Pizza Night

So, I have a clogged salivary duct! I guess that means my food has been insufficiently mouth-watering lately. It is making me feel pretty cruddy so I am taking it easy on myself and having a "Make Your Own Pizza" night. I will use the leftover red sauce from last night's spaghetti dinner and some thin round sandwich breads (whole grain!) for the crusts. The kids can spoon on their own sauce and top it with pieces of mozzarella string cheese.

I used to have a pizza stone but after a few years it snapped into two jagged pieces when I accidentally spilled some water on it while it was very hot (I was making a creme brulee.) Anyhow when I went to replace it I saw that they cost like $20 and up so I decided to use an unfinished, unglazed 12 x 12 ceramic tile in my oven instead. It cost about $2 and is much larger than a standard pizza stone. I used it for all of my baking now, gives great crust to pizza and bread and keeps the oven temperature consistent.

Hope you all have good health and good dinners tonight!

The (ex)Expatriate's Kitchen: Book Giveaway! The Cleaner Plate Club -- UPDATED

The (ex)Expatriate's Kitchen: Book Giveaway! The Cleaner Plate Club I am so excited about this book, this author is a friend of a friend of mine and she has blogged extensively about eating well for families. We all know how hard it is to get healthy yet appetizing food on our tables and actually get the kids to eat. Beth brings you tips, hints, techniques and recipes to take the stress out of dinner time. I simply adore her writing style and her down to earth approach.\

If you leave me a comment here that tells me why you love cooking for your kids, why you love Beth Bader, why you think it is important to make healthy meals for your family YOU COULD WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK! The actual winner will be chosen by my 8 year old on or about February 1st. I will contact the winner to get a mailing address to send the book. THIS IS TOTALLY EXCITING AND YOU SHOULD COMPLETELY DO THIS RIGHT NOW! (extreme drama caps!!) Now get on it and write me a comment below!

Lunch time!

I'm home with my 2 year old still. So that means in addition to packing a lunch for my school-ager I am also making lunch for the baby. In response to a request from a good friend of mine; here are some things I make for the baby (and me) for lunch.

* Leftovers. Seriously. We're home, we have a microwave, we eat that.
* PB and J's, I buy organic all natural peanut butter and organic real fruit jelly and I put it on whole wheat bread. Am I the least fun mom ever, or what?
* Oatmeal, she would eat it 3 times a day if possible.
* Crackers, cheese sticks, baby carrots and sliced lunch meat. (Or what Lunchables would look like if they weren't nasty.)
* Lunchables (shame-face)
* Graham crackers with peanut butter, sliced strawberries and chocolate milk. (She;'s not crazy about white milk.)
* Yogurt and granola with fresh fruit.
* Hot-dogs, mac and cheese, and apple sauce.
* Chili with crackers (a home made chili can have LOTS of vegetables in it!)
* Chicken nuggets, broccoli and carrots.
* ABC pasta with homemade veggie red sauce and a sprinkle of real parmesan cheese
* Homemade bread pudding, studded with nuts, blueberries, and whole oats, SO GOOD!

If you involve your kid in making these foods too, even simple PB and J you are teaching them things. How to cook, ingredients, sorting, colors, shapes, textures, nutrition, order of operations, math, geometry, culture, history. I mean *talk* about your multi-tasking! My littlest one knows you always wash your hands before you cook for instance and that knives are sharp and only for Mommies. Whereas my 8 year old recently brought ME lunch one day when I was sick and in bed. That's the picture accompanying this post. If you have any lunch related questions, please hit me up in the comments section. Thanks!