Quick tip: flaxseed meal

Sneaky moustache disguise
(and pattern!) found here

Shhhh!  Be very, very quiet...we're spiking the littles food with nutritions!

If you're feeling like your tots are missing some Omega-3s, fiber, protein...and other good stuff that is in the whole wheat bread they turn their little noses up at, try this trick:

Add flaxseed meal to their favorite foods!

It has very little flavor, and just adds a slightly nutty flavor and a little bit of texture, but so far, neither of my extra picky kiddos (3 and 5 this month...where did the time go??) have noticed.  Cinnamon is especially good at hiding flaxseed.

Try it:

1 tbsp in a cup of applesauce + cinnamon/sugar
Sprinkle on toast w/ cinnamon/sugar
Sprinkle on buttered bread with garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and parmesean, then toast for extra healthy garlic bread.
Add a tbsp to your next batch of cookies.
And anything else you can think of!

Here's my current favorite brand:

If you keep it in the freezer, a big bag will stay fresh and healthy for a long time!

A fond farewell to Mexican pizza

Happy pizza found here

This is an old favorite of mine...and sometimes my kids will eat it too. 

This time, I tried it a little differently, with pureed yellow squash in the beans...shhhh, don't tell my 15 year old!  She hates it when I hide veg in things where veg doesn't normally exist. 

The good news:  the squash was not noticeable, and it made the beans easier to spread.

The better news:  I rolled the crust out thinner than usual, and it came out much better.  I used to just press the crust into a ceramic pie pan, this time I rolled it out on a cookie sheet.

The bad news:  days after I served this recipe to all four kids, we found out #2 has developed a dairy allergy!  (And that's on top of the peanuts, tree nuts, almond, coconut, pistachio, and a patridge in a...)  So, this was the last time I could make this recipe for everyone.

For all of you lucky folks with no dairy, wheat, bean, squash, corn, lettuce, salsa or water allergies, here is the recipe:

Bisquick: makes it awesome

1 1/2 cups bisquick
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup water

Combine until soft dough forms. Roll or smoosh into a rough circle, about 1/2" thick.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 mins.

Combine the following:
about 1 cup refried beans
about 3/4 cup yellow squash

Spread bean mixture on crust, and sprinkle with a good size handful of shredded cheese.
Bake an additional 10 mins, or until the cheese is good and melty.

Top with your choice of the following:

greek yogurt
salsa
chopped lettuce (romaine, green leafy, spinach, NOT ICEBERG)

4 thumbs up, #3 even liked the salsa and "sour cream"!

*sorry no more pictures!  If I ever find them, I will come back and post them...

Almond butter

Adorable peanut (and pattern!) found here

See that peanut? 

Cute, isn't it?

NOT IF YOU ARE AN EIGHT YEAR OLD WITH A PEANUT ALLERGY!  To #2, not only are actual peanuts bad, anything that looks like, or even has a picture of a peanut is VERY BAD.
I've seen her burst into (fake) tears when confronted with a toy (also fake) jar of peanut butter, and freak out when she sees a picture of nuts in the newspaper.

Oh, yeah, lucky kid is also allergic to tree nuts.  Yaaaaay.

To that end, I was experimenting with making my own almond butter (the one nut she is not allergic to!), mostly because the soy butter she's been using is FREAKING EXPENSIVE.  Seriously, $4 for a 15 oz jar is...well, nuts!

So, here is my recipe for almond butter:

1/2 cups raw almonds
3 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp-ish honey

blend the bejeebus out of it

Mine totally looked this good...I swear.

*I had pictures, but they seem to have been lost in the latest laptop upgrade...so I "borrowed" this one so you could see what it's supposed to look like.

**Edited to add:  #2 has just gone through another round of allergy testing, guess what she's allergic to now? ALMONDS.  Sigh.  Looks like I'll be eating most of a jar of almond butter.  At least it's tasty!