The Grouchy Ladybug Snack

Today during circle time, we read one of the boys' favorite books, The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.  

Shortly after reading the book, it was time for me to make morning snack for the kiddos and The Grouchy Ladybug was still on my mind.  Mostly because the boys kept repeating, "Hey you!  You wanna fight!?"  So, I used this page from the book as the inspiration for today's food art.

Here is MY version:

The sun is pineapple, the praying mantis is cucumber with tomato eyes, the ladybug is black beans and a cherry tomato and carrots for the ground.  I used a toothpick and some black food coloring to "paint" the dots on the wings and the pupils on the mantis eyes.  I realized later that I probably should have put the carrots at an angle to better imitate the brush strokes in the book and maybe added a few red and yellow  bell pepper strips.  Next time.

Making grain-free and dairy-free food art is a lot more complicated than when I could just cut a "sammy" and some cheese into a fun shape, but I think it turned out pretty good.  Most importantly the boys loved the theme and they devoured this healthy snack!  

My First "20 Chore Tuesday"

I love lists!  I am way more productive and organized if I have a visual of what I need done, so when my friend Emily over at Joyful Abode started doing "20 Chore Tuesday" a couple weeks ago, I knew I needed to join in the fun.

This is today's 20 chores:

Ok, so maybe not all of the things on the list are "chores" in the traditional sense, but they are things that I need to make sure get done. When I made the list, I figured quite a few of the items wouldn't get crossed off, but I was pleasantly surprised with my results.



I got about 18 things from the list finished, plus some things that weren't on the list.  So, all-in-all, I'd say this was a successful Tuesday.  Thanks to Emily for helping provide some motivation!

Teddy Bear Picnic

Today's lunch theme was "Teddy Bear Picnic".

I started with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and used a simple circle cookie cutter to punch out a round.  I then used two different kinds of cheese (cheddar and provolone) to make triangle shaped rays.  He has a celery smile and fruit roll up (green apple) sunglasses.

Next I used a celery stalk and grapes (cut in half) to make a tree.  There is also "grass" (chopped lettuce and spinach) and 2 little bunnies (Annie's organic fruit snacks - strawberry).

For the picnic I used 2 Teddy Grahams and an apple slice cut into a square (with strips of it's skin) as the blanket.  There are also "ants" on the blanket (protein bar crumbs) because no picnic is complete without ants invading the area.

The boys also had homemade watermelon popsicles for "dessert".  We made them last night with our popsicle mold (found at Walmart for three dollars), Minute Maid watermelon juice, little chunks of watermelon and a splash of lemon juice.

They were very refreshing and according to my 4-year-old, "delicious".

Happy kids!

-J

Shrimp and Bacon Zucchini Boats

My newest cooking experiment turned out great!  I was making salmon and needed something to go with it, so I came up with the following recipe for yummy zucchini boats!

I didn't actually expect them to turn out as good as they did so unfortunately, I didn't take pictures as I made them, but I do have a few pictures of the finished product.

Ingredients:

Zucchini
Shrimp
Carrots
Garlic
Onion
Red Pepper
Green Pepper
Bacon Bits
Tomato
Spinach
Mozzarella
Provolone

• Cut zucchini in half and use a spoon to carve out the center area, leaving a "boat" (keep the part you carved out, you'll be using it for the stuffing)
• Grate carrots, garlic and zucchini center (from last step) into a bowl
• Finely dice shrimp, onion, red pepper and green pepper and add to bowl
• Toss everything from the bowl into a pan and saute with a little bit of butter and your choice of seasoning (I used McCormick Perfect Pinch Vegetable).  When done, drain (if needed) and add back to the bowl.
• Finely dice spinach and tomato (de-seed first) and toss in the bowl
• Grate mozzarella into bowl
• Mix well (the cheese should melt and help the mixture to stick together) 
• Spoon mixture into the zucchini boats and sprinkle top with bacon bits
  * Note:  I had extra stuffing so I baked it in a little stoneware ramekin

• Bake at 425 for 20 minutes 
• At the 15 minute mark, pull them out and place thinly sliced provolone to top, put back into the oven to continue cooking for the last 5 minutes

You'll love these!  They went perfectly with our lemon herb salmon, butter parmesan pasta and sweet corn on the cob.  It was an all around hit with everyone from the 2-year-old all the way up to the Grammy (we won't mention her age).  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Pancake Flower - Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was pancakes and fruit made into a flower shape.  

I started out making petal shaped pancakes (long ovals).  I used Krusteaz Wheat and Honey pancakes and instead of water, we used milk.

Then I chopped up the strawberries and bananas.

Added some vanilla yogurt to a small bowl, sprinkled it with some multicolored nonpareils and added some Yogurt O's (available at Fresh & Easy).

Then I arranged everything on the plate.  Fruit went on top of the pancakes and I drizzled them with honey.  Th yogurt bowl went into the center of the "petals".

Yum!

Fun Snack Tray

The boys were ready for snack so I decided to put together a fun snack tray.  Something like this would be great for those of you who have picky eaters that don't like their food to touch, it's still fun and different but each food stays with it's group.

I started out just gathering what I wanted to give the boys for snack.  We like to do finger foods for snacks so I decided on grapes, carrots, strawberries, apples, ham, waffle pretzels, cucumber and provolone cheese.

First I cut everything into flat disks and used my fondant cutters to punch out shapes from the food.  For those of you who don't know, fondant cutters are like mini cookie cutters, they also do make mini cookie cutters but they are harder to find.  I found both the fondant cutters I used, and these mini cookie cutters (Noah's Ark Set and Romantic Set) at Michael's.

After I punched everything out and arranged it on the tray, I drew on the provolone with Wilton FoodWriter Pens.  I kept it simple: I <3 U, Gabe, Rique and a bunch of smiley faces.  I've used the pens with great success on other foods, but apparently cheese is too soft because it was a lot harder to use them on the provolone.  I think next time I'll just use food coloring and a toothpick or thin paintbrush.

Here's the finished product:

My boys love fun food, even when it's just one of my simple creations.  My favorite part of snack was watching my boys being sweet with each other and sharing their food.

Happy Eating!

Spring Theme Breakfast

The last couple days have been gray, windy and rainy so I thought we needed a nice, colorful meal to remind us that it's spring time.  

The flowers are bell pepper with scrambled eggs poured in and a cheese (cheddar and provolone) center with  a spinach leaf and a chive as the stem.  I got the idea for these flowers from this picture.

There is also bacon "dirt" with a gummy worm and 2 strawberry ladybugs.  Butterfly toast with grape jelly, a banana body and antennae made of two slivers of beef jerky.

Yum!