Grow.Make.Brew.Eat

So I eat oatmeal most days of the week...sometimes for dinner too. On the weekends we like to change it up a bit and frankly, I love breakfast foods. I have not been eating eggs or other dairy for several weeks, so what's a girl to eat? Well, we can still make a pretty mean smoothie. Check out this Chocolate Cherry Banana Smoothie. The ingredients-in any amount you want:  Rice milk Frozen cherries Frozen banana Dark chocolate cocoa powder (milk/lactose free) And if you have never tried Van's Gluten free products-you should. I was surprised at their choices and both their waffles and french toast sticks are phenomenal...seriously, they are. Below is a pic of the french toast sticks with some toasted walnuts and coconut and a smearing of honey. YUM. Can't end a post without a pic of the dude, right? 

Oh this is a fun recipe we tried last week that I found on Pinterest . It's a  roasted grape, goat cheese and honey baked sweet potato . Who knew you could roast grapes? The disch was really good. We didn't scoop out the potato and mix in the goat cheese this time. Instead we just cut up the sweet potato and loaded everything on top.  Both Andy & I thought that adding some toasted walnuts to the mix might add a different dimension of flavor. We also agreed that this would make a great Fall meal. We will be having this one again and will try the "twice baked" style... In other news...Augie likes to "scream".  It makes us smile ;-)

Over the past several weeks I've changed my diet drastically. The wee one is a gassy little man and as I have adjusted my diet, I've noticed things have changed for the better. There is a lot of information floating around about eliminating certain foods from your diet which can irritate babies digestive systems. The major players that can affect infants are dairy, wheat, soy, eggs, beans, broccoli, spinach, peanuts, and citrus fruits, among a few others. I have cut all of these out of my diet except for eggs. This means no cheese, greek yogurt and other good things that I love to eat....however I've noticed that with cutting these things out, not only is Augie's digestive system happy...so is mine. It's a win win. Of course I still miss eating a few of these things (specifically cheese, greek yo and peanut butter!), but I feel pretty good with the whole process.  So, with undertaking this adventure we have embarked on some new dishes in the kitchen. We are still...

Not much innovative cooking has been going on in our kitchen over the past several months. Andy has been amazing at whipping up dinner on most nights since our evenings have been unpredictable. It's been wonderful and he's a great chef, but we've stuck ourselves in a bit of a rut out of convenience mostly. And based on the fact that I have basically gone gluten free and dairy free & cut out many other foods due to Augie's sensitivity to them, we've run out of options.  It's been a challenge to make sure I'm eating enough throughout the day, since my old staple snacks of cheese & crackers, peanut butter & pretzels, etc are now out. We tend to eat a lot of corn chip taco bowls with a variety of different proteins and veggies and a lot of Asian inspired bowls with rice noodles, veggies & egg. They are great, but we are looking for a little change.  The past two weeks have been great as Augie has fallen into a pattern of going to bed between...

Well, Augie is getting big fast. The munchkin now weighs in at 9lbs 7oz and he continues to grow daily. He has outgrown most of his newborn clothes, which is amazing and strange at the same time. The newborn gear looks so small now. I look forward each week to having him weighed at my Lactaion Support Group. We are trying this week to have him sleep in the pack and play. For the past three weeks I have been sleeping propped up on the couch or chair with him sleeping on my chest. The poor little guy is very gassy and grunts a lot if he's not slightly elevated. Sleeping with him upright allowed everyone in the house to get more sound sleep.   He also likes the warmth of being cozy and snuggling (which I have to say I love too). I've tried to adjust my diet to see if that helps with his gas (no dairy...bye, bye cheese and greek yogurt..., no broccoli/cauliflower, one cup of coffee in the morning, limited citrus fruits, etc). It seems to help...

Today is Andy's 35th! Happy Birthday to my favorite husband...haha. I felt ambitious today and wanted to do a couple of fun projects. I stuck Augie in the Moby Wrap ... he actually likes it (so do I...very comfortable). He fell asleep right away, long enough for me to do something creative. I made Andy some beer coasters, which I wanted to make him for Christmas, but never got around to doing. They are pretty fun and just have some different advertisements, etc for beer on them. Can we say Modge Podge? hehe. I hot glued cloth on the bottom so they won't scuff anything. Oh they are made out of tiles... Then I thought I would make him some sort of good eats. I figured that we had the ingredients for oatmeal raisin cookies. So I whipped up a batch of those from one of my favorite foodie websites, Smitten Kitchen . I altered the recipe slightly, as I didn't have any eggs. I used a half of a banana instead. And I added some chocolate chips to the mix....j...

We debated on having a left over pizza scramble or frittata this morning for breakfast. It's one of the best uses of left over pizza of any kind. But I had talked a big game about making scones this morning to have for the week and I felt compelled to pull through. Last night I came up with the idea of using our scone recipe from last weekend and changing the ingredients. Instead of apple cinnnamon drop scones , I made fig & oat scones. Their kind of more like a biscuit, in that they are shaped differently and aren't quite as "hard" as a scone. Regardless they did not dissapoint. The recipe consisted of many of the same basic ingredients all baked in the oven for 10-15 min (or until golden brown) at 400 degrees. 1 cup spelt flour 1/8 cup oat flour 1/4 cup oats 1 tsp cinnamon 4 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder dash of sea salt 2 tsp honey 1/4 cup oil 1 splash of apple juice (maybe 3 tbsp)  1 cup Greek yo Juice 1/2 an orange 1/3 cup chopped fi...

We love the grilled pizza...especially when it's somewhere between 10-15 degrees outside! Last night we whipped together a savory pizza that was really, really tasty. We blistered up some peppers in the oven: Sauteed onions and mushrooms: Cut up some prosciutto: Sprinkled on a little goat cheese: And cooked the sucker up on the Weber: The peppers were amazing and had a lovely roasted flavor. Throw on a little malt vinegar and some sriracha and a super tasty dinner. It was enjoyed by A w/a Southern Tier IPA (one of our fave breweries) and by my with a Kiddie cocktail of massive proportion (club soda, cranberry & apple juices, splash of OJ, squeeze of lime). For desert I made some pudding w/milk and almond milk and layered graham crackers, pudding, bananas, and whip cream with a dash of cinnamon on top. This was a fantastic chocolaty treat post dinner.

We love a good breakfast. This morning we slept in and are still hanging in our pajamas and it's after 10am. We're listening to some good tunes...Andy playin' DJ. We've run the gamut from Black Keys, to Da Yoopers, Life Aquatic Soundtrack to Newcleus....now it's switched to some Dub Step (the dub step version of I Whip my Hair Back and Forth  to be exact). Yeah it's been a fun morning of music and good food. While I was blogging about last night's Date Night, Andy made One Eyed Bobs . We've heard them called Lazy Eyed Susans, but after watching Monsters v. Aliens one too many times and having a niece who loves the movie, they have morphed into a new name. We've made them many times in the past and they are a good, easy breakfast. Just a little buttered toast, a hole cut in the center and a cracked egg cooked up in a skillet. Andy added a little asiago and parmesan crispy to the mix today along with a good cup o' Joe. Yum.

In the summer we have smoothies almost every day for breakfast. In the winter...not so much. Instead our staple foods have been hot bran cereal or eggs & toast. The past month or so I've been pretty picky about breakfast foods and we've ended up eating a lot of dry cereal. Toasted O's mostly. Not very exciting, but I just haven't had the motivation to make our usual...and it just hasn't sounded good. Lately I've really wanted to start making smoothies again. This morning, finally, we did! Andy & I made some scones first to go with the smoothies. The recipe is a rough version from Clean Eating Magazine a few years ago. It's fast and easy and we put our own spin on it by adding a handful of walnuts and dried cherries to the mix. Here's the recipe: Apple Cinnamon-Cherry Walnut Drop Scones 1 cup spelt flour 1/4 cup oat flour 1 tsp cinnamon 4 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder dash of sea salt 2 tsp honey 1/4 cup oil 1 cup apples (re...