Packing Healthy Lunches

Packing lunches is tricky with 3 kiddos.  At dinner time, I am pretty strict about "this is what's for dinner," because I don't want to become a short order cook or create picky eaters.  School lunch is a different story.  I want to send them all food that they like and that I know will fuel their bodies to help them get through the rest of the day.  Being 3 different people, they like 3 different things, but I am trying my best to streamline lunch packing for my own sanity!

I used to be pretty lax with lunch packing and would pack them a lot of prepackaged, convenience foods.  They were all really picky and would only eat junk and things from a kids menu, like hot dogs, etc.  We slowly started introducing more fruits and veggies and stopped buying the junk and I am shocked to say that although it was a process, they are doing much better with healthy eating!  I want to have a good balance between crazy health nut and allowing them to be kids.  Disclaimer, I am in no way a nutritionist, nor claim to have any clue as to what I'm doing, but this is the formula that I have come up with to try and make lunch packing a little easier:

1 protein
1 fruit
1 veggie
1 salty
1 sweet

A typical lunch for my 12 year old will look something like this:

Baked chicken on a baby spinach salad, hummus with corn chips, cantaloup and blueberries, protein balls (recipe below) and an Arbonne energy fizz drink.


9 year old will eat this:

Baked chicken on a lettuce salad, hummus and chips, cantaloupe with blueberries and a fruit rope.


7 year old is a lot pickier than the other two, but making progress!

Baked chicken (skip the salad, but he will eat some carrot slices with ranch), gf mini pretzels, just blueberries (skip the cantaloupe) and protein balls.


Protein balls recipe made with Arbonne's vegan protein powder.

6 scoops Arbonne protein powder
1 cup nut butter of choice (my kiddos are allergic to peanuts and prefer The Sneaky Chef yellow pea butter or Jiff cashew butter)
1/4 cup of honey
A handful of your favorite dried fruit, dark chocolate chips, etc.

Directions: Microwave the nut butter and honey for 15-20 seconds to help it mix easier.
Add the dry ingredients and mix
Form little bite sized balls with your hands
The consistency has to be almost like play dough, so if you need to make it a little dryer, add some more protein or if it needs a little moisture, add a splash of almond milk.
Store them in a zip top baggie or container in the refrigerator.

(The one pictured has chocolate protein, dehydrated strawberries and dark chocolate chips.  Their favorite has vanilla protein and dehydrated blueberries and some oats.)

Do you have any healthy lunch menu items that are a hit with your kids?

Love this!

Iron Chef Kids

My 3 kiddos, ages 12, 9 and 7, asked to make dinner the other night as a competition.... as everything in our house somehow turns into a friendly(ish) competition.  They have seen the TV show Iron Chef and thought that it would be fun to challenge each other in a cooking battle.  I didn't want 3 different dishes made with ground beef, so instead we wrote "main dish," "sides," and "dessert" on note cards and put them in a hat to draw from.

The 7 year old got the 'main dish' card and decided to make meat loaf.  As a family, we are working on eating healthier and eliminating as much gluten, sugar and dairy from our diets as we can as well as eating organic, grass finished meat and veggies.  This in no way means that we are perfect eaters, but we are on the road to cleaning up our acts.  He added the meat to the mixer and I let him smell and taste a couple of spices that I thought would work well, including oregano, thyme and basil.  He liked the thyme, so added a bit of that and some salt, pepper, an egg, oats and gf bread crumbs.  Once blended and in the baking dish, he asked about a topping.  I told him that I liked tomato sauce, so he started looking around and found a packet of Chick-fil-a sauce and poured it on top (eek!)  He giggled in delight with his new concoction that we were all going to have to sample.

Mr. 9 year old was working hard on scrounging up something for dessert.  He pulled out a jar of Nutella (told you that we weren't perfect! haha) and I taught him how to search online for recipes with specific ingredients.  He found Nutella brownies with just a couple of ingredients and was off measuring and mixing with very little help.

My 12 year old daughter was busy grating carrots and boiling water.  When I asked her what she was up to, she told me that she was creating a gf pasta salad.  It was so fun to watch the different levels of kitchen abilities, from my littlest needing lots of help, to my oldest, doing it all on her own.

We set up a grading system with several categories: look, taste, creativity, kitchen help (meaning how well you got along with everyone in the kitchen) and overall score.  They didn't judge their own, but only the other two and I judged all 3.  Dad had to work late, so his plate was set to the side for reheat when he got home.  We used a scale of 1-10 and added up the totals.  The winner would get to skip kitchen clean up duty.

And the winner was...... The Meatloaf :)

They wanted to do it again the next night, but with busy schedules, I knew that this would be better if we scheduled it in.  We have decided to do this once per week on Mondays and the kids choose the next theme after dinner and pick their task from the hat so that I would have a week to shop for the items that they may need for their next meal.  We have done this for a couple of weeks now and they all really look forward to it!  Last night was breakfast for dinner and next week is BBQ.

   Even ballerinas have to do the dishes :)

How To Meal Plan and Save a Dollar... Or a Bunch.

Hey everyone!  Welcome back!

I'm the worlds worst at organizing.  Just as my husband. Blessssss.  But there is one thing I do well and that's grocery shopping and menu planning on a budget!

Let's get real here.  99% of us don't enjoy grocery shopping.  We do it because we would starve without it.  And the thought of taking our adorable littles with us makes us kind of want to take a pill.  Out of sheer necessity, I forced myself on to a menu plan and listing system that works so beautifully for me. It works so well because IT ISN'T FANCY.  I have no time for fancy!  I need to make the list, hit the store, and get out!  The quickest I have done so far is Aldi and Walmart for a week's worth of groceries in UNDER 40 MINUTES. Can I get a "holla"!!!

Here's a little video tutorial on how I roll...
https://youtu.be/A0IC25-Ube8

What are your biggest time-savers?

This Week's Menu

Here's your weekly menu!

Monday:  Chipolte Chicken & Prosciutto Stir-Fry.  We made this last night and it was ok.  I think it would better served over rice, but whatevs.  I served it with a side of roasted broccoli.  Here's the link:  https://ordinarypen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/onedayatatimewhole30week1/

Tuesday:  Bang Bang Tacos and cucumber salad.  The tacos are the bomb dot com! But super hot!  Wanted to warn you before you accidentally caught your mouth on fire!  And I "bread" my shrimp in corn starch, but you can use tapioca starch if you have it hand.  If you don't want the carbs, stay away from the wraps.  Here are your links: http://wickedspatula.com/paleo-bang-bang-shrimp-tacos/#_a5y_p=3912967  << Bang bang shrimp tacos  

Here is the link for the cucumber salad.  Stay away from the feta if you aren't doing dairy. This is my husband's favorite!   http://www.foodiecrush.com/greek-salad-with-avocado/

Wednesday:  spagetti with spaghetti squash.  I usually used a gluten-free jarred marinara as my sauce because this girl has no time to be making that homemade.  I put peppers, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, and carrots in the food processor and puree it down to the consistency of ground beef.  I cook it like ground beef and then add the sauce on top.  (I also use ground beef or venison in my sauces.)  The kids don't even know all those veggies are in there.  It's fantastic! And, they add a ton of flavor.  I use regular spaghetti for my kiddos but use spaghetti squash for the grown ups.  I like it baked in the oven because it seems less watery.  Never used spaghetti squash before?  It's ridiculously easy.  Here's the recipe:  http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-spaghetti-squash-in-the-oven-178036

Thursday:  Oktoberfest Stew.  Yum yum yummy.  And awesome for cold weather. If you are doing Arbonne's 30 Days to Healthy Living, don't use the sausage.  Use ground chicken and add sausage spices.  Just google a good sausage recipe and use the spices (not meat) from there. Recipe:  http://thecozyapron.com/oktoberfest-stew-and-shiny-happy-people/

Friday:  Chili.  Pick your favorite recipe.  Just don't add corn or cornbread.  Stay away from those undeniably delicious carbs. I know-- I'm sorry.

Saturday:  Kale Soup.  This is a family favorite!!!!  My good friend over at gatheredinthekitchen.com made this one up and it is soooooo scrumptions.  We don't like to repeat meals very often but this one is a weekly staple.  http://gatheredinthekitchen.com/kale-sausage-cannellini-sun-dried-tomatoes-soup/
I love the California sun-dried tomatoes that Walmart sells.  Their flavor seems so much stronger and you can buy them julienned making things so much easier.  I get the rest of the ingredients from Aldi, saving me tons of moolah.

Share your go-to recipes below to help other happy healthy mommies!

HAPPY EATING!!

The LONG Journey to Being Healthy and Happy

Welcome to our new blog!!!  Angel and I are so excited you are here!  We got to thinking about God's greatest gifts, our children- 5 between us- and decided to share with you (and each other) how we are on the long journey to staying happy and getting healthy!  So glad you are here!