of cucumber and smeared roasted red pepper hummus between the slices, and voila, veggie sandwich. You can see Gus thoroughly enjoyed his!  These will be great additions for our weekly picnics out and about. 

 

In totally unrelated to food tidbits, here are the gifts we are bringing to a birthday party today.  Why am I sharing? Well, it is my favorite way to package gifts right now.  I check out the local dollar bin in a not so small super store down the street.  And pack the gifts inside the bins. Everyone who has kids knows that extra storage or organizational buckets are very handy, so it is a present inside of a present, but mostly it is great that they are reusable.  It helps me feel a bit better about the amount of trash that goes into gift giving.  I then wrote each kid’s name on the bucket and attached a home-made gift card using a tiny paperclip.  Fun and cute!