Monday, March 14, 2011

Kids Cook Monday

This week I just want to encourage anyone following me with kids to check out the new Kids Cook Monday website that just launched today! They have cool recipes and tips on cooking with kids broken down by age group along with links to lots of other bloggers that are telling their tale of cooking with their kids. They have food and cooking games and lots of resources to help you kick off your own Kids Cook Monday. Check it out and if you get your kids involved in cooking let me know how and what you cook!

FYI their featured article looks very similar to one of our favorite dishes my husband makes when we do a pot luck (because you can eat it cold). It is basically soba noodles and steamed veggies and though this version is even more complex than what we toss in I'm telling you my kids eat this stuff up and we always get folks asking us for the recipe. We have soba noodles in the pantry now and a veggie box pickup on Tuesday so I think there is a good chance we will be having steamed veggies and soba noodles for dinner one night this week (a package of pre-made potstickers always makes a little extra for the meal if we are feeling a little hungrier than normal).

Enjoy the new site, can't wait to see what the campaign does in the coming weeks.

Meatless Monday

Yesterday my daughter and I picked up groceries and new books at the library. It is like a weekly tradition and it is so fun seeing what new books we will find. This week we picked up a book called "How did this get in my lunchbox?" (see book preview from Random House below). Though a bit more about big farms and processing plants than maybe growing your own or a local farmer it was a terrific read for us to discuss just how hard it really is to get something as simple as lunch on the plate. I loved hearing my daughter refer to food as hard work and also her realization that tomatoes, apples, and oranges all start as flowers...

Admittedly Meatless Monday isn't Monday for us again this week (tonight is spaghetti carbonara) but we do plan on doing some soba noddles with the "mystery" veggies which will be coming from our fruit and veggie box from the Know Thy Food on Tuesday and The first of the in-season strawberries and artichokes are starting to make their way to Portland from California so I broke down and purchased some as side dishes to this weeks meals. Ugg I should not create these posts over lunch as I'm now very hungry!


Saturday, March 5, 2011

Catching up on other blogs....

I'm really loving catching up on some of the blogs I follow after a really busy week (not to mention being sick - again). I'm going to share a few of my favorites with you just for fun:

- I really enjoyed Green Backs Gal's post on candied orange peels - thought I'm not sure I would dig the actual candied peels... the sugar water and orange ice cubes in your iced tea tip sounds to die for (you'll have to read her post to see what I'm talking about here).

- Just because my daughter has recently been complaining about what she doesn't have recently... or how she can't stand that something cheep and plastic is now garbage...  I liked this post by Money 4 This Not 4 That titled Teaching your children the value of money. I know she is only 4 (almost 5) and actually it more about the "stuff" than the money but still... I really wanted some tips on how to help her understand

- As my older daughter has taken to asking me to be on the lookout for rainbows so we can catch a leprechaun... I think this tutorial on how to make a treasure "blarney" stone by Skip to my Lou is looking super fun (just need to think of something not cheep and plastic to put inside).

Hope you enjoy them too... If you have some good blogs you follow please let me know (not that I need to be feeding that addiction any more but well, bring it on).

Friday, March 4, 2011

Guest Blog Posting - Cloth Diapers @ Daycare

I have been so crazy busy and sick that I haven't had time to tell you that I was a guest blog poster over at the Cloth Diaper Whisperer last week. I had written up a long piece a while back about using CD's at daycare...

We are now actually at another daycare as we finally got both our girls at the same center which makes life much easier. This center has a few children in cloth and they even dump poop for me - woot! It is nice to have a center that gets it right from the start - but still, I'm thankful to our old center for giving us a go. I'm also thankful for the lessons I learned through all of it - and now I get to share them with other CD moms!