Eat the Rainbow

March 16, 2018March 16, 20182 Comments

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we whipped up this meal featuring every color of the rainbow! You can mix and match different components, or serve them over a few days leading up to St. Pat’s.

Red & Orange Salad

Red Orange Salad

Thinly slice one red bell pepper, one orange bell pepper, and 1 red apple. Toss with 1 cup matchstick cut carrots. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons cider vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. (Note: Bigger kids and adults might also like a little spice – try adding 1/2 teaspoon cumin or 1/4 teaspoon paprika).

Yellow & Green Pasta

Cook 12 ounces fettuccine or linguine according to package directions, adding 1/2 cup frozen peas toward the end of cooking. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet and sauté 1 package Gardein chick’n strips and 1 cup sugar snap peas until heated through. Combine the chicken mixture, pasta, 1/2 cup plain non-dairy yogurt, 1/4 cup reserved cooking water, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. My son preferred this served in separate components on his plate!

Green Smoothie

In a blender, combine 1/2 cup plain non-dairy milk, 1/2 cup water, 1 cup fresh baby spinach, and 1/4 cup mint leaves; process until blended. Add 1/2 a green apple, 1 frozen banana, and 1 tablespoon agave nectar; process until smooth. Drink through a green straw of course!

Blue & Purple Parfait

For dessert, toss 1 cup mixed blueberries, blackberries, and purple grapes with 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Layer the fruit in parfait glasses with vanilla non-dairy yogurt. This also makes a yummy breakfast treat!

Want even more fun? Eat green snacks all week, like roasted edamame, kale chips, or green olives.

green snack

Shamrockin’ Rolls

March 14, 2018March 14, 2018Leave a comment

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These clever clover-shaped rolls came to us from Family Fun magazine, the perfect baking project just before St. Patrick’s Day!

Recipes like these are fantastic for engaging multiple ages of kids in the kitchen. The biggest kids will want to help with every step, from mixing ingredients to kneading the dough to shaping the rolls. Meanwhile, toddlers and babies need not be excluded from the fun! Sit them in a high chair with a small portion of dough to play with, and let the games begin. I loved sitting my son in his Oxo Tot Sprout high chair when he was still too little to help with recipe steps, and so I was quite pleased to see it included in a recent review of the best high chairs, which selected winners from among eight of the most highly-rated chairs.

And now that he’s moved on to his big boy table, he’s standing on one of his chairs to help me out right at the kitchen counter!

Ingredients:

3 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 packet rapid rise yeast
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup warm plain non-dairy milk (between 110 and 115 degrees F)
10 tablespoons melted Earth Balance butter, divided
2 Ener-G eggs

Combine the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the milk, 6 tablespoons butter, and Ener-G eggs; add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, stirring to form a dough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly foured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Place the dough in a bowl coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Punch the dough down and let it rest for 5 minutes. Divide in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time (and keeping the remaining dough covered), roll into a 4×8-inch rectangle. Cut the dough lengthwise into 6 strips. Working with one portion at a time, stretch into a 19-inch rope.
Twist the rope into a three-leaf clover (make a figure eight, then loop the dough up for the top leaf, and let the end hang down as the stem.
Repeat with the remaining dough to form 12 shamrocks. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes.
Brush the tops of the dough with the remaining 4 tablespoons butter, and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown.

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Puffy Paint Shamrocks

March 14, 2018March 14, 2018Leave a comment

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Painting green shamrocks is all well and good, but why use regular paint when you can use puffy paint?

To make the fun mixture, simply mix together shaving cream, glue, and green food coloring.

Before you make the paint, either trace or draw shamrock shapes onto paper. Use a thick cardstock, so the paper doesn’t tear.

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I wish I could tell you we measured out the ingredients for our puffy paint, but instead we had a lot of goopy, inexact fun. First we squirted shaving cream into plastic cups.

We added a healthy pour of glue into each – perhaps 2 tablespoons per cup? Stir the mixture together well.

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At first, we tried adding green food coloring to one cup. Oddly, this tinged the puffy paint very yellow, key lime at best. Travis’s favorite part of the whole craft was adding more and more food color and trying to get a greener shade.

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My little mixologist!

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Meanwhile, I used green paint in a second cup. This gave us a very pale pastel green – nice for springtime, though not true Kelly Green!

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Once you have the color you like, paint over your shamrocks.

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No points for neatness, of course.

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It only took a couple of hours for the paint to dry, and Travis loved how puffy and soft it was to the touch.

Story Wheel

March 13, 2018Leave a comment

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We’ve enjoyed lots of fun lately exploring different ways to make story prompts. This method combines neat mechanics (a spinning arrow!) with drawing and imagination.

First, trace a large circle onto foam board, using any big bowl or other circular object in your house.

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Divide into as many segments as you’d like story prompts. We only did 6, but you could easily divide your wheel into 8.

I also drew the outline of an arrow, free-form, to be the spinner.

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I urged Travis to think of different things we like to tell stories about. Some of them, he did a great job drawing by himself! Here is a fireman’s ladder and hoses.

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A few of them, mommy still had to draw, including bugs, outer space, and a birthday party.

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Once we had all our scenes drawn in, I cut both the circle and the arrow from the foam board with an x-acto knife – grown-ups only for this step!

To attach them together, cut a small x in the center of each piece, and insert a paper fastener. Fold back the ends to of the fastener to hold the arrow in place.

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A fantastic addition to our storytime fun!

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Travis now insists we do a spin of the wheel each night before bed. Sometimes we’ll just use one space, and sometimes spin the arrow multiple times over the course of a story.

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Cinnamon-Sugar Sweet Potato Fries

March 12, 2018March 12, 20182 Comments

CInnamon Sweet Potato Fries

This sweet side dish is so easy it hardly merits being called a recipe. It’s the perfect hack for adding a little sugar and spice to dinner!

First, bake sweet potato fries according to package directions. Just after they come out of the oven, sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar to taste.

Serve with your favorite vanilla non-dairy yogurt for dipping!

Apple-Spice Mug Muffin

March 11, 2018Leave a comment

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When you’re craving muffins but don’t want a whole batch sitting around in the fridge or freezer, these individual mug-sized muffins are the answer to your prayers.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons plain unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 tablespoon Earth Balance butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons shredded apple

The night before, combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and baking soda in a microwave-safe mug; Cover and set aside.
In the morning, add the milk, butter (melted), and vanilla, stirring to combine. Fold in the apple.
Microwave for 2 minutes, then let cool slightly before serving.

My son likes his muffin plain…

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…but I like adding a little extra chopped apple and a spoonful of vanilla non-dairy yogurt to serve. Or try a little dollop of soy whipped cream!

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Dot Paint Shamrocks

March 11, 2018March 11, 2018Leave a comment

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We’re pretty crazy about St. Patrick’s Day around here (despite not being Irish!), so be on the lookout for several shamrock-themed crafts and recipes this week. In this first version, kids will love the reveal of the shamrock shape after they finish dotting their paint!

First, cut out a shamrock, either free-hand or using a template.

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You can tape the shamrocks down to construction paper or poster board, but we actually did ours on foam board – this allowed us to later use it as a sign at our town’s St. Patrick’s parade.

Now you have two ways to dot paint around the shamrocks. First, there are good old dot paints.

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For a novelty version, set out a tray of green paint and use pencil erasers to make small dots.

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We liked doing both, to compare the big and little dots side by side.

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Once you’ve finished dotting, peel up the shamrock shapes – voila! The silhouette is left behind. Now off to the parade!

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Early Explorers Habitats

March 10, 2018Leave a comment

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This month’s offering from our Early Explorers subscription was quite different than past kits. The booklet features many preschool readiness activities – mazes, matching, counting – but no suggested crafts or projects. As a result, we supplemented from Little Passport’s blog to add some additional fun.

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The booklet featured great information, though, introducing children to habitats such as mountains, deserts, forests, and more. Travis loved the usual finds like the flashlight page and affixing his sticker on his luggage.

Habitats Art:

First up, we needed a craft! Papier-mâché mountains were perfect for the habitat theme – and so neat that they merited their own blog post!

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The craft turned into a great way to supplement the info in Travis’s booklet about animals that live in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges.

Habitat Science:

We also snagged the perfect science project off Little Passport’s blog – a rainforest in a jar! To recreate this warm, humid environment (one canopy tree can produce 200 gallons of water in a year!), we first added about 1/2 cup potting soil to a large mason jar, then filled with 1/4 cup water. I rather zealously added a little extra water, which may have been a mistake.

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Next we rubbed flower seeds with sandpaper to break them up slightly, then added to the jar.

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We also added some moss (I bought the moss at the craft store; I hate to disturb moss from nature).

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Seal the jar and set it some place sunny.

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Within a day or so you’ll see the condensation on the inside of the jar – neat! Keep a record of any changes you see, and make a note of how long it takes for your flowers to bud.

Habitats Keepsake:

This month’s keepsake was an instant hit, and I think the highest quality one we’ve received: a sticker book with four different habitats and reusable animal stickers to go in each setting.

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As far as reusable stickers go, these are the best I’ve ever come across! Thick and durable, easy to peel off, and they match right back up on the sheets they came from when you’re done with play. Travis loved how floppy the stickers were!

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He had to put every animal in a home before he tired of the game.

Habitats Field Trip:

We decided to get as close to a tropical rainforest as we could here in the northeast – by visiting a butterfly exhibit! The humid room lives up to the name, and the butterflies are truly amazing, perching on fresh fruit…

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hovering on leaves right before you….

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and staying still enough to marvel at their curled tongues.

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Habitats Further Activities:

Further activity suggestions this month really were about sitting down, talking and thinking together. I worried I might lose a preschooler’s attention, but Travis was quite engaged. First, we made a list of possible habitats, and he did great remembering – arctic, mountains, rainforests, etc.

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I asked which was his favorite animal and he surprised me with polar bears, so we watched some online clips for kids about polar bears and their arctic habitat.

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He also said that this is where he’d like to live, and to be a polar bear. (Brr!)

Since Travis’s drawing is still a little, well, abstract, I also set out coloring book pages of various animals and habitats that he could color.

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Finally, we headed off to research and check out our local habitat. We take lots of nature walks anyway, so to capture what’s truly unique about our area, we went to where forest gives way immediately to the shore of Long Island Sound.

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The only animals we saw on this cold snowy morning though were geese!

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Noodle-y Kugel

March 9, 2018March 9, 2018Leave a comment

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To be frank, I’ve never seen a recipe quite like this in my life! It came to us care of Travis’s March issue of High Five magazine, and has multiple steps that are sure to delight your sous-chef in the kitchen. Pineapple with noodles? Yes, apparently this is a thing.

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You can find eggless egg noodles, but I was unable to this time around. Instead, I chose a bag of curly pasta, both because the curls are reminiscent of the way wide noodles loop after they cook, and because it came in the right kind of bag instead of a box (more on that below!). Curly noodles also have the advantage that you won’t need to cut them into much smaller pieces for young eaters.

Ingredients:

For the noodles:

1 (16-ounce) package eggless wide noodles or curly pasta
6 tablespoons Earth Balance butter
4 Ener-G eggs
1 cup plain unsweetened non-dairy milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 (12-ounce) container non-dairy sour cream
1 recipe vegan cottage cheese*
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

For the topping:

2 cups organic corn flake cereal
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons Earth Balance butter

Adults: cook the pasta according to package directions in a large pot; drain and set aside. Make sure to reserve the pasta packaging for step 6!
Cut the butter into small pieces and have your child add the butter pieces to the warm pasta. Travis was very interested to see how quickly the butter melted!
In a bowl, whisk together the Ener-G eggs, milk, and sugar.
Stir in the sour cream, prepared cottage cheese, and pineapple. Travis insisted on stirring all by himself.
Add the pineapple mixture to the noodles and stir to coat, then transfer the mixture to 13×9-inch glass baking dish coated with cooking spray.
To prepare the topping, place the corn flakes in the empty pasta bag, and seal; crush with your hands. This was – hands down! – Travis’s favorite part.
Add the sugar and cinnamon; seal and shake to coat.
Sprinkle the topping evenly over the noodles, and add the remaining butter, cut into small pieces.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes, until browned at the edges. Let stand at least 5 minutes before serving.

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*To make a quick vegan “cottage cheese”, combine 1 package firm tofu and 1 tablespoon lemon juice in a bowl. Mash with a fork until the mixture resembles cottage cheese curds. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Raindrop Toss

March 8, 2018March 8, 2018Leave a comment

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Need a way to beat the blues on an indoor rainy day? This game can be thrown together with materials you likely have on hand, and turns raindrops into the cutest playing pieces ever.

First, we filled a big bin with rice and used a scoop to add about 2 tablespoons to each of 8 sandwich baggies.

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Wrap rubber bands tightly around the bags to seal.

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Bonus points: you can use leftover rice in a great sensory bin!

Next we wrapped the baggies in two layers of blue tissue paper, and secured with a second rubber band; now they looked a bit like raindrops.

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To make them friendly raindrops, glue on googly eyes and pipe cleaner smiles.

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While the glue dried, we made “puddles” on squares of craft foam. Paper plates would work well, too – anything you can draw or paint a blue puddle on. We added numbers so that we could keep score as we played, but that’s optional.

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