Quick Dinner Idea!

I made one of my favorite, easy, standby dinners tonight.  It's called...Meat-Bean-Macaroni Mix?  Okay, I don't have a very good name for it, but it's delicious!  I got the recipe from a magazine (I think Cooking Light) a few years ago.  I love it because I usually have everything I need to make it already in the kitchen, which means no last minute runs to the grocery store.  There's a sense of pride I get when I can make a meal using what we have in the house, without spending any extra money.  So, without further adieu, here is my Meat-Bean-Macaroni Mix! (If you think of a better name, by all means, let me know!):

Ingredients:
16 oz package elbow macaroni
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound Italian sausage (or ground turkey, ground chicken, whatever's your pleasure - I used ground chicken in tonight's dish because that's what we had.  If you don't use Italian sausage, I'd probably add a little Italian seasoning for flavor.)
2  15 oz cans of diced tomatoes, undrained
2  15 oz cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
shaved/shredded cheese (Romano & Parmesan are good choices)

Directions:

1. Cook pasta to al dente (almost soft with just a little bite).  Set aside when done.  Meanwhile...
2. Heat olive oil in large pot.  Add onion and garlic and saute until soft.
3. Add meat and cook until is starts to brown.
4. Add wine to break up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.  Add tomatoes, beans, fennel, chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Bring mixture to a boil.  Turn down heat and let simmer for 15 minutes.  (I usually let mine simmer for a little longer to soak up all the flavors.)
6. Add cooked macaroni.  Add a little at a time - see how much you want.  I usually have about 1 1/2 cups leftover that I'll use in something else the next day.
7. Serve with a little cheese on top.

I hope you all enjoy this dish as much as my family and I do.  It's quick, simple, and relatively healthy, and as a busy mom, I couldn't ask for anything more! :)

Week of Toddler Meals (17 months old)

My daughter has been eating real food and full meals for a while now (she's currently 17 months old).  But when she turned 12 months and we started transitioning off of formula, it was overwhelming.  Formula use to be her 100% nutrition.  Now I had to make sure:  Is she getting everything she needs?  I bought books, I researched, and finally, I calmed down.  I realized, as long as she eats healthy foods, most of the time, most of the week, she'll be fine.  But it took me a few months to get to that point.  I always wish that I had had a mom just say, "Here are some meal ideas to get you started."  So, with that in mind, I thought that I'd record everything Olive ate for a full week: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some snacks.

A few notes:

1. Olive still gets whole milk twice a day: 12 oz when she wakes up and 8 oz before she goes to bed.  (I just didn't take pictures of it!)  She also gets water throughout the day when she wants it.
2. This actually took me about 10 days to complete because:  Some days were leftovers of the day before - not that interesting - and some days we were out and about and I didn't have my camera.
3. These are the meals I made for my daughter, not necessarily the meals she ate.  Truthfully, she has a good appetite and usually eats what I give her, but she's a toddler so she likes to be difficult sometimes! 
4. Sometimes she eats what we eat and sometimes I make her a different meal.
5. Yes, we eat a lot of bananas, flax meal, and sweet potatoes.  Hey, they're easy to make and healthy!  Also, you caught me on a week that I had a lot of grapes and pears.  On another week, you might see a lot of cantaloupe and peas or apple and green beans.  It just depends on what we bought that week! :)

Breakfasts

Bananas and Homemade Waffles (the waffles are made with flax meal, blackberries, and peaches)

Applesauce with Flax Meal & Potato Pancakes (made by Grandpa)

Bananas, toast sticks, scrambled egg

Egg, Cheese & Hash brown Burrito 

Greek Yogurt with Banana, Flax Meal, & Applesauce mixed in

Oatmeal with Banana, Flax Meal, Blueberries, and Applesauce

Diced Pears with Whole Wheat Pancake Sticks

Lunches

Peanut Butter Pita Triangles, String Cheese, Grapes

Greek Yogurt with Bananas and Garbanzo Beans 

Slurry (our name for smoothies in our house).  This one has:  spinach, carrots, sweet potato, kidney beans, cantaloupe, bananas, almond milk, flax meal, blueberries, mango, green beans, strawberries, applesauce, peas, and blackberries.  If you want to see me making a similar one, click here.

String Cheese, Diced Pears, Toast Sticks

Scrambled Eggs with Shredded Cheese & Peas

Almond Butter and Banana Sandwich with Organic Cheddar Cheese 

Kidney Beans and Dried Mixed Fruit

                                                Dinners

Pearl Couscous Mixed with Garbanzo Beans, Peas, Corn, Tomatoes & Spices

Sweet Potato and Turkey/Chicken Burger Patty

Sweet Potato, Cheese Quesadilla, Grapes

Turkey/Chicken Meatloaf, Sweet Potato, Roasted Cauliflower & Carrots

Grilled Polenta, Sauteed Spinach, Baked Pork

Taco Bake:  Ground Chicken/Turkey, Pinto Beans, Tomatoes, Crushed Tortilla Chips

Burrito:  Chicken/Turkey Mix, Cheese, Tomatoes, Flour Tortilla

Snacks (these aren't all the snacks she ate - just the ones I photographed)

Baba Ganoush & Pita (shared with Grandma) 

Grapes and Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich (shared with Mama)

Hummus & Pita

For all the parents about to transition into full-fledged meals with their little ones, I hope this can help!  For all the parents with toddlers that are already transitioned, I hope this helps give you some fresh ideas.  And to all parents who choose to offer their little ones healthy choices, even if they don't always eat them...high five to you! :)

Pinterest Friday

We had a busy week this week!  Yoga on Monday, Library on Tuesday, visiting with sister-in-law on Wednesday, Library again on Thursday, walking with my mommy group on Friday.  Okay, okay, I know it doesn't sound busy for everyone, but it was for us!  After Olive goes to bed is my Pinterest time, so here's some of the fun things I pinned this week (as well as pictures of the ones we did!).

Click on the captions of the pictures of the pins to link to the original Pinterest pin.

Original Pin:  Painting a fence with water

Here's how it went for us:

Wash on, wash off!

"I wonder if the water at the bottom of the bucket is different than the water at the top?  Hmmmm?" 

Watching the water drip from the brushes.  

"I'm pretty sure Dada's bike needs painting."

Of course, we HAVE to put it in our mouth!


Here are some of the other awesome things I pinned from Pinterest this week.  Remember, just click on the captions if you want to pin them yourselves!

DIY Number Rings

 Funny Baby Quotes

Felt Christmas Tree

See-through bird feeder / nest

Tin Can Xylophone


That's all for this week.  I hope everyone has a pinteresting weekend!  Happy Veterans Day! :)

Sensory Play - The Cheap Way

As a teacher in my pre-mommy life, I became an expert out of making a lot out of a little.  With budget cuts and oversized classrooms, it became a challenge to do everything I wanted to do in the classroom without dipping too far into my personal bank account.  Like most teachers, I became a hoarder of things that, "Hmmmm, that looks interesting, I think I could find a way to use that later".  And you know what, I always did!  When free and super inexpensive things came along, you took them first and thought about how you'd use them later.
Now that I'm a full time mom, I still have that "teacher-hoarder" in me and honestly, I'm not ashamed to admit it!  I am starting to do a lot more sensory play with my 17 month old and I'm really working hard to keep everything cheap, cheap, cheap.  One way I do that is by shopping at my local Creative Reuse Depot.  Essentially, it's a store that has a bunch of leftovers, scraps, misprints, bits and pieces, and anything else that might otherwise be considered trash, but not to this frugal mom!  Here's what I bought on my last shopping trip where I spent a total of $9.50:

Most people might look at this and see trash, but I see sensory gold!  Old pill containers? Poke holes in the top, stick smelly things inside for a smelly fun experience.  Protein powder scoops? Scoopers for rice and water buckets.  Green and black tubes?  Screw to a piece of plywood and you have a fun water tube board.  Balloons ($0.02 a piece, by the way!)?  Fill with different liquids and foods and you have a touchy-feely texture experience.  Carpet and tile samples?  Well, those are just fun for a 17 month old to feel.   I haven't decided how I'm going to use the shower rod rings yet, but I'm thinking!

The best part about sensory play is that most people already have the items they need at home.  I went out and bought these items, but I bet most people would already have many of them.  All you have to do is spend a little time collecting.  My family members are starting to get in on the program, too.  When they go to throw something out, they'll usually come up to me first and ask, "Can you use this?"  (I'll usually say yes, even if I haven't really thought of a way to use it, because I know I will later!)

Are you interested in doing sensory play, the cheap way, too?  Here's a list of items that you might think twice about throwing away next time (or course, make sure you clean everything really well):

• Styrofoam trays (the kind with meat on them) - great to hold paint
• glass jars (like from applesauce, olives, etc.)
• plastic bottles
• old face makeup compacts with mirrors
• old blush brushes
• empty diaper boxes
• tin cans
• toilet paper and paper towel rolls
• plastic lidded lunch meat containers
• extra buttons that come with new clothes
• the baggies that those extra buttons come in
• egg cartons
• old magazines
• wine bottle corks
• yogurt/sour cream containers
• empty cleaning product spray bottles
• empty vitamin bottles
• empty oatmeal canister
• paint chip samples (free from hardware store)
• infant Tylenol/ibuprofen bottles with eyedroppers
• plastic diaper wipe containers with snap shut lid
• I'll expand this list as I think of more....If you have any ideas, leave a comment and I'll add it! :)

Trolling the Internet and some of my favorite blogs, I've found some great ideas to do sensory play REALLY inexpensively, using things you probably already have at home.  Click on the picture captions to take you to the original blog, post, or site!

Homemade Lightbox 

Smelling Cards

Tin Can Xylophone

Homemade Playdough

Clean Mud

Water Balloon Bathtime

Cave of Stars

If you find any other great, cheap sensory ideas, let me know!  And I'll be sure to add to this list as I find more ideas.  Have a sensorific day!

Let's All Go to the...Library!...

...and rent ourselves a book! :)

We have about 10 great libraries in our city and up until today, I haven't taken my 17 month old to one of them yet.  In fact, before today, it's been about 4 years since I've visited the library, which is pretty sad.  My daughter loves to look at books and have them read to her.  We have about 30 books and although she's not bored with them, I'm starting to get a little tired of the same ol', same ol'.  I can't afford to buy much right now, books included, so the library is going to become our new favorite place.
But we all know you can check out books at the library.  The really fun part is...We went to our city's main library today and...Olive was able to get her OWN library card!  That's right, a 17 month old can have a library card under their own name.  Olive didn't get it, but I was super excited!

She thinks that it's something to chew on.  How original, Olive... :)

Or perhaps it's a toejam remover?

Our experience at the library today went as follows: Olive running around pulling books off the shelf.  Mama running after putting the books back on the shelf.  Mama trying to look at the books and pick out some good ones.  Olive pulling out more books and running away.

Okay, so she's still too little to "get it", but I'm so glad we went.  I'm planning on going once a week with her.  At our libraries, we can check out 25 books and keep them for 3 weeks.  Pretty awesome, huh?  The first day you can only check out 2 books, though.  Here's what we got:

She pulled the cat book off the shelf and said, "Ti tat! Ti tat", so we had to get it.  I picked the other book because it was one we just saw at the science museum we went to this past weekend.  (By the way, "Desser the Best Ever Cat" is the cutest book!  Check it out!)

I'm loved our trip to the library today.  It makes me feel good as a mom to expose my child to an awesome, educational, and free resource in our community.  Until next time, we'll see you at the library! :)

Water Play

Winter is fast approaching.  Even though I live in an area that doesn't experience true seasons, the number of warm sunny days will be starting to lessen.  I want to take advantage of those sunny, warm days before they are few and far between!  We had one of those such days recently and I had the idea to do some water play.  It's such a simple activity and I'm certainly not the first one to have thought of it.  But, we had such fun, I thought I'd share it with you!

Materials you need:  Large plastic bin, things from the kitchen - sponges, funnels, cups, watering cans, etc., and water.

Olive especially loved the sponges.  Here she is "picking up" water and letting it drip out of the sponges.

As always, she had to taste it.  I swear, it's as though she has no other senses sometimes and the only way to get to know something is by putting it in her mouth!  Let's just say she got her day's worth of liquid during this activity! :)

Pouring water into a cup.

Splash, splash, splash!  I like how the kitty watering can is looking at me like, "This is fun!   I like playing with the human child!"

My daughter (17 months) was definitely most interested in the sponges.  I think that for the next sunny day, I throw in some more sponges.  We also spent a little time "bathing" the kitty.  Olive thought it would be funny to bathe Mama, too.  :)  She entertained herself for at least 30 minutes, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of record.  I think next time I'll add some fabric pieces, tubes, and maybe some water balloons.  Looking forward to the next sunny day!