The kids were up nice and early this morning, so I got 'em dressed and we headed out to our local farmer's market. It was my first time there and I was mildly disappointed because there were only about 5 or 6 vendors. I wasn't able to find the few items on my short list (raw honey, pure maple syrup and pure organic vanilla with no added sugar), but I did score some fresh corn and tomatoes as well as some ground beef, sirloins and chorizo from a local meat vendor. Can't wait to give them a try!
Breakfast
After the farmer's market we headed home so I could get started on breakfast. I was SUPER excited about the recipe I was going to try out this morning: a whole-wheat oven pancake from 100 Days of Real Food. I'll admit I was nervous about using only the white whole-wheat flour, so I started us out easy by doing half white whole-wheat and half white flour. It's sweetened with honey and cinnamon, but I added half of mashed banana to be sure it would be sweet enough for the kids (and me!). I diced the apples (instead of cutting them into slices) to make them easier for the kids to eat, then sautéed them in butter with a sprinkle of cinnamon and about a teaspoon of honey. The batter mixture was mixed in a blender then poured over top of the sautéed apples. It cooked for a few minutes over medium heat before transferring to the oven to finish baking/browning the top.
It. Was. Amazing. As in, heavenly.
Healthy, delicious, sweet. Perfect!
Chase ate his up in no time! He was a huge fan, as were mommy and daddy! LO wasn't too sure about it at first but eventually finished most of it. She didn't eat all of her fruit, which I thought was odd. Fast-forward about and hour after breakfast and I found two empty packages of fruit snacks (the sugary, processed ones) under a pillow on the couch ((no wonder we've been having an ant problem isolated to the couch!)). I confronted her about it and she told me she's "always hungry when I get up in the morning before you and daddy wake up to make me breakfast." This tells me she's probably done this before. Hence the durn ant problem.
Ugh.
This explains why she didn't eat much breakfast. I had let the kids share a banana on the way to the farmer's market, so between the banana and two packages of fruit snacks, no wonder she wasn't hungry!
Lunch
Whoa. I was super giddy about preparing lunch today, too! What's gotten into me? Anywho, I was really excited to make Vegetable Quesadillas on Whole-Wheat Tortillas, both recipes courtesy of 100 Days of Real Food. And I enlisted some adorable help as seen below.
They were supposed to be rolling the tortilla dough into balls. LO was a huge help, but I just gave Chase a tiny little bit of dough to play with, and it kept sticking to his hands. ;)
The dough needs to rest for 15 minutes to an hour before rolling out the tortillas, so while I waited, I prepared the delicious veggies for our quesadillas.
What you saw there was 1/2 a zucchini, 1/2 a squash, about 1/4 of both red and green peppers, a handful of mushrooms and a bit of diced onion. I am very proud of myself here because I've NEVER purchased, cooked, nor eaten bell peppers ever before in my entire life! I tried a tiny sliver of a sautéed red pepper at dinner last Saturday before the Lady A concert, and it was mighty tasty! I figured it was time to add them to my repertoire as a home chef.
I already knew the kids wouldn't be fans of those particular veggies, so I made plans to make them a cheese quesadilla instead. I think next time I'll sneak some in anyway just to see what they do. I only assume they won't like them and it'll be a big fight, but they have surprised me before!
When it was time to roll out the dough, I called over "the help" and they got started. I needed all the help I could get because I doubled the recipe to make 24 tortillas so I could store them in the freezer to aid in quick and easy meals next week.
Helper #1:
Helper #2 (my apologies for the poor iPhone photo quality):
After the dough is rolled (I'm seriously considering this tortilla press for future tortilla making endeavors... rolling it out by hand was a seriously time-consuming effort), it was time to cook 'em up in a nonstick skillet. Pictured here is my new Cuisinart Green Gourmet 10-inch hard anodized skillet -- it has a water-based Ceramica nonstick surface that won't peel off, unlike the cheap T-Fal I keep throwing away. They do cook rather quickly (about a minute per), but when you double the batch I'd highly recommend grabbing a stool because it feels like it takes FOR-EVAH!
I cooked up enough tortillas to make lunch, then finished 'em up after we all ate. The kids had their cheese quesadillas (or "pizza" as we called it for Chase) with some apple slices and milk.
Hubs and I enjoyed our amazingly delicious vegetable quesadillas with some apple slices as well.
I highly recommend these recipes, both the whole-wheat tortillas and the yummy vegetable quesadillas! I made a whole one (approximately 8 inches) each for hubs and I, and while he was able to finish all of his, I was already full after half! I ate a bit more and ended up with 1/4 of my quesadilla left over, which has already been designated for lunch tomorrow! :)
Dinner
It probably won't shock you at this point, but dinner was mighty fantastic, too! I found a recipe for pork chops with bourbon-peach sauce, which I made with fresh peaches (and no bourbon), served along with diced roasted potatoes and a fresh salad!
Check it:
Yum, huh?
I realized that I've been cooking most of our fresh veggies for the past several days, so I decided to serve a raw salad with dinner tonight. You can see from my plating that I gave top billing to the salad, even though the pork and potatoes were nicely seasoned and super tasty. ;)
I was VERY impressed that BOTH kids ate this up quicker than I've ever seen -- with little to no complaining! LO even asked for seconds, which is completely and totally unheard of. I couldn't believe it when I saw Chase eating pork chops and roasted potatoes!!!
It's not surprising, but the kids quickly recalled our discussion from earlier in the week when I told them we wouldn't be eating dessert daily, but would save special treats for the weekends from now on. Lo and behold, they reminded me of the ice cream I promised them. I had whipped up a dark chocolate sorbet last night as our special treat, refrigerated the mixture overnight and popped it into our ice cream maker this morning after breakfast. It had been sitting in the freezer all day, awaiting its appointed time following dinner.
I will say that I was NOT pleased with this recipe. It called for a T.O.N. of brown sugar (1 1/2 cups!!), but honestly I didn't have the ingredients on hand to make anything else. I really wanted to try frozen yogurt, but I had no idea you have to put plain yogurt in a cheesecloth in the refrigerator and let it sit overnight, plus I didn't have any cheesecloth. This sorbet was so overly sweet and so overly chocolatey (who knew such a thing existed?) and just not great, and certainly not healthy. The only good thing about this sorbet is that hubs and I agree there's no way he can eat an excessive amount of it in a single sitting (SCORE!). ;)
Anywho, we all enjoyed a bit of dark chocolate sorbet for dessert after dinner tonight. The picture below is from one of mine and hubs' portions. The kids had an even smaller scoop (this stuff was RICH!).
Chase was a big fan of the sorbet. He ate it up in no time and asked for more!
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