#TestKitchen: Mixed Bean Nuggets

In order to try and provide the boy-o with a variety of proteins we try and include beans whenever we can into his diet, which usually ends up being black beans in things like quesadillas, or brown beans in chili. I stumbled across an interesting recipe the other day for making meatless nuggets which I really liked the idea of since I hate the thought of feeding the boy-o actual chicken nuggets too often. I adjusted the recipe to make it work better for us and the result was a delicious nugget with a crispy outside and soft inside that I can feel good about serving to the boy-o any day of the week!

Mixed Bean Nuggets:

Ingredients: 

• 1 can mixed beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 large egg
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 cup Stove Top Stuffing Mix
• 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
• 1 TSP Montreal Steak Spice
• 1/2 cup grated cheese

Directions: Drain and rinse beans.  In food processor/blender, combine all ingredients until mostly smooth. Remove from food processor, and form into small balls, using about a TSP of the mixture.  Place balls onto oiled frying pan and flatten gently with a spoon into a nugget shape. Cook on medium heat until each side is browned. Serve with some fruit and cut up veggies for a deliciously healthy and kid-approved lunch!

#TestKitchen Adventures: Spinach Pancakes

We've been trying really hard the last little while to find some more recipes for the boy-o that incorporate veggies into them to make sure he's getting enough of the good stuff. I want to feed him delicious food as well, so finding recipes that meet both criteria is important. The latest success story, which has been totally boy-o approved, is Spinach Pancakes! I think they taste pretty awesome too.

Spinach Pancakes:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce (or 1 mashed banana)
• 1/2 cup cooked spinach, drained

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
2. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
3. Heat a large pan or griddle over medium heat and grease with oil.
4. Pour about 2 tablespoon of the pancake mixture onto the griddle, cook 2 minutes or until bubbles start forming on the surface and the bottom is golden brown.
5. Flip the pancakes and cook for 2 minutes longer.

To Freeze: Allow to cool, place in a ziploc bag, label and freeze for up to 4 months. When ready, place in toaster or oven to reheat. 

Not only are these pancakes super healthy, they freeze well, and they're delicious! The boy-o is more than happy to fill his tummy with them, and they make a great option for mom too.

Baby's 1st Birthday (a little late..)

Easter weekend was a crazy one in our household this year because it was also the boy-o's 1st Birthday! We tried to keep his b-day fun on Saturday and then do the egg hunt stuff on Sunday, so that he got to distinctly celebrate both rather than having them mushed together. (As a kid whose birthday was always Thanksgiving weekend, I know that pain all too well!)

Like many parents I was a little concerned about giving him a super sugary birthday cake, but I didn't want him to miss out on the fun. Carrot cake is a bit of a birthday tradition in my family, since it's both my Dad's and my favourite cake. My Dad's Mum used to make the BEST carrot cake ever, so there was no question that I wanted to use her recipe--it just needed a little tweaking to make it a bit healthier for the boy-o. So a few quick substitutions and we were on our way.

It's amazing how much of that cake he managed to shove in his mouth! I'd say he liked it!

Here's the recipe I used to make his cake:

Baby's 1st Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

- 2 cups whole wheat flour (you could do half and half to make it a bit lighter)

- 2 TSP baking soda

- 1 1/2 TSP baking powder

- 1 TSP salt

- 2 TSP cinnamon

- 1 cup sugar (down from 2)

- 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce (applesauce instead of oil)

- 4 eggs

- 2 cups grated carrots

- 1 1/4 cup drained, crushed pineapple

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a large bowl.

2. Now add the sugar, applesauce, and eggs. Beat hard by hand for one minute.

3. Add carrot, and pineapple to the mix. The batter should be quite moist.

4. Grease bottom of 9X13 inch pan (or something of similar dimensions), and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until center is set.

5. Cool and frost as desired.

It's pretty traditional in our family to add cream cheese icing to our carrot cake, and because he mostly just smeared the icing all over the place I used regular cream cheesing frosting. (The cream cheese part is actually quite good for him) If you wanted to keep the cream cheese taste without the sugar that goes with it, you can easily mix up some regular cream cheese with some pureed fruit and use that as your icing instead.

Because his birthday was PIRATE themed, I wanted to make him a pirate cake, a well as a carrot cake. So he got his own little "Smash Cake" and the adults got to eat the Pirate Cake. I think it turned out pretty good--and it was certainly delicious!

The Pirate Themed cake, made in a large number ONE pan!

The boy-o had a great time celebrating his birthday with family and friends and I was super excited to make up all the pirate themed stuff for his party. I've already posted about the chalkboard sneak peak, but here's a quick look at some of the other "pirate themed" ideas we came up with.

Seaweed Wraps, Fish and Chips, Sea Water, Canon Balls, etc. Delicious! 

Thanks to the Rabbit Hole that is Pinterest, I found all sorts of ideas for naming foods pirate related things and came up with some simple and delicious snack ideas, like Fish and Chips--combining regular chips with some goldfish in a large blue bowl. My personal favourite though were the Canon Balls--hot meatballs thrown into the crockpot. Zero effort, but always delicious!

Monthly Photos-Day 1 through till 11 Months

Similar to the chalkboard, I love making crafty things, and I knew from the get-go of the party planning that I wanted to make a month-by-month banner to show the changes in him over a specific period of time. It was so hard choosing which photos to include, but it was a lovely trip down memory lane looking at them all, and it really is amazing to see the differences when they're all compared side by side like that.

Pirate Cupcakes. Arrrrrgh!

Because we ended up having two parties (one for immediate family, and one for baby friends) we decided on cupcakes for the friends party and had the pirate cake for the family party. Dollarama, God I love that place, actually had pirate themed cupcake holders which was amazingly perfect, and a few pirate themed picks stuck into the cupcakes completed the decorating.

In any case, we had a wonderful time celebrating, I didn't get all sad and weepy--honest!-- and the baby boy was spoiled by everyone. We are so very lucky to have such amazing family and friends, you made the boy-o's 1st Birthday extra special.

Volcano Cake!

Speaking of birthdays I just realized that I never ended up sharing the awesome volcano cake I made for my hubby's birthday! It was pretty epic and I really believe that it deserves to be shared. It was made with 1.5 boxes of cake mix, an entire jar of jam and a whole lotta icing! If you've got a special birthday coming up that requires a Volcano cake don't panic--it's not as hard to make as you might think. Read on for my step by step instructions on how to create the perfect (and scientifically accurate!) Volcano cake.

Ingredients:

- 1 box Chocolate cake mix

- 1 box Rainbow Sprinkles cake mix

- 2 small (or one large) container of chocolate frosting

- 1 large jar raspberry jam, warmed and thinned

- small bag of stick pretzels

- bag of shaved coconut

- green food colouring

- miniature plastic dinosaurs

Instructions:

1. Mix both cake batters according to directions in seperate bowls and preheat oven. Fill one round cake pan (8x8 or 9x9) with chocolate batter, and one round cake pan with rainbow batter. Bake according to package directions and set aside to cool.

2. Using left over batter from both bowls make your own "marble" batter in an oven safe glass bowl by adding a little of one, and then some of the other. Bake the marble batter until a toothpick comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

3. Loosen the chocolate and rainbow cakes from the tins and stack them on top of each other with a layer of raspberry jam in the middle.

4. Once cooled, loosen the marble cake from the bowl and place ontop of the other two layers, again with a layer of jam between them. So you should now have three layers of cake, with two layers of jam. Using a large serrated knife trim on an angle the bottom two layers to create a sloped edge. Using the same knife cut out a small circle shape in the top of the smallest cake to create a little well that you can fill fill with jam. (Like picture below)

5. Once the cake is assembled you can apply your first layer of frosting to help seal it. Make this rough, it doesn't need to be neat and precise.... it's a volcano after all! Place in the fridge overnight to chill cake and set frosting.

6. Remove from fridge and apply a much thicker layer of frosting taking to care to help "shape" your volcano into a nice sloping shape. Again, this doesn't need to be smooth and shouldn't be, because it's meant to look like rock. Make sure to leave your hole at the top so you can add the rest of the lava later.

7. Take the remaining jam and warm it up to thin it out a little bit. Keep spooning it into the middle of the cake in the hole you carved out until it starts to over flow and drip down the cake. Add some spoonfuls to the natural patterns that emerged to thicken the lines up a bit. Put cake back into fridge as quickly as possible to "set" the jam by thickening it back up when it cools. This will help it to stay in a flowing pattern without all pooling on your tray instead.

8. Place some of your coconut shavings into a bowl and add a few drops of green food colouring. Mix thoroughly to coat the coconut. It doesn't take much food colouring so just keep mixing it. Once you've got your coconut coloured you can take a pretzel stick and dip one end into some of the leftover frosting and then roll it around in the coconut to create a little tree. Stick as many trees as you'd like randomly into your volcano. 

9. The finishing touch is to add a few plastic mini dinosaurs and you're all set! Keep cake chilled until you're ready to serve and enjoy!

The cake looks awesome once it's cut as well and you can see all the layers inside. The lava even started to drip down on the inside too. Yuuuuum! Happy cake making!

Birthday Sneak Peak

It's almost here--It's almost here!! The boy-o will be turning one on the 20th of April and I can't believe it's less than 2 weeks away already. I've decided that I need to get my act together a bit more and get going on his party decoration stuff and getting things organized (loot bags, food lists etc.) There's so much to think about when you're doing it all yourself, but the cost savings will be totally worth it! I can't wait to make his Pirate themed cake too!!

In the meantime, I've been working on making the boy-o a "birthday chalkboard" after seeing some of the lovely ones that my friends had put together for their wee ones. They're such a great source of inspiration! I tried downloading some photo editing software to design it and ended up getting frustrated beyond belief, so I just stuck with simple Paint. Although it's much harder to fix errors, it's also much simpler to work with as there's way less of a learning curve. I'll get the chalkboard printed out on an 8X10 paper and framed, and we'll use it as photo prop for our little mini photo shoot.

Here's a sneak peak of the chalkboard:

I think this will make a nice colourful keepsake, and I did it up in the colours of his room and play area (Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green) It wasn't that hard to make once I gave up on the fancy software, and I would encourage you to think about making one to celebrate your little one's birthday milestones. 

Colour Me Happy: Pasta Dying

I love making crafts--and when possible I prefer to make my own supplies as well, rather than buy pre-made stuff, because that's half the fun! I've started looking after a two-year old in addition to the boy-o, and I wanted to come up with some fun craft ideas that she would enjoy doing while the boy-o was napping. One of the things that was always a huge hit at the daycare was making rainbow coloured jewelry. I've used all kinds of materials in the past including FruitLoops (edible accessories!), beads and pasta. I didn't have FruitLoops or beads on hand, but I had tons of pasta and some food colouring, so I dyed my own "beads" for necklace making. It's super easy and the colours turn out nice and bright! I made Yellow, Green, Blue, and Red.

What You Need:

- a bunch of pasta noodles

- a ziplock bag for each colour you want

- as many colours of food colouring as you want

- rubbing alcohol

- wax paper

- paper towel

Instructions:

1. Place desired amount of pasta in each of the ziplock bags.

2. Splash a little rubbing alcohol into each bag.

3. Add a few squirts of food colouring to each bag, one colour per bag.

4. Roll the bags around and around to make sure the pasta gets well coated with the food colouring mixture. You can let the pasta sit in the bags for a few minutes to make sure it soaks in well.

5. Dump the ziplock bags out one at a time onto a thick pile of paper towel to absorb any extra food colouring mixture.

6. Transfer pasta from paper towel to wax paper to dry. (It really doesn't take very long!)

And when your pasta is all dried you'll have beautifully coloured "beads" all ready for necklace making or any other threading activity you want to use them for!

Mamas in Business For Themselves

You know who's awesome? Mamas. You know who's super lucky? Me! I have the very distinct pleasure of having TWO groups of mama friends to share the journey with. One of them in an online group that's been together since our babies were little beans in our bellys, and the other is a group of local moms I met when Peter was just a couple months old. Our family has been incredibly blessed to have these ladies and little wee ones in our lives, and today I want to show you just how amazing some of these ladies are!! Not only are they busy with all the demands of being a mama (some to multiple kids!) but they've taken on the task of starting up their own businesses to become Work From Home Moms as well.

Today's blog post is going to look at some of the businesses and products that my online group of mama friends have to offer. They range from things like homemade clothes such as Tutu's and Bows, to sewn stuffed creations, and even re-useable cloth diapers!

Clothes and Accessories

1. Jammy Pops Creations: 

Tutus galore! This work from home mama has two little ones on the go and just recently started up her own children's clothing business where she specializes in tutu's and dresses for your little princess! I've also seen pictures of her wee prince in one of the tutu's as well, and he looked fab! Located in the UK, Jammy Pops Creations welcomes custom orders and would be more than happy to work with you to create exactly what you've dreamed of! 

2. Pretty Little Things by SweetPea:

This fab mama creates headbands and hair accessories that range in size from bitty baby to classy lady! She has two wee ones at home and still manages to find time to get creative. Her darling daughter does most of the modeling and it's hard to say whether the head pieces or the model are more adorable--but the two combined is an AWWWW! overload. Based in the USA, Pretty Little Things by SweetPea welcomes custom orders and designs. Let this mama create something amazing for the little diva in your life!

3. TUTU Pretty and Accessories:

Tutus and hair bows are the specialty over at TUTU Pretty and Accessories! This hard-working mama has four kiddos and her darling baby girl is the model for most of her outfits. These amazing outfit combinations are the perfect way to create exactly what your little princess desires. The Tutus are available in sizes ranging from infant to five years old and would make an excellent "Cake Smash" outfit, or for any fancy occasion. Based in the USA, TUTU Pretty and Accessories welcomes custom orders and would love to chat with you about your special order needs!

Cloth Diapers

1. Fluffy Duff:

Cloth diapers have come a long way from the kind your grandma used! If you're looking to start into the world of cloth diapering, or if you're already old hat with terms like AIO2 and Pocket Inserts and are looking for some new and exciting ways to make and use cloth diapers, then you need to check out Fluffy Duff! These diapers are made by a cloth diapering mama to two little girls who wanted to improve on the options that were already out there, while also offering super fun prints. Located in the USA, Fluffy Duff welcomes custom orders, but only accepts so many at a time to keep wait times down--so get yours in today!

Handmade Keepsakes

1. Handmade by Her:

If you're looking for some unique home decor with a family orientation to them then look no further! Whether it's the perfect Mother's Day gift or a special pick-me up for an amazing mama in your life, Handmade by Her has got what you need! Mama to two little kiddos, and based in the UK Handmade By Her welcomes your custom orders and requests for wooden plaques, artificial bridal bouquets and much more!




2. Get Stuffed: Handmade Creations and Keepsakes:

This busy mama of four (!) specializes in stuffed creations including sewn animals and fabric crowns for your little prince or princess. Owls are how it all began, but there are new additions to the Get Stuffed family arriving, including Pegasus and Mini Dinosaurs. Custom orders are welcome, and this Austrian based mama would love to hear from you about your special requests for the little ones in your life!

Share the love and support your fellow mamas!

World Book Day!

I've posted before about the importance of reading to your little ones to help foster a love for reading from an early age, help develop language skills, and stimulate the senses with bright pictures or "Touch and Feel" books. But with today being World Book Day it seemed like an opportune time to visit this important topic again. We read to the boy-o every night before bed, and sometimes during the day too when he's willing to sit still long enough for a little cuddle. Some of his old favourites are still strongly preferred, but we've introduced some new favourites into the mix as well.

Currently the boy-o's favourites include: The Belly Button Book, The Barnyard Dance, and B is for Bear. We have a lot of Dr. Seuss books that we read pretty frequently as well. There are so many excellent children's books out there it can be hard to choose which ones to buy--which is why I'd suggest that if you don't already, register your child for a public library card and go speak to your local librarian! They're excellent at providing age appropriate books that will be of the most interest your little one. 

Some of my favourites that we don't currently have which are aimed for more of a pre-school audience are:

1. Oink-A-Doodle-Moo: My sister was actually the person who introduced this book to me and I think it's so fantastic it's now become my go-to book gift! It's basically barnyard telephone gone horribly wrong! It's very short with only a few words on each page and full page pictures. It provides lots of opportunity to be silly and explore how the game of telephone can go wrong..

2. The Llama, Llama Series: There are several books in this series and they're all fantastic! They help teach concepts like patience and feelings in a fun way. The Llama Llama books are very creative and are written in a simple rhythmic style that helps to keep the attention of littler littles. The illustrations are also wonderful and you'll certainly enjoy accompanying Llama Llama on his adventures.

3. The Lady With the Alligator Purse: This book was always a big favourite at the daycare I used to work at. There's an accompanying song you can sing the book along to, but even just reading out the rhymes is great fun. It's a silly book with excellent illustrations that stretch the imagination to the world of the impossible. 

Canadian Authors:

Guy Gavriel Kay:

And finally, being Canadian I have two Canadian authors whose work I really love that I'd like to share with you as well. The first is an adult author, and I own ALL of his books and eagerly await the announcements that a new one is coming out. Guy Gavriel Kay writes Fantasy books and the worlds that he creates are truly astounding. I've listened to him do a book reading before where he explained that his books are loosely based on historical cities and civilizations and that makes me love them even more! My favourite books by him include The Finovar Tapestries, Ysabel, and Tigana. 

Melanie Watts:

The second Canadian author that I'd like to share with you is Melanie Watts. She writes children's books and is quite well known for her Scaredy Squirrel series, but she also writes a fantastic series about a cat named Chester! We have two of the Chester books so far, and although these are definitely meant for pre-school+  I look forward to being able to read them to the boy-o one day because they are quite funny and very creative. Chester the Cat likes to try and take over the story and "re-write" it as it goes along with his red marker. I highly recommend this series to everyone! 

But most importantly, whatever kind of book it is you enjoy reading today on World Book Day pick it up and do some reading--and read to your little ones. The love for reading starts early and as parents we should do all that we can to help that love grow!

Your Turn: What's your favourite book and who introduced you to it?