March Projects

This month I have been feeling really cool with my little projects.

I made cupcake toppers for the first time. Okay, now I know what all the rage is about. 

They turn a party into a fiesta! haha. I also broke out my sewing machine. Our home is so tiny my sewing machine doesn't have a place to hang outside of it's box. But I have plans to turn a corner of our room into a craft area for me. So excited about that! (We kicked Athena out of our room. She is now sleeping with the big girls! And we feel like adults again now that we don't have to tip toes around snoring infants.)

A friend of mine is always posting super cute dresses she makes for her daughter. I decided enough was enough! I cut out a couple rectangles and sewed up this dress for Thérèse. Okay, so it wasn't that easy. It did only take me one afternoon, but since I didn't have a pattern and not much clue as to what I was doing, (I have never gathered before), I'm going to have to devote some more time to fixing it. And such is life. We got some fabric so I can make Monique a dress as well, but I have already come into problems with it since I want to add a sash. Clearly I have no idea how to do that.

Here is Thérèse's dress made from scraps of fabric and ribbon from around our home.
The same friend gave me her fabric scraps! 

 

Had a mini desert inauguration party on inauguration day. 

You can find these awesome cupcake toppers and bunting here. 

Served Babycakes NYC blondies the girls and I made. They were soooooooo

so so so so good. My husband requested we keep them around the house all the time. We've made these multiple times before but, I guess we just forgot how mind blowing delicious gluten-free, dairy-free goodies can be. I have the cookbook, but you can find the recipe online here, along with Zooey Deschanels personal testimony of her deep love for them. 

I was pretty excited to learn that a couple recipes I posted on The Kind Life were given four and five stars! Now that's just amazing. Thank you to those kind people who tasted and rated these dishes! You can find the recipe gallery here.

Big fat fail. I didn't take any pictures of my last freezer crock pot meal making. Here is an itty-bitty picture of the ratatouille from fitness magazine. 

I only had to make three dishes since I still had a couple meals left over in the freezer. That's the great thing about freezer meals. I don't have to worry about food going bad in the fridge if we have an unexpected meal out. Everything is frozen, ready whenever I need it. 

I made chickpea ratatouille, Coconut curried tofu spinach and Thai Sloppy Joe's. I was a little disappointed that the sloppy joe's were only four small portions. We like leftovers. But if we end up not liking it, I guess it will work out. I was a little apprehensive about this dish. But last week I made her Cannelloni and Daniel and I decided it was one of our new favorite meals. We were pretty upset it only made six cannelloni (how did I not realize that while I was preparing it?) In our house, that is enough for one and a half people, not four like the recipe suggests. That day my husband had ridden his bike to and from work, a mere 54 miles, so the guy could have easily ate them all by herself. I left off the top cheeses and I made my own tofu ricotta cheese. Next time I make the ricotta, I will leave some miso out since I think the flavor was too sharp for the girls.

The last project March will see is the girls' early morning Easter celebration.
Excited about the sweets and treats! 

My Favorite Things & My Absolutely Least Favorite Thing EVER

   Wanted to share some of my new favorite things with you all. These are little items that make me oh so happy and I wonder how I ever lived without.

   We are slowly making our home non-toxic. It is really important to me to have safe dishes for the girls. We have cheap plastic dishes for them and it kills me. I just feel the toxins leaching onto their food. Finally added these wonderful dishes into our cupboard. Green Eats is such a great brand. Made here in the U.S. out of recycled plastic, which is way cool. They feel so sturdy and safe. I love them! We have a couple plates and bowls for now. Looking forward to adding their utensils and cups in the near future.

     Our dog really needed a bed. I finally made her one. It was so easy and super inexpensive. I knew I wanted a bed with a pillow case for her so I could wash it weekly. The beds sold at the store with cases were ridiculously priced. Seriously? It's just for my dog. She loves this thing. We used to find her sleeping on the couch in the middle of the night. And she used to wake up with us when we had to deal with the girls late night needs. The first night she got her bed she didn't move! We no longer find her wondering or on the couch! 

     I wanted the bed to be a neutral color that blended into our home and hid any hair she would shed. I was so excited when this fabric was $1 a yard! I made the pillow orange. That pop of color really makes me happy. These were my first button holes! It was nice making something for a dog so I wouldn't be freaking out about it being made perfectly. It is what it is. 

   This is my new favorite book series for kids. My First Pictures of Easter is such a great book to teach kids about Easter. I love it because it is short while explaining important details about Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and the rest of Holy Week. Kind of bummed it doesn't include the Agony of the Garden, but all in all, I think this book is fantastic. One reading, and it takes your kids right in the moment. 

   I love how they portray the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene weeping, then rejoicing. Helps kids understand how everyone was feeling.

FREEZER MEALS! Okay, let me just say, I'm in love with freezer meals. The first time I made them, I was alone with the girls, I made a weeks worth of meals and had the kitchen cleaned by noon! This project makes the rest of the week dish and labor free! This is seriously amazing to me. I just stick the defrosted meal in the crock pot or in a pot on the stove on the day we are ready to eat it. 

     After I did this the first time, I would find minutes here or there to throw a meal together to stick in the freezer. Yesterday I set the day aside to make a bunch of meals. I didn't go shoping for it, and it turned into me finding a way to use up all the produce we had in our fridge. I would have prefered to do this on Saturday and rest Sunday, but I was busy Saturday. I didn't get started till afternoon. Between this big project and the girls...really pooped me out big time. 

  This is actually a picture from a couple weeks ago. What I made yesterday: Scalloped Potatoes, Tortilla Soup, Zucchini and Corn Cannelloni (I made my own vegan ricotta for this), Rice Frittata, Rustic Pot Pie. All dishes except the soup and cannelloni were from Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker. 

   I also made oat bars for snacks to eat throughout the week. I used cranberries instead of dried cherries. Monique and I love them. Thérèse doesn't know what all the fuss is about. 

     I also love reusable toys! A sweet friend is sharing this jumper with Athena. I've been wanting to get this for her, she is definitely my active one. I rearrangned my tiny living room to make space for this. I love changing our living room up. We've lived in this home a year and three months and I've change the living room around about four or five times. I can just see the girls as adults in therapy, "Our lives were so unstable as children. Our mom was always rearranging the living room furniture." 

     OKAY, LEAST FAVORITE THING: SWITCHING OUT THE GIRLS' OUTGROWN CLOTHES FOR A BIGGER SIZE, which is actually way harder than it sounds. I used to hate doing this when I just had Thérèse. Now I have to do this times three. I can handle pretty much everything involving the care and hard labor of children and I love it. But this, THIS is just my least favorite thing about having kids. I must be doing something wrong because it is such a huge task and takes me forever. I go through every article of clothing to know if it needs to be stored, donated or for current use. It took me about eight hours to get all three girls' clothes done. But every box with clothes in the garage is now perfectly organized, and every drawer in this house looks so beautiful I don't even recognize it. It's like Real Simple came into my home and fixed 'em drawers. So I guess it was worth it. So glad it's over. This Saturday project drained me. And then to spending Sunday cooking! I was basically worthless today. We had a pajama party. Thérèse won since she stayed in her pajamas the longest. 

     I feel like throwing up just looking at this picture. 

     So after this very hard weekend, I was so excited to sleep. Went in my room to find my spot on the bed occupied by this person. Which is the creepiest thing ever. I don't know who did this, but it's not okay. 

     Speaking of babies...my eight month old has SIX TEETH! Yeah...I've had kids before...and I've seen it all...but this is a first...

     Sorry this is blurry. She doesn't stay still. 

R&R Family Style

    Our family got to live life large with a four day weekend. Ordinarily, if we had time off, we would leave town or run errands or somehow find ourselves very busy. We are always so busy! This weekend we decided to take a mini family vacation in our own home. I mean much needed home family vacation. It was so relaxing. As relaxing as it could be with three little people, housework, cooking, bathing dog, Daniel doing homework and lesson plans...but all constant work aside, it was perfect. 

     

    

Every day is vacation day for this girl. Lucky...

     Saturday we went on a hike in Oak Glen. It was beautiful! So nice to get out and be away from the pollution. There was even some snow left over. We needed to take these girls to the snow before winter was over. Glad we get to check that off our list! 

     This is Mo in a nutshell. Really, I just asked her to smile. 

     Love how Thérèse is hiking up her pants to keep them snow free. 

     My view.

Post hike cuddles. 

     Today I found myself with some free time, hahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh my goodness, that was funny. So I decided to make up some crock pot meals. I really need crock pot meals in my life, especially on days that I'm busy running errands or cleaning. But on those days, I don't have time in the morning to stick my ingredients in the crock pot. Excited I now have them prepped in the freezer! I wanted to make more, but Wednesday is our food shopping day, so by Monday/Tuesday we are low on everything. I made what I could. We shall see how this works out for us and hopefully do this more often! 

Rustic Pot Pie from Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker

Lasagna (mixture) from Peta, but I added some tahini, miso and EVOO to give it more flavor.

Chili-Potato Gratin from Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker

    Last night I started reading Wuthering Heights. I wish I had realized it was from the Gothic Period before I started reading it. I thought it was going to be all sweet and cute like the Austen book I just finished (yes, I stereotyped all female authors into sweet and cute. How terrible is that?) I started wondering why I was suddenly COMPLETELY TERRIFIED OUT OF MY BRAINS (I've gotten weaker since birthing children), but now I'm at a point that I have to finish the book because it is so darn good. It's going to be lots of long nights till then. 

     I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of my followers. It is so cool to see my little blog being followed from ten different countries! I've been having a lot of fun getting to write again and share our family with you all. 

Valentine's Day Dairy-free, Sugar-free Tea Party

    We had our first Valentine's Day Tea Party today. I broke out my 100+ year old china  from Germany, a wedding gift from my adopted Grandmother. The girls enjoyed drinking tea for the first time out of their little plastic tea cups and tea pot. I wanted the food to be as traditional English tea as possible, but kept it all vegan and sugar free! Love that. Still, I forgot how rich tea food is! Glad we had early tea so they could get all that sugar high out by nap time.

Note the clean shinny beautiful faces. Soon to be covered with chocolate.

I get a big girl plate. These shortbread cookies were to die for!

The Menu:

*  Raspberry Scones from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Gluten-Free Lemon Poppy Seed Teacake from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies from The Kind Diet (Sweetened with Maple Syrup)

*  Cucumber Finger Sandwiches with Chive Butter

*  Olive Cream Cheese Spread Watercress Finger Sandwiches

*  Farmers Market Sliced Strawberries

*  Chamomile Tea for the girls

*  Tazo Calm Tea for me

Substitutes: For the cream cheese replacement I used "This is not a tub of cream cheese" from Trader Joe's. Veganise to replace the Mayo and Earth Balance Butter to replace the butter. 

Favorites: I was in love with the cream cheese and watercress sandwich. I just followed the recipe (posted above) and topped with a bunch of watercress. SO GOOD. I think I will make this for myself on a regular basis. The shortbread cookies stole our hearts. I've tired to make these a couple other times and they didn't come out quite right. Today I actually followed the recipe very carefully. I took one bite and was transported. We all fell in love. Now I get what the whole short bread infatuation is about. So delicious. 

Special girl time with my crazy girls. They were excited about life. Monique always has some whack move going on. 

Thérèse was a little liberal in her tea pouring. Monique taking a sip. So cute!

Tea was followed with a dance party. Monique got in this position and danced around the whole room like this. It's what she does. 

Dinner! This was one of the best pizzas I've made. The dough was perfect and the sauce sweet. I've been working to perfect the potato pizza for a while now. Potatoes are a great alternative to cheese and vegan cheese. I paper thinly slice them and let them hang out in olive oil for a while. Once I get this recipe just the way I like it, I will share it. For now, it is still in the works. 

We served this with steamed very dark leafy green veggies called broccoli greens? Never heard of it. Got it at the farmers market and the girls like it! Love it when dinner is easy!

Tea party was fun. We will be having another one Easter Morning! Can't wait! For now, I'm keeping out one of my pretty cups for my quiet time Mama moments. 

Hope you all had a lovely St. Valentine's Day! 

The Best Fried Vegan Eggplant

    Now that Daniel doesn't work on Saturdays anymore (we are still getting used to this greatness!) we are able to get down and party on the weekends! Which is why I spent all morning in the kitchen on Saturday. I made quiche, date bread and fried eggplant (all vegan). My in-laws took the girls for a couple hours and it was so great getting to cook without interruptions. Super therapeutic. So glad I got married so I could be forced to cook, so I would learn I love to cook! 

     Did you get your party moves on this weekend?

      Oh, just so you know, sensory boxes are made to be played INSIDE OF. I know, it's confusing since we were always taught sensory boxes were for senses connected to your hands, but as it turns out, it is much more fun to get inside of a sensory box and pick the beans out of your toes. This is the only way to do it folks. 

      I was out of diced tomatoes, so my eggplant was sauceless. I actually ended up enjoying it this way. I was able to appreciate the flavors of the eggplant and pasta more. This is the best my eggplant has ever come out. Yesssss, I'm actually getting better at this! Love it!

Fried Eggplant

1 Eggplant sliced

Salt

1 cup rice milk

2 cup flour

4 tablespoons Italian Style breadcrumbs

Olive Oil for frying

Spaghetti and fresh parsley for serving

1) Rub both sides of your eggplant slices with salt. Lay them on a cloth in a single layer and let them sit and sweat it out for a good hour.

2) Mix together your flour and breadcrumbs. Heat your pan up. 

3) Dip your eggplant in milk then in the flour mixture. Fry on lightly oiled pan at medium high heat till crispy, about 5 - 10 minutes, turning once. 

3) Serve on top of spaghetti pasta lightly tossed with EVOO (optional) and sprinkled with fresh parsley. 

Yummy!!

    I'm incredibly boring when it comes to my hair. I have a messy bun look and a down look. That's it. Today I decided to live a little and I did an up-do that I found on Pintrest. I'm definitely going to be doing more of these. I loved that it was out of my way, the baby couldn't grab it and I was semi stylish. Thank you Pintrest!

   Papa's Toolshed Mama's Kitchen now has a Pintrest page! Scroll to the top of our blog and click to follow us! Great way to track our recipes and DIYs.

   Have you reached a sad point in your life when you are excited to go to bed at 9pm? Not sad. Just full. I live a full life. With my fools. Okay, I'm stopping now.

Feeding Children Vegan for a Week

I can't believe I have been able to feed my kids vegan for three entire days! The biggest surprised is they haven't ask for their beloved cheese. Huge bonus: I'm loving the fact I now only have to make one lunch. They've been great eaters these last couple days, here is what's been cooking in our kitchen:

 

 Day 2

Lunch: Gardein Crispy Tenders, quinoa and pears. 

I love this meal, because it takes zero work, and it includes a super grain! This is one of Monique's favorite meals as well. Thérèse isn't too big on quinoa, but with ketchup, she says it doesn't taste bad.

 

Dinner:  Udon noodles with shredded zuccini and carrots with steamed broccoli. 

Sorry! No picture for this one. I whipped this dinner up, threw everyone's shoes on and ran out the door for our evening walk. Then I totally forgot. Whoops! You can check out a past blog post about his meal here.

Day 3

Lunch: Hiziki Croquettes with millet, carrot, scallions, tahini and garbanzo beans. 

This is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Vegan Family Meals. It's actually supposed to be a part of a salad, but the croquettes are so strong, I often serve them on their own. This dish is calcium overload. While whole milk contains 118 milligrams of calcium per serving, but chickpeas have 150, sesame seeds 1,160 and hijiki 1,400! Step aside, milk. Hijiki, a sea vegetable is pricey, but it's totally worth it because it lasts forever. Thankfully, Monique loves this dish and once again, Thérèse thinks it's great with ketchup. I'm telling you, kids appreciate basic flavors. It reminds me of surf and turf. Love that.

 

 Dinner: Fidello with peas and carrots, beans and steamed broccoli. 

As a kid, fidello was my all time favorite. Who doesn't love carbs? My bizarre children aren't crazy about it though. Don't ask me why. They did ask for two servings of my beans though. Apparently I make boss beans. I guess I'm going to have to make more since they are such a hit.

Broccoli still steaming when I took this picture.

 

 My kids eat oatmeal with raisins and banana for breakfast every morning. Thérèse cannot live without her morning oatmeal. It was the only thing I craved when I was pregnant with her, which is strange, because I hate oatmeal.

This morning I decided we had an awesome three days and it was time for a treat. Thérèse and I mixed up these vegan, gluten and sugar free waffles. They are the best waffles. Period. We ate them with juicy farmers market peaches. You can get the recipe here.

 

Are there any vegan dishes your kids love?