Month: November 2017

A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

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Marnie

This is the first year since my son was born that I felt up to tackling complicated recipes for a crowd at Thanksgiving! I wanted to share the ideas below; feel free to mix and match, or add in your own family faves. As always, our favorite tradition is adopting a turkey in Travis’s name from Farm Sanctuary. This year Marnie’s picture adorned our tabletop.

Chorizo and Plantain Stuffing

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Ingredients:

  • 1 (9×9-inch) prepared cornbread
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 4 Field Roast chipotle sausages, chopped
  • 2 large yellow plantains
  • 1/2 cup Earth Balance butter
  • 3 chopped celery stalks
  • 1 chopped medium onion
  • 2 minced garlic cloves
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
  • 2 cups vegetable broth
  1. The night before or morning of, prepare a 9×9-inch loaf of cornbread from a mix according to package directions. Double check ingredients to be sure there are no milk products. Cool and refrigerate until ready to use.
  2. Cut the cornbread into cubes and arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Toast at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes, until golden; transfer to a large bowl.
  3. Place the pecans on the baking sheet and toast for 8 minutes; add to the cornbread cubes.
  4. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet. Add the sausage and cook for 7 minutes. Add to the cornbread mixture.
  5. Peel the plantains and cut into 1/2-inch thick slices. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in the pan. Add the plantain and cook for 6 minutes, until soft and golden.
  6. Add the butter, celery, onion, and garlic; continue to cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice and sage. Add the plantain mixture to the cornbread mixture.
  7. Add the broth, stirring to coat, then spoon the entire mixture into a 3-quart baking dish coated with cooking spray. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake a final 25 minutes, until crispy and golden.

Fresh Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs (such as Mi-Del)
  • 6 tablespoons Earth Balance butter, melted
  • 2 (1.5 lb) sugar pumpkins
  • 1/2 cup non-dairy creamer
  • 3 Ener-G eggs
  • 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  1. Combine the cookie crumbs and butter in a bowl, then press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes; set aside.
  2. To prepare the filling, cut the stem ends of the pumpkins, and cut into halves or quarters, depending on size. Place, flesh side down, on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 70 minutes – the skins should pierce evenly when pricked with a fork. Let cool slightly, then scoop out the flesh with a spoon.
  3. Transfer the flesh to a food processor and puree until smooth – you’ll have about 1 and 3/4 cups.
  4. Combine the pumpkin puree in a bowl with the creamer, Ener-G eggs, maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Pour into the prepared crust. Place the pie plate on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes. Let cool, then refrigerate until ready to serve. Add non-dairy whipped cream if you like!

Maple-Roasted Vegetables

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Ingredients:

  • 1 (10-ounce) package frozen Brussels sprouts, thawed and halved
  • 3/4 lb. parsnips, peeled and chopped
  • 3/4 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
  1. Combine the Brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, sweet potato, and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large bowl. Transfer to a foil lined baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes.
  2. In a bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, the maple syrup, and the soy sauce. Pour the mixture over the vegetables. Sprinkle with the salt and return to the oven; roast for an additional 10 minutes.
  3. Sprinkle with the black pepper, and serve.

Pineapple-Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 2 Pink Lady apples, cored and chopped
  • 6 oz fresh cranberries
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup canned pineapple chunks, drained and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  1. Combine the apples, cranberries, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes – the cranberries should have popped.
  2. Add the brown sugar and salt; continue to cook for about 7 minutes, until thickens, stirring often.
  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then transfer to a blender and pulse until chopped. Stir in the pineapple and maple syrup.

Note: You can prepare the cranberry sauce up to 5 days ahead.

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For a fun, kid-friendly aperitif, we also hollowed out apples with an ice cream scoop, and filled with apple cider and cinnamon sticks.

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And you’ll notice our leaf votive centerpiece on the table!

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As always, we finish off our Thanksgiving feast with the special treat of Gardein’s stuffed turkey roast. Wishing a wonderful celebration for the turkeys to all!

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Fall Bucket List Part II

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Back in September, Travis and I set the goal of a Fall Bucket List of items to enjoy in the 90 days between the first of autumn and the first of winter. Below is our journey through all 23 items. If you followed along with your own bucket list, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

9/29 – Visit a Sculpture Garden

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We made this our first stop, exploring the grounds of a local museum that houses a wonderful sculpture scavenger hunt for children. Travis was delighted he could finish rhymes like that/hat and known/stone to find each sculpture along the way. We explored materials, emotions, shapes and more in the works of art that we found. It was a beautiful 70 degree day with no real change to the leaves yet, so definitely still early autumn.

10/1 – Make a Scarecrow from Daddy’s Clothes

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It was a crisp fall morning that turned into a beautiful sunny afternoon, so we checked our way through a whole bunch on our Bucket List this day. To start, we stuffed daddy’s shirt and shorts with newspaper for a scarecrow in anticipation of…

10/1 – Go to a Pumpkin Patch

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….heading to a local farm to pick pumpkins! Travis was so proud helping to select four pumpkins, one of which was perfect for finishing off that scarecrow as the head. We set the other three aside for decorating later on…

10/1 – Go on a Hay Ride

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The pumpkin farm also included a hay ride, one of the first we encountered over the season whose name I would dispute slightly. This one was a flatbed pulled by a tractor, with a line of hay down the middle. We later rode on one billed as a “hay ride” that was merely a covered wagon pulled by a tractor, not a hay bale in sight! Ah well, the hay ride counted as an experience, and we checked it off on our list.

10/1 – Corn Maze

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We finished off our pumpkin patch day with a walk through the corn maze, Travis proudly pointing the way at each intersection. Talk about tricky; I followed along on the map, and when I thought we were in the middle of the maze, it turns out we were right back where we had started!

10/4 – Drink Fancy Coffee Drinks

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The weather was staying unseasonably warm, but that didn’t stop us (er, Mom and Dad) from craving cozy coffee drinks. I use the term coffee loosely here, since you’ll want a seasonal drink for your child with no caffeine. I had hoped to treat Travis to a pumpkin-flavored steamed milk, but upon learning that the pumpkin mix is not vegan, we settled for an almond milk vanilla steamer. His first ever Starbucks drink!

10/7 – Apple Picking

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Apple picking day! Travis loved filling up a bag with plump Jonagolds at a farm that included another hay ride (“hay ride”) and a big red barn selling roasted corn and other fall treats. What did we do with all those apples? We ate apple crisp (simply use olive oil in place of butter to make the recipe vegan), applesauce, and enjoyed lots of apples out of hand just for snacking.

10/12 – Paint Faces on Acorns

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This suggestion was cute and quirky, and as luck would have it, a walk in the woods resulted in acorns of varying sizes so we could make a “family.” Travis loved figuring out which acorn was the daddy, mommy, brother, and baby, and then decided we needed to dress them with paint. He had so much fun picking out the colors – a blue shirt and pink “hat” for the daddy and so on. Painting tiny faces was a challenge for his fine motor skills, but to my surprise he insisted on being part of it.

10/13 – Watch Youth Soccer Game

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This was unexpectedly my very favorite item on the list, as it wasn’t something I would have thought to do. On a random afternoon, Travis and I headed to the local high school to cheer on the team despite knowing none of the players. Travis proudly sipped apple cider and loved watching the referees blow their whistles. Plus it felt good to have some hometown pride!

10/14 – Have a Popcorn Party

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I originally had grand plans when I put this on our Bucket List, envisioning an event where we might invite over family and friends, ask guests to bring a favorite popcorn recipe, string up popcorn garlands, and make popcorn balls. Our weekends filled up fast though, so we checked this one off our list in much simpler, quieter fashion; on a dreary Saturday afternoon, we made it movie-and-popcorn-party-day just for the family. This meant Travis got to select a film to rent, and I whipped up the easiest fall-spiced popcorn ever: Sprinkle a bag of popped plain popcorn with salt and pumpkin pie spice, then toss to coat.

10/17 – Winter Prep! Buy Coats and Boots

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This first truly chilly day, midway through the season, reminded us to get to the winter prep item on our list! Travis was so proud helping to pick out his new coat and mittens. The mittens were such a hit that he insisted on wearing them right away, even though it wasn’t quite that cold. It felt nice to be prepared and ahead of the game… But I was also happy to hang up the heavy new coat and get back to enjoying the fall!

10/18 – Make Fall Placemats

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The leaves were slow to change this year, giving us more muted yellows than vibrant oranges and shocking reds. But we still collected leaves on our walks, which allowed us to make these placemats. Simply arrange leaves between two sheets of wax paper, then iron to seal.

10/19 – Make Leaf Art

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Leaf rubbing never grows old, the magic of watching bumpy veins appear through paper with a crayon. For more complicated leaf art, we turned some of the leaves into “leaf glitter,” made big pools of glue, and sprinkled on this “confetti.”

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10/19 – Nature Walk with Camera

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After that busy morning of leaf art, we headed off on another nature walk, this one an assignment from Travis’s nursery school teacher! (Yup, I’m the dorky mom who loves homework). This time we brought along the instant camera. Travis loved taking snaps of our favorite finds, including bugs, leaves, spider webs, and more.

10/26 – Make Fall Cookies

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We went a long stretch without bucket listing, thanks to a weekend away and a busy school week. But after school we decided it was time to get back in the swing of things with fall cookies. We decided our fall cookies had to have pumpkin in them, but if other fall flavors are your thing, consider sugar cookies cut with a leaf-shaped cutter, or maple cookies, or whatever else says fall to you!

10/27 – Carve a Pumpkin

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The big moment finally arrived: Pumpkin carving day! Travis and I have decorated pumpkins before, but this was the first year we got in there with a carving knife, and man oh man did he love it. I remember that fascination when pumpkin’s stem lines up with the jagged top of a jack-o-lantern like a puzzle piece. And the joy of scooping pumpkin guts. And the glee of seeing the lit up face once a candle (aka battery-powered tea light) is inside. In sum, all the spooky magic of Halloween.

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10/29 – Make Caramel Apples

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Well, here’s the one thing on the list we didn’t truly accomplish; after two failed attempts at making caramel, I had to accept that this one wasn’t in the cards, due to a faulty old thermometer which wasn’t reading the temperature of my caramel correctly. So we coated our apples in a sticky glaze, but the result wasn’t what we hoped for. Next year!

10/31 – Trick-or-Treat

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No explanation needed! Travis was a NAVY Leap Frog parachuter, and loved every minute. His favorite candy this year? Twizzlers!

11/4 – Photo Shoot in a Leaf Pile

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We were into November, and winding down our Bucket List. By now the leaves were really on the ground, so it was leaf pile time! We don’t have trees around our apartment property, but that didn’t stop us from filling a large trash bag in the local park, bringing it home, and creating a leaf pile off our patio!

11/11 – Make Pomander Balls

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I intended to save this drop in our Bucket for a Thanksgiving decoration, but Travis asked for it one morning while we were tucked in from an early arctic blast. This simple pomander uses large citrus (we used grapefruit), cloves, and ribbon. Travis loved the materials involved, happily turning the clove spice can into a musical shaker while I prepped the grapefruit: Draw lines in any pattern that you want using a washable marker. Use a toothpick to make holes evenly spaced along the lines, then wash your citrus to remove the marker. Insert a clove into each toothpick hole you’ve made. Cut a length of ribbon and wrap up the citrus as you would a present. For a lovely touch, knot a cinnamon stick at the top.

11/12 – Write Name in Leaves

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It never hurts to throw a little learning into the fall fun. Name recognition is a key skill for preschoolers, so with leaves from (yet another!) fall walk in the woods, I spelled out T-r-a-v-i-s on a large piece of contact paper. Fold the paper over to seal the leaves between the sticky sheets, and your child has a beautiful poster with their name!

11/20 – Walk Around Town and Get Cocoa

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By now we were in late fall (that winter coat has come out of the closet!) and checking off the final items on our list. Town was already brimming with Christmas decorations which made it the perfect time to check out the décor. Travis was gleeful to spot reindeer in one shop window, and loved cupping his hands around his warm cocoa.

11/22 – Bake a Pie

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Just in time for Thanksgiving, we put the final check mark on our Bucket List, baking a fresh pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. My little helper had way more fun nibbling on extra ginger cookies for the crust than he did in stirring together the ingredients, though!

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Even though there’s technically a full month of autumn left on the calendar, it felt appropriate to end our Fall Bucket List here. As soon as Thanksgiving ends, we’ll no doubt turn out attention to winter-y Christmas fun. Which reminds me, perhaps we’ll need an advent Bucket List to take us through December…

Thanks for coming on the journey with us!

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Magic Potion Spoons

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If you’re busy in the kitchen this holiday season, here’s a way to keep the little ones entertained and close by – bring a little magic into your kitchen! Travis was happy playing with this project for ages after the initial reveal.

Make sure you set up while kids are in another room. Place a few drops of food coloring on plastic spoons – I made one each of yellow, blue, red, and green (using the all natural food coloring from J.R. Watkins).

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Cover the colors with baking soda, then fill clear plastic cups with vinegar about half full, one for each color spoon. Be sure not to fill the cups too much, or you’re going to have an over-the-top explosion (we learned this lesson the hard way!).

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Then I invited Travis up to the counter, telling him I had magical spoons to stir. He eagerly reached for the first. The baking soda hit the vinegar and turned a gorgeous pink as it bubbled up and over the cup.

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Needless to say, he couldn’t wait to discover the next color, and on down the line until we had 4 colorful magical potions.

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That was just the beginning of the fun! Travis loved mixing and matching colors.

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One cup, oddly, had a high layer of foam after it settled, and Travis thought spooning and stirring this foam was great fun.

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After one cup tipped at the counter, we prudently moved the game to the floor, where Travis was like a mad scientist mixing and stirring for over half an hour.

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Although normally I let him in on the science behind our projects, this time I kept the food color secret a mystery. A little magic never hurts!

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Bugs Crate

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For a boy who loves bugs, our latest kit from Koala Crate was sure to be a hit. Without any further ado, here’s what we put together – as always you can copy most of these ideas with materials from a craft store.

Travis delighted right away in the first project, a Ladybug Pouch. He proudly added dot stickers, a felt semi-circle at the head, and two eyes to the provided felt pouch. In contrast to when we started our subscription, I barely have to direct Travis now for where each piece should go.

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He also enjoyed lacing up the edge of the pouch with the provided thread, after which I added the foam button and tied a knot. Sliding the button allows kids to open and shut the pouch, and this is sure to be a delight for secreting away many a treasure in weeks and months to come.

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To wit, the kit came with a “bug eye viewer” to store in the pouch, and included information for kids on this “compound eye” that bugs possess. I loved the science lesson thrown in with the art! Using the viewer was tricky for Travis at first, squinting shut the eye that was up to the lens. When he finally mastered the art of it, he announced, “There are multiple mommies!”

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We’d barely finished the ladybug before he asked to see the next craft: Bug Dress-Up, featuring a felt cape to decorate as beetle wings and a headband to become antennae. For a little science, we discussed how bugs in nature (like beetles and butterflies) often show symmetry. So as Travis added a decoration sticker shape to one side of his wings, I would mirror it on the other, until we had a symmetrical costume.

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To prepare the antennae, wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of a plastic headband. Add two felt stickers at the top for a finishing touch.

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When we received our Bird Crate over a year ago, Travis balked at wearing the wings. Not so this time; he asked to wear the wings right away and began buzzing about with glee, reminded me that I’d forgotten to put his antennae on, and pretended he was a beetle for quite some time!

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A singing beetle, I should add.

Travis hasn’t had much practice with memory-type games, so I was quite happy to see that the third project in the bug crate was a Bug Matching Game. Twenty sets of insects are shown on hexagonal cards (very clever, to mimic a beehive). First, we talked about all of the bugs shown. Then, we mixed the cards and placed them face down to play a classic Memory-style game.

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For younger kids, start with just 4 pairs of bugs, and work your way up!

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To end the bug fun, we followed one final suggestion from Koala Crate, very similar to a coffee filter butterflies we put together when Travis was small. I remember it being beautiful then, and this time Travis had a bit more impish fun with it!

We gathered our supplies – coffee filters, washable markers, and a spray bottle with water.

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Color all over the filters with the markers. Travis tired of coloring fairly quickly, so I made sure to fill in one filter completely for him to see the results.

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Next, spritz your filters with the water, letting the marker colors bleed together; let dry.

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Travis had a blast playing with additional filters and pretending he was fashioning them into all sorts of creatures as I finished the project later.

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Twist a pipe cleaner around the middle of each filter, fanning the sides into “wings.” Twist the top of the pipe cleaner down to look like antennae.

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You can draw on smiley faces as the finishing touch…

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…Before your butterflies flutter away.

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High marks for Koala Crate on this one!

Fall Leaf Votive

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In addition to our Felt Fruit, here’s another possible adornment for your Thanksgiving table this Thursday. It’s a lovely twist on the Halloween Luminaries we lit up in October, this time putting a leafy autumnal twist on the same idea!

First, head outdoors and collect a few (relatively small) fresh leaves. Try to find a variety of shapes and colors, for the best effect.

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Coat a glass jar with a layer of mod podge, then have your child arrange the leaves in whatever pattern they like. Set aside to dry overnight.

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Travis’s favorite part of the project was applying a second layer of mod podge the next morning, to ensure that no edges of the leaves pop up.

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He thought dabbing a gluey paintbrush over the leaves was great fun, much more so than when we just put the glue on the clear jar!

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If you like, you can add pieces of tissue paper to fill in the blank space between leaves, but we left ours clear.

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Insert a tea light, and light up your Thanksgiving celebration!

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Note: As a bonus, this votive will look lovely lit up for a long time to come. Consider it for a nightlight in your child’s room, or just a pretty decoration after dark.

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Fabulous Felt Fruit

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This adorable project from High Five magazine is the perfect centerpiece for your Thanksgiving table this coming Thursday! Kids will be so proud to tell relatives that they put it together (nearly) all by themselves.

To start, you’ll need sheets of adhesive-backed felt in red, green, brown, and orange. This item isn’t even something I knew existed, but it’s sold right by single sheets of felt at the craft store. I could not find orange with the adhesive backing, so read on for how I solved that dilemma.

To start, trace the shape of an apple and pumpkin onto paper and cut out. Those closer to age 5 can trace their own fruits, but I made the shapes for Travis and he worked with safety scissors to help cut.

We then traced the templates onto our felt sheets (great tracing practice!). You’ll need two of each shape for one finished piece of fruit.

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I cut the felt shapes out, since the material was tough for Travis’s hands. He wanted to try though!

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Finally, we cut out rectangles from the green felt to be apple stems and one bigger rectangle from the brown felt to be our pumpkin stem. Remove the adhesive backing from the stems and fold in half; set aside.

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To assemble a fruit, remove the backing from one apple shape. Place two cotton balls on top, and one green stem at the center.

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Remove the backing from a second apple shape and place the sticky sides together. Travis insisted on doing this step himself (which I loved!) which meant our edges didn’t always line up perfectly, but the sticky felt is very forgiving.

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He loved that we made a few green apples, since those are his dad’s favorite, and then he told me the red ones were for his grandparents.

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For the pumpkin, we followed the same method, but I used my hot glue gun to seal the two sheets of non-sticky orange felt together and to attach the brown stem at the top.

Finally, we nestled our adorable felt fruit into a straw basket, the perfect touch for our Thanksgiving table.

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Early Explorers World Discoveries

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Welcome to our fourth journey with Little Passports‘ Early Explorers kit! This month we had goodies waiting in the mailbox about famous world discoveries.

This topic was a bit difficult for three-year-old Travis to grasp, so I worked on finding ways to make the information relatable and closer to home. The kit covers (literally) monumental moments in world history, from the caves of Lascaux to King Tut’s tomb to the terracotta warriors of China (which I didn’t learn about until college – Travis is officially 20 years ahead of me).

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I talked about each discovery as we found where they belonged on our world map, but could tell he wasn’t much interested yet. The activity booklet provided an overview that was largely lost on him, though he did enjoy the maze puzzles and games. Then we moved on to a few hands-on activities, which helped make things more relatable.

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World Discoveries Craft:

After reading to Travis from the booklet about the Lascaux caves, we made our own cave art! Cut a rectangle from a paper bag and crumple up (good fun), to make your cave “wall.”

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To capture the texture and materials of cave art, draw outlines of animals or figures in chalk. Travis said he was drawing a “cow”, but he found it difficult to make the chalk show up on the brown paper. I helped him with outlines and we ended up with something sort of resembling a deer and one more like a cow.

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We then used paint in cave-painty shades (brown, black, beige, and red) to fill in our drawings. I loved the way Travis’s cow turned out, clearly all his own! I made the deer with a few stick people as another example for him.

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World Discoveries Science:

The whole concept of discoveries was still a bit lost on Travis, so I brought it closer to home with a few tools a discoverer might use – a flashlight, binoculars, and a compass. Not only did we find a neat toy compass, but we also snagged this idea from Little Passports’ blog on how to make your own compass, if ever lost in the woods (or, er, on the playground).

Fill a small dish with water; set aside. Rub a magnet in one direction along a needle several times to “charge” the needle.

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Place the needle on a leaf, and carefully float the leaf in your dish of water. After the leaf settles, it should point north! We tested it against our real compass, and it seemed to be working pretty well.

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World Discoveries Keepsake:

The keepsake from this month’s kit was very clever; Travis had to be a “discoverer” and put together puzzle pieces before he could see the map of the world upon completion.

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As a small gripe, the puzzle didn’t lie flat, with some of the pieces popping apart, which frustrated Travis. Still, it was a great visual for where the discoveries occurred around the globe.

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World Discoveries Field Trip:

There was no suggested visit in this month’s booklet (which makes sense since most folks aren’t going to jet off to the Great Pyramids). One possible idea is to take your child to a local archaeological site or natural history museum and check out artifacts from ancient civilizations. We decided to go some place Travis could be an explorer… a dinosaur archaeology site! Conveniently located near family members, we made a weekend of it before spending the morning at Dinosaur State Park outside Hartford, CT.

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Yup, those are real dinosaur footprints that a man discovered in the 1960s while digging with a bulldozer.

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Travis went nuts checking out fossils with a magnifying glass.

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A great way to show that the most mundane day can lead to the next great discovery in archaeological history!

World Discoveries Further Activities:

Alas, without jetting off to those Great Pyramids, there wasn’t much more to do for this one, but we still had some fun. Setting off with our toy compass, we staged a treasure hunt around the house (we used a few missing puzzle pieces from our kit’s keepsake). I hid one piece each in roughly the east, north, south, and west sections of our apartment, which Travis found exciting.

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We also talked about which discovery we liked best. Travis settled on the Nazca Lines, so we dug up a few online video clips.

Finally, we headed to the library for intro to archaeology books, although the material was aimed at elementary schools kids rather than preschoolers.

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Excited to see where Early Explorers takes us next!

Yogurt Cones

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Yogurt Cones

Why is it that so many things just seem to taste better frozen? This dessert recipe is a snap to put together, and my son’s favorite treat during story time. The ice cream cones from Edward & Sons are vegan, and available in most health food stores. For an extra rich treat, I use almond milk yogurt from Kite Hill, but any non-dairy yogurt would work fine.

Ingredients:

  • 3 sugar cones
  • 2 (5-ounce) containers non-dairy vanilla yogurt
  • 3 raspberries or cherries
  1. Divide the yogurt evenly among the cones. Place on a freezer-safe plate and freeze until firm.
  2. Remove from the freezer about 5 minutes before serving, and top with the fruit.

Pretend Lasagna

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I love getting my son in the kitchen with the kid-friendly recipes from High Five magazine, and this month’s recipe was particularly ingenious. Lasagna made with ravioli instead??? This is a hack grown-ups are going to want to steal as well! Vary the amounts or types of veggies below, to suit your family’s taste.

Ingredients:

  • 1 (24-ounce) jar pasta sauce
  • 1 (10-ounce) package ravioli (such as Soy Boy), thawed
  • 1 cup shredded Daiya mozzarella
  • 1 cup chopped baby spinach
  • 2 tablespoons sliced black olives
  • 1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
  • 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
  • 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
  1. Have your child spread a thin layer of the sauce in the bottom of a 13×9-inch baking dish.Pretend Lasagna (1)
  2. Top with half of the ravioli.Pretend Lasagna (4)
  3. Sprinkle with half of the veggies and half of the cheese. Repeat the layers (sauce, ravioli, veggies), ending with a final layer of cheese. Sprinkle with the herbs.Pretend Lasagna (2)
  4. Adults, cover the dish with foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake a final 5 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving.Pretend Lasagna (5)

Cheesy Bacon and Apple Melts

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Bacon Melt (2)

You can’t go wrong with kids and open-faced sandwiches. For my preschooler, I like to use the sliced sourdough bread from Rudi’s Bakery, since he doesn’t like bread too crunchy. Older kids and adults would love these sandwiches on a fresh loaf of sourdough from your local bakery!

Ingredients:

  • 2 slices sourdough bread
  • 4 Lightlife bacon slices, cooked
  • 1/2 cup shredded Daiya cheddar
  • 4 Granny Smith apple slices
  1. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet. Top evenly with the bacon slices, cheddar, and apple slices.
  2. Broil for 2 minutes, just until the cheese melts.

I like to serve these with fries (I love the frozen line from Veggie Fries) and roasted Brussels sprouts tossed with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper. You know you have a hit when your preschooler cleans his plate!

Bacon Melt (1)