My Foodie Call

Yikes. It’s been a week since my last post. I don’t like to go that long between posts.

Three days is usually the longest I like to go.

We just wrapped up Spring Break. I was busy. Wish I could say busy doing what, but I guess I’ll just go with busy doing the mama thing. At least I can recall one fun thing we did.

We had another Kids Taste and See.

Do you remember what the Kids’ Taste and See is? I blogged about our February Kids Taste and See here.

This event was no different from last. Different home, but still…

Chaos ensued.

Of course.

What would a Kids Taste and See be without a little disorder?

Here is a picture Landon took of his buddy, Vaughn. Quite the photographer, Quite the model.

For our meal preparation, we had three stations.

Station 1: Our Spinach Mango Salad

Kids got chopping….

…And a certain little lady was stealing the roasted corn. She is cute enough that we will still invite her back next time.

And Miss Victoria posed with our mango…

Station 2: Our Vegan Pesto Pasta

Here is the “pesto” station. That Vitamin B-12 sign was there to represent the benefits of that jar of Nutritional Yeast. I am pretty certain that the kids did not notice or care about this. At all.

In this picture, Devyn scoops our creamy vegan pesto into our whole wheat rotini. Nice to have some older kids to help. Kind of like another grown up!

Station 3: Sesame Cherry Chewies

(Dessert= All the kids care about.)

We whirred up some peanut butter.

I “second” this reaction. This is exactly how I feel when I am making peanut butter. Or any nut butter for that matter.

Next, our peanut butter was combined with dried cherries, oats and our dessert was born.

Here Corbin scoops our chewies with precision. Well sort of. They were pretty sticky to work with.

We had extra peanut butter so each kid got to take some for later.

Although later turned into “right now.”

Hey, as long as they are content. 🙂

Can’t believe we pulled off a group picture.

Mango Summer Salad

(Adapted from Cooking With Trader Joe’s-Skinny Dish)

Ingredients:

• 2- 5oz bags Organic Baby Spinach
• 12 fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 2 ripe mango, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 cucumbers, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 2 cups frozen roasted corn, thawed
• 2-15 oz can garbanzo beans
• 1/2 cup balsamic white vinegar
• 4 Tbsp Slivered Almonds

Directions:

1. Fine chop spinach and basil
2. Combine all ingredients in a large salad bowl. Toss and Serve.

Spinach Mango Salad

 Whole Wheat Rotini with Vegan Pesto Sauce

(From Oh She Glows)

Ingredients:

• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 15-oz can navy/cannellini beans (1.5 cups)
• 1 tbsp water
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 4-6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• You can add olive oil to taste if you prefer!

For Pesto:
Add garlic clove to processor and process until finely chopped. Now add in the rest of the ingredients to taste and process until smooth, scraping down the bowl as necessary.

For Pasta:
2-16 oz packages of whole wheat rotini

Cook pasta according to package directions

Vegan Pesto Pasta

Sesame Cherry Chewies

(From Cooking With Trader Joe’s- Skinny Dish)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups organic natural peanut butter
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup agave nectar
• 1 cup dried cherries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix together all ingredients in a bowl. Drop 1/2 inch balls onto a cookie sheet. Lightly press cookies to flatten slightly.
3. Bake 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned. Watch carefully as these cookies can burn quickly.
4. Cool on a rack.

Sesame Cherry Chewies

To conclude, I thought I would include two more of Landon’s photos.

Can you tell how tall he is by this mango pic?

Another masterpiece. We’ll have to work on his angle for his next photo shoot.

Here is the aforementioned photographer, busted making paper towel airplanes.