getting creative with food

Have you noticed that your fridge ends up with a stash of "I want that" items? Now, we do a pretty good job of shopping and watching food waste. HOWEVER, YouTube and Pinterest have now shown us new ways to create recipes with old ingredients. And by we you know I don't mean WE. I mean, she, as in the 15 year old 😉

I am always down to eat some fruits and veggies. I could be better at it, but I make sure we have fresh produce in the fridge and set out healthy snacks when possible. Old school carrot sticks with ranch work instead of chips in my world. A bowl of chopped fruit drizzled in honey is a great sweet treat. The internet has given kids the opportunity to learn more and have more options, including with food.

My kid has started making new recipes/creations. She shredded carrots, zucchini and onion last week, then drizzled them in vinegar and oil with salt. Day 1 was great! Days 2 and 3 were fine. But day 5, we agreed she made too much and it needed to be dealt with.

This was the same case for the chopped cabbage salad, roasted cauliflower, baked squash, and random yogurt concoctions. I love that my kid has kitchen safety. I love that she knows math and measurements. I love that she wants to try new things. However... eyeballing all these recipes makes enough food for a week when we all know that only one or two people are eating most of it. 

She loves the fun drink mixers so lemonade is a constant in my fridge. Instead of using her strawberry syrup (have you read the ingredients in that stuff?!?), I blended lemonade, ice, and real strawberries. She won't drink it, I am sure. I even added a splash of her Poppi. And, she probably won't drink it 🤣 

We are learning. I am grateful she is so self-sufficient. I will continue to work on reading the whole recipe and checking the yield. I often hear, "Yield. What is that?" Yep. Yep. Yep. Learning never stops!

kids are kids regardless of age (and regardless of what they say)

My daughter and her friend are these big cool teenagers now, but I see through it. As soon as we invited one of the little besties over, I asked what they wanted for lunch. Go figure. Macaroni and cheese with chicken nuggets. And, of course, Takis (gag). 

My kid wanted to make her friend lunch and I am down for that! However, she needed to show off her new vanity. Then they played with the dog. Then they did ALL the skin care (thanks YouTube for that unnecessary trend!). While they girled, I made the quickest, easiest lunch and even chopped up an apple so the lunch wouldn't be processed food with a side of red dye 40. We got a few Christmas platters with 4 dividers last holiday season, so I put their food into the divider plates. 

As soon as the girls sat down, there were ooohhhs and aaahhhs over the Christmas trays. It's the little things that count you guys! I make easy lunch and put it in cute platters instead of on a plate. They went bonkers over the cuteness. I got loads of thank you's and we were going to eat anyways! 

Don't let the term "teenager" fool you when you walk into this house. Yes, there are more products in her room than in Sephora. Yes, her floor is covered in clothes and who knows what. Yes, she talks to her Alexa each night like a goofball. BUT, chicken nuggets and their presentation will always go far with her just like they did when she was 3, 5, and also 7. 

in a land of pizza joints, we still make our own

Growing up, I was well versed in helping to make homemade noodles, homemade sauces, stuffed peppers and all the things homemade. It's what I knew and it's what my daughter gets to know. We are always willing to try some new recipe. We learned to make gnocchi, perogies, cobbler, macarons. This time we tried a new recipe and made homemade pizza a new way.

Costco had a bag of pizza crust that we wanted to try. We made one batch of crust and divided it into thirds so everyone could have their own pizza. It was easy. Add the things and let the crust sit over night, then roll it out. Done.

Crust from Costco, sauce from Meijer, sausage from Schnucks, cheese and garnish from Aldi. We like to shop around ;) It was SO hot last week that this was a nice, easy meal that wasn't just salad and sandwiches. We had a pepperoni pizza, a sausage, and a sausage with olives and onion. Fortunately, we still have our Pizzazz, so we didn't have to heat up the kitchen and make ourselves more miserable.

The only thing we wasted was the opportunity to eat all at once. We were only able to cook one pizza at a time, so we ate one at a time. When you are hot and cranky already, staggering mealtime doesn't make one bit of difference. Pizza night in 115 degree heat worked. It was fun, new, and really good! 

ice day, snow day, fun day!

Another day home from school means another day to plan some fun! We slept in and then created a tour de casa so we had something fun to do in each room of the house. We had fun collaborating on what to do. The kitchen is our sweet spot, so we decided to create some beignets. I think Princess Tiana would be pleased 😀

Den- PE (aka Twister)

Kitchen- Science (make beignets)

Computer room- Math (start a puzzle)

Living room- Language Arts (aka watch a movie and discuss)

Her room- Health (spa stuff)

My room- Study hall (Play a game)

She enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. It was a nice break from her e-learning and I can only do so much laundry! I could probably craft all day every day, but even I needed a break from my current project.

comfort foods are SO comforting :)

It's almost spring which means it's that time of year when you can see three different seasons in a day. We wake up to winter, have spring in the afternoon, and feel fall like temps in the evening. Because of this, it's dressing in layers and prepping for warm/cold/humid/dry weather. You just never know. I mean, it's the midwest! 

Some nights we still light a fire and some nights we open the doors up. After all these years living here you just get used to it. This also means that we try to wrap up the rest of our winter fun. All the favorite winter games, crafts and recipes get pulled out. This includes homemade pot pie. You just can't make a good pot pie in warm weather!

My shortie loves to roll out the homemade pie crust. I always make the yummy, gooey filling and she does the crust. This new recipe made 2 pot pies, so we had gobs of food. It's completely worth the time and the mess watching my kid work her way around our kitchen with such confidence and ease. This is by far our favorite winter food that I make.  

In a month we will be ditching the crockpots, comforters and casseroles. We will crack some windows, prep the grill, and pull out the bikes. Goodbye winter, hello spring! In the meantime, though, no one goes hungry. And no one can get bored with all the recipes we can work through (and clean up!). 

sometimes excess is necessary

We like to have a good appetizer night at this house. There are so many good options to choose from now that Costco is so close by. The possibilities are endless! 

This morning started with a good cry-it-out movie. That led to, "Can I have cheese sticks for breakfast?" Because when we cry, we need comfort foods, right? The cheese sticks turned into an appetizer platter and we waited for the movie to end and called it brunch. Voila. 

It's not healthy, but it's delicious. It's also fun. Thanks to the air fryer and toaster oven it is easy. This means that she can do it herself with light supervision. I win. 

Notice the complete absence of fruits and (real) vegetables. Not even worried about it. Rumor has it that we will be playing in the snow later and when we come in all cold from the snow we will need a nutritious snack. Enter fruit slices with peanut butter! If starting our day with meatballs at 11am and tears in our eyes makes us happy, then so be it! Happy snow day everybody!