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!

Beachy Lunch

For you who may live in the north, or colder states, what could cheer you up more than a day at the beach?  Okay, so maybe that not in your budget, but how about making a little beachy meal for your little ones while sipping a virgin daiquiri?  Or, makes yours real, totally your choice.  The boys were surprised with this lunch when they returned from their Sunday trip to Home Depot with Daddy.  I am not going to lie, it is not something I would do for the boys daily, but when I have some extra time and helpers to entertain the boys, why not?

First, I cut the hot dog into thirds.  The parts that included an end were turned into octopus and I tried to make crabs out of the middles, but went back to more of a squid instead, because my crabs did not look very crabby.  To make the legs, lie the dog piece on its side and cut it half way up (not through the head so-to-speak), and then turn it a quarter turn and do it again.  You’ll have four legs at that point.  Then I found it easiest to stand the dog upright and cut each leg individually in order to help keep the legs equal thickness.

Below, the eyes were being prepped with a little help from a straw. I stuck some processed cheese in the freezer for a  few minutes to help firm it up and be less melty when I put it on the hotdog. I used ketchup and mustard to help stick the eyes on.

I used an edible pen to draw on some pupils and smiles, and let the squid and octopus play amongst the “sea beans.” The leftover piece of cheese was used to make a dock of sorts.  The finishing touch, if you don’t count the water spots on the plates courtesy of my dishwasher, were the cute umbrella toothpicks I picked up cheaply at Wal-Mart.

Gus was happy to eat the octopus head first, hilarious!  And, in case you were wondering, yes, they ate it all, except the green beans, they only ate a few…I don’t think they liked my garlic salt addition…just means more veggies for dinner!

 

Enjoy!

~ Brooke

Gobble Gobble!

So, this is not really my full idea.  I am sure moms for years have been making apple turkeys.  Right?  Fall, turkeys, making food fun.  I got the idea from my friend Sara’s suggestion to check out this site.  Very cool one for wicked clever ideas.

http://www.cutefoodforkids.com

Any way, I skipped the paper faces on her version, took the inspiration, and made my own turkey faces out of mini-chocolate chips “glued” to the apple with peanut butter, and a wedge of a peach that I attached with a toothpick. Then I put in the plumage with four toothpicks out the top rear of the apple.  It was much easier to stick the toothpicks into the apples first and then slide the food onto the picks.  I used purple grapes and a special treat of mini marshmallows.  I like the original site’s mandarin feathers, but I thought the variety of colors and textures was fun.  I also loved the acorn sammies that I put with the turkey apple, just feeling a bit Fallish!  Check out the turkey sandwiches on the Cute Food for Kids site as well, so adorable and truly easy to do!

We’ve been busy, lots of sickness around our house since Halloween, so we are getting back on track with eating and venturing out into the world.  Here is one cute meals the boys enjoyed at the zoo…but I am hoping for a little more inspiration now that the sickness seems to have the building!  These bamboo skewers have really made eating our grapes really fun lately.  Pretty much at least once a week we take these to a play date.  They help cut down on “escapee” grapes around the playground, and for that, I am thankful!

 

~Brooke

Meow!

Easy, simple, and delish!  Right up my alley. Here kitty, kitty!  This sandwich, or sammie, since it is pretty tiny and just an addition to the full dinner, is a peanut butter and honey Panini pressed sammie.  I like to press the sandwiches if I am going to do some cookie-cutting to them because they cut much cleaner, but that is just my opinion.  Maybe someone else has a hint to get it to cut cleaner.  I try to let the sandwich cool about 10 minutes before cutting so it does not just ooze out the sides…but if the boys are hungry, I’ll certainly cut quicker!

 

The eyes are raisins, the nose is my trusty chocolate yogurt covered raisin, and the whiskers are cucumber peels (using a trusty zester/stripper tool, similar to this one)

Augustus below, is loving checking it out, and even though he tends to freak out when food is “broken” – or cut in half, falls off, half eaten - this cat was too yummy to be upset about it not staying whole…whew!

Cookie Cutters are for More Than Just Cookies

Don’t get me wrong, using cookie cutters for cookies is a great way to use them!  This week, we’ve done sandwiches out of cookie cutters (see bat shaped sammies in the last post), but how using a cookie cutter as a rice mold, or an egg mold? 

Unfortunately, the boys did not like the rice dish – I know better than try a mayonnaise based dish, but heck, I'll keep trying.  However, they were impressed to have pumpkins on their plates at lunch time.  They just love Halloween. 

Tonight, Rals asked for “eggies” for dinner, so that is what we got. In the spirit of Halloween and making food fun, I figured I would try the mold idea again.  Scrambled eggs in the shape of a pumpkin and Frankenstein courtesy of our newest cookie cutters.  Then, I stuck a few veggies on as faces, and voila, dinner!  I put the eggs in the cookie cutter hot, and let them cool a bit, and they stayed together really well.  While putting together dinner, I made up some banana ghosts, or something sort of Halloweenie.  Heck, throw candy corn in it and just about anything looks Halloweenie. I wish the pictures were better…the boys were hungry and they were not about waiting for me to take pictures of their food!

Caterpillars!

Today’s creativity centered around caterpillars.  Feeding four, yes, count them four two and a half year olds every other Friday needs creativity, right?  So today, I sliced some cucumbers in rounds and then in half.  Stacked them up and put a toothpick through the stack. The toothpicks went through just enough to stick chocolate covered raisins and little broccoli spears between the first two slices of cucumber with a bit of hummus to help them adhere.  On the second set, I used black beans for the eyes…probably a better taste combo – but they kids all seemed to like both combos just fine.  Too cute!  Enjoy!

      

For lunch, we also enjoyed bat sandwiches, and owl snack “sammies.”  Best part was that ALL the food was gone!  Even the green bean rail road sticks.