Wow….only eight days left! I almost can’t believe it. Although we don’t plan to change the way we eat very much (especially at home) it will be nice to have a little less pressure on me to carry this out perfectly. This is on my mind after the second time in a week that a recipe I planned to make had to come to a screeching halt due to rule-breaking ingredients. I guess that’s what happens when I pull from my “pre-100 day” catalog of recipes. I have really been craving some flavors from New Orleans (my in-laws live in The Big Easy so we’ve been spoiled with their yummy cuisine on many occasions). So with a few substitutions in mind I thought I would be able to pull together my husband’s aunt’s gumbo recipe.
Originally I was thinking that I would just sub whole-wheat flour for white flour when I made the roux. And even though I love to have sausage in our gumbo I would just have to settle with leaving it out since we recently discovered our source for local sausage uses sugar. Then I went searching at Earth Fare for a can of “stewed tomatoes” which as it turns out definitely has more than five ingredients. And Earth Fare said they didn’t have any fresh crabmeat on hand, and they don’t carry crabmeat in a can because it doesn’t meet their requirements (and if an entire grocery store chain deems something is “bad” would I want to eat it anyway?). I’d already bought some of the other ingredients by this point so I thought maybe I could make my own stewed tomatoes. But, then what about the crab? And at what point do I stop jumping through hoops just to make one damn recipe?!
So since we were gumbo-less we settled for our go-to meal of quesadillas. I feel like we have quesadillas (with homemade tortillas) all of the time, but all four of us just love them. I made some fruit kabobs for the girls to go with it. Another dish that is a sure thing around here is quiche. Every time I make it the entire dish just gets devoured. This time we decided to grate some yellow squash (that I never know what to do with) to mix with the eggs. You could barely taste a difference, and it made me so happy to know that my girls were getting some veggies with their dinner. I of course told them about it afterward so they were aware that they ate yellow squash and liked it!
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Speaking of our homemade tortillas (that we all just love), that is what I packed for my daughter’s “sandwich” for her first day of kindergarten today! I added a little hummus like I usually do, but I also included some grated carrot (which she said she especially liked…she is not my picky one though). I also included a hard-boiled egg, mango (her favorite fruit), whole-wheat pretzels, and a little fruit leather for a treat. Her teacher said she only lets the kids get treats from the lunch line on Fridays so I am glad to have a little routine I can follow as well for when to send something extra special. I have a feeling that I could easily get into a lunch box rut…but with only one day behind us it’s been fairly easy so far!
I’ve been trying to be a little more creative with breakfast lately (that is before we had to start waking up at 6 A.M. for school!). The other day my 5-year-old pulled out this kid cookbook and saw a pancake breakfast arranged in the shape of a sunshine. I’ve had this cookbook forever of course and never used it….guilty! The
y used blueberry pancakes and oranges, and we didn’t have any of that so banana pancakes with peaches as the sun’s rays made for the perfect substitution. My 3-year-old won’t eat peaches (no matter how hard I try) so her rays were made out of pears. The best idea though was to throw some of the glazed nuts from the maple pecan ice cream recipe into the pancakes while they were cooking. That was an incredibly yuuuuuummy combination if I do say so myself!
I also tried making “eggs in a basket” for the first time. It was again something only slightly different than we are used to (like the pancakes before they met the sunshine), but enough of a difference to make it exciting for the kids. My 3-year-old who is normally the picky eater scarfed her entire breakfast down before I could even ask her if she liked it. It was a hit to say the least! So now that the weekend is upon us, I am going to start my mission to sort through our New Orleans cookbooks to find something I can make without having to tweak things too much. I have also been craving some meat lately so I think BBQ ribs might be in our future as well. I hope my cravings work out for us this time!
Thank you all for your information and comments Regards ….
I am always looking for new breakfast ideas too. My 15 year old son loves Carnation Instant Breakfast, and I often buy it for him, because I am just trying to find an inexpensive way to fill his tank. However, it has so much sugar. There is a sugar free kind, but then they are eating something artificial. Do you have a recipe for something similar that would be healthier? Thanks.
I am glad to know that you realize Carnation Instant Breakfast is FULL of sugar! I have not experimented with this myself yet, but do you think he would go for a smoothie if you added some chocolate to it? You could start making it yourself and adding whatever you want as long as over time you started decreasing any added chocolate or other sweeteners. At this point I think anything you make has to be better than what Carnation is making! Here is our basic smoothie recipe if you want to give it a shot: http://thefoodillusion.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/recipe-tasty-smoothies/ We also like this PB&J smoothie: http://thefoodillusion.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/recipe-pbj-smoothie/
My son is very picky, we have breakfast smoothies all of the time and they can be quite healthy. We put in 2 frozen bananas, yogurt and sometimes we put in peanut butter. This breakfast with one scrambled egg gets him going. We buy the bananas for 33 cents a pound weekly, i let them get nice and ripe then i throw them peeled into the freezer. The yogurt is the natural kind with no sugar or anything else. Somtimes we stick some nesquick chocolate syrup in there, which has no HFCS..
Hey. Pomi tomatoes in a box have only tomatoes and no BPA lined cans! You can find them at Fresh Market. I love them. I try and stock up when I go…I just borrowed In Defense of Food from my mom and can’t wait to read it.
For some reason I never make it over to Fresh Market…maybe I should go check it out. Thanks for the tip and good luck with the book!
Those pancakes look yummy! Great blog!
Great ESL site…
Pleeeeeeeeease tell me how you got the “eggs in a basket” to work???? I’ve tried it once and it turned out more like a french toast donut, as the eggs ran completely out of the center! Thanks so much!
This was the first time I made it, but the trick may be what size hole you make in the bread. I read that it needed to be a 2.5 inch round hole and I measured all my cookie cutters until I found the perfect one. Do you remember what size you used?
I don’t think it was that large. Most of the egg just ran right under the bread onto the skillet. The finished product was a bit anticlimactic – a mangled version of the picture!
I’ve only recently found your blog, but I’ve gone back and read it from the start. Love it!! I commend you on doing this challenge and especially doing it with your family! I too believe strongly in the food source being full of chemicals and preservatives. After getting motivation from you, I’ve decided to do my own 100 day challenge using similar guidelines from Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food.” If anyone would like to follow me, the address is:
http://100daychallenge-realfoodjourney.blogspot.com
Best of luck to you as your challenge ends. I look forward to updates. Thanks again!
Thanks for the comment and good luck with your challenge!
what brand of whole wheat pretzels do you buy? i looked for some at earthfare the other day and couldn’t find them – i love your blog by the way and have been making the banana pancakes since you posted the recipe – i think this is the best whole wheat pancake recipe (b/c the bananas cover the flavor of the whole wheat) – as far as packing school lunches i have recently becoming obsessed with the idea of bento lunches – compact cute meals that incorporate all the colors of the rainbow – thanks for all the great info!
Thank you for the comment! I get the pretzels at Earthfare…here is what they look like: http://www.snackwarehouse.com/snack-unique-pretzel-100-whole-grain-split.html
Also, I think I am moving in the direction of packing my daughter’s lunch bento style too. I actually went to have lunch with her last week and in such a short amount of time it seemed hard for the kids to get through too many different containers/baggies/etc.
oh and i recently started buying our breat at great harvest and i LOVE it – the honey whole wheat is SO good – it doesn’t taste like you are eating whole wheat… thanks!
So glad it is working out for you…prior to all of this I hated the taste of “whole-wheat” so I was doing anything I could to mask the flavor. Although, I think I am getting more used to the taste of it now.
A very good recipe for summer squash is Stuffed Squash. Boil them whole until tender. Remove and cool. Slice a small piece off the top and remove all th insides. Mix squash insides with chopped tomato, onion, breadcrumbs, and spices to taste. Fill squash with mixture & place the sliced top back on. Bake at 350 for approx 20-25 mins.
Anything you can do with zucchini, you can do with yellow summer squash. The stuffing recipe is especially good for huge ones – probably from your garden rather than the grocery.
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