It’s shaped up to be a “family favorites” sort of week, with a couple new recipes thrown in there that are familiar enough to seem like favorites already 🙂 The first half of this week is quite busy with meetings and appointments and open houses. I will be so glad when Thursday is here!
Sunday: Silroin tip roast, baked potatoes, green beans
Monday: Pasta for kids, out for me & D
Tuesday: Turkey tacos, black bean salad, (cheese roll-ups for my suddenly picky 6 YO)
Wednesday: Make your own pizzas for the kids, crock pot chickpea curry & basamati rice for the adults, green salad for all.
Thursday: BLTs – sandwiches for the kids and BLT-inspired dinner salads for me & D.
Thanks to everyone who entered my Hot Wheels giveaway! I wish I had one to give away to each of you, but there can only be one winner, picked via Random.org. And that person is…
Congratulations, Leah! Please look for an e-mail from me!
Yesterday I whipped up these No-Bake Energy Bites, but substituting chia for the flax seed. A-MA-ZING! I didn’t expect to like them as much as I do. My 9 year old loved them and took two for his morning snack at school. I think these lend well to substitutions. I might try using maple syrup instead of honey, dried cranberries instead of chocolate chips, and maybe adding some nuts next time I make these.
Who can believe that I have a 4th grader and a 1st grader? Surely not me! At least, it seems impossible. Of course, the boys were super excited to get back to a routine and seeing their friends every day. The summer is fun, but very long.
Armed with backpacks and lunch bags they climbed aboard the bus and were off for the day. This is the first day of school since Jake started going to school that it was rainy and I couldn’t take photos outside! Oh well. I made the best of it.
Also, as I mentioned in another post, this year I am trying to break out of the sandwich rut and find creative things to pack for the boys. Here is their first day of school lunch box:
I packed corn dog muffins, strawberries and grapes, cucumber slices and a couple carrots, and an Oreo for dessert. I made the muffins yesterday and just warmed them slightly this morning to take away the chill — my kids don’t mind eating room-temperature food, but if yours are picky, you’d have to wrap the muffins in foil or stick them in an insulated jar to keep them warm.
Jake devoured the whole thing and Noah ate most of it. They both came home happy – yay!
Yesterday was a very rainy day for our farm share pick-up. Luckily, our farm (Sisters Hill Farm in Stanfordville, NY) did not sustain much damage during Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene and our shares were not affected. Yesterday I had a beautiful selection of vegetables from which I could pick.
The biggest part of this week’s basket is obviously the tomatoes. Nine pounds of them. Yes. 9 lbs of tomatoes. More on those in a minute. I also got two heads of lettuce, one cucumber, one yellow squash, 1 lb. onions, 1 lb. carrots (vs. beets or chard), 1 head of garlic, 3 jalepenos, 3 bell peppers, 1 bunch of cilantro, and 1.25 lbs. of string beans.
So, the tomatoes. That is an incredible amount for our family, even to eat over a 2-week span. So I think it’s time to break out my canning supplies for the first time this year! Yay! Originally, I planned to make salsa. We eat a lot of salsa, but honestly — making it to can is kind of a pain. You have to blanch and peel the tomatoes and that in and of itself is enough to make me keep looking for a different recipe. (Plus, honestly I prefer fresh pico de gallo, because I’m snotty that way.)
Then, I somehow came across this recipe for tomato jam. It sounded weird, yet compelling. It’s easy. I have all the ingredients. I think this might be “the one!” I can see it as a replacement for ketchup or on a cracker with some cream cheese. I also think that a little jar might be a nice gift. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Do you have any idea how much Noah loves Hot Wheels? No, I don’t think you do because he probably loves Hot Wheels more than any other kid in the history of ever. He has cases full of them. We have bins full of Trick Tracks. And it’s not uncommon for him to just randomly blurt out “Hot Wheels! Beat that!”
So when I was presented with the opportunity to review one of their brand-new Nitro Speeders RC Cars, I jumped at the chance! Jake is into anything RC these days, so I knew this would be a great toy for both of them.
Laura was napping on me when they wanted to open up the package, so I left everything (aside from opening up the plastic) up to Jake (age 9). He sorted out the contents of the box, got a screwdriver and installed the 4 AA batteries (which were not included with the car). The RC car took about 20-30 minutes to initially charge and then it was ready to rock.
It’s really hard to describe how fast it flew down the hall. Take a look at this video we made to get an idea of how speedy this little car (and I mean little — less than 2.5″!) is:
Pros
Lightening fast and very amusing
Pocket sized remote doubles as charger and carrying case – from my point of view, this is the toy’s best feature! Otherwise, this car could get lost easily. Instead of several different things to keep track of when your child (or husband, ahem…) is done playing with the car, you just snap it in and put the controller on the shelf
Handles vertical loops and does awesome jumps
Works with Trick Tracks
Cons
High speed makes them challenging to control until you get the hang of it
Super tiny and easily drives under wine fridges, couches, hutches, etc.
Need a lot of hard surface floor space (tile, hard wood, vinyl) to really go wild
You do have to be careful about stray carpet fuzz or sewing thread (ahem) because these things easily tangle around the wheels and that will keep the RC car from prime operation. All in all it is a great toy and my boys have been having so much fun playing with it. I have a feeling this is going to be one of the hot gifts this Christmas, and I am thrilled that I have one to giveaway to one of my readers! Here’s how you do it:
Learn more about these cars at the Nitro Speeders website. This toy retails for about $27.95 and is recommended for ages 8 and up.
Disclosure: I received a free Hot Wheels Nitro Speeders RC Car for review as part of my participation in a campaign by MomSelect. I did not receive any financial compensation for this post. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255,Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Tomorrow is Labor Day, which means the unofficial end of summer. The boys start school on Wednesday and with that there will be Cub Scouts, and I’m sure a few other activities. It’s time to get organized with meals. Of course, I pick up our farm share on Tuesday afternoon, so there’s a high probability of some change depending on what veggies we get.
Thursday: Rosemary & garlic pork chops (adapted from my pork roast recipe), applesauce, cranberry stuffing, green beans
Friday: Meatball grinders, fries, garden salad
Saturday: Leftovers or take-out
Lunches for me and Laura will be soup and salad or leftovers. As for the boys, they take their lunches to school. I’ve started collecting interesting lunch box ideas to get out of the sandwich and carrot sticks rut we fell into last year. I’m making a concerted effort to seriously cut down on buying cold cuts (both for health reasons and because they’re ridiculously expensive). School lunch prices went up yet again in our district to $3. (I remember paying 50 cents for hot lunch when I was in elementary school!) I’m curious what prices are like elsewhere.
Anyway, I expect to be posting about lunches quite a bit in the near future, so I’ll save my rambling for another time.
Since I am both addicted to Pinterest and I love finding new recipes, I though it was high time that I link up with Finding Joy in My Kitchen‘s Friday Favorite Finds. I found some great recipe inspiration and in case you don’t follow me on Pinterest (of course, I’d love if you did — here I am!), I want to share them with you.
Let’s star with this roasted tomato soup. I made it the other night and it was fantastic! I didn’t use the tomato paste, and I added pesto and a roasted red pepper and it was just so super good. Drew liked it chilled, as well.
Since I wanted fresh bread with my soup, I found a really basic recipe I liked. Next time, though, I’ll decrease the amount of salt. It didn’t need that much.
For more great food pins head over to Finding Joy in My Kitchen. This was actually a slow week for me as far as pinning recipes, so you’ll find a lot more over there!
Well here we are, heading towards the end of the year. It’s hard to believe isn’t it? Today I bought a few last-minute school supplies, but we are set to go on Wednesday! This morning the UMass Amherst Facebook page posted about move-in day, and I got so nostalgic. We had it so great in college, didn’t we? I’d go back in a heartbeat! I wonder what today’s seniors are thinking about doing when they graduate (well, besides grad school). Maybe they’re thinking of Medical Records Technician Jobs? When I was entering my senior year I was pretty sure I’d be working for a newspaper. I ended up taking a job as an editor after graduation, so at least I was close!
Anyway, I’m glad it’s Friday. Glad this week is over. I’ve been feeling kind of down and I think it’s a combination of overdosing on news of the hurricane and flood and that “in between” feeling knowing that we’ll be going back to our school schedule soon.
