Christmas cake!

Thanksgiving was a great weekend in our household. Not only did we do the traditional turkey dinner (three times), we had great fun at Christopher's school for the Thanksgiving feast. I wish I took pictures of those kids chowing down on their turkey!

It was also time to get ready for Christmas! We picked up our Christmas tree, put decorations up throughout the house, put together our little Christmas village and I made a cake!

I recently finished reading Ruth Reichel's food memoirs and have tried a few of her recipes. Reichel's "Nicky's Vanilla Cake" from Garlic and Sapphires was the inspiration for my "Christmas cake" below.  We originally called it "Christopher's cake" but after this weekend when Christopher helped decorate the tree with ornaments and fun little candy canes, he said, "my favorite part is putting the toppings on the tree."

"Toppings on the tree" -- it was just another one of those moments when I wanted to call Bill Cosby and tell him how my kid says the darndest things. It's true - the toppings on the cake are the same as the toppings on the tree.

This  is a vanilla cake made with soy butter with a simple powdered sugar icing. The "toppings" are crushed candy.  Christopher "donated" his broken carnival-style lollipop --one of his Halloween scores from last month. I made the same cake for Linda Zolotrow's birthday a few weeks ago and, seeing how it was so festive, I made it again.

A classic - mac and cheese, tube steaks, and broccoli!

Ah! I don't know many kids who don't love mac and cheese with hot dogs!
Our little foodie has a preference for Annie's mac and cheese or as he calls it, "mommies mac and cheese" --as opposed to other mac and cheese served in restaurants.  It's such a simple lunch to pack the next day!

We have a tradition in our home.  Every couple of weeks when Lisa decide to fry up some pretty tasty steaks for dinner, she always makes Christopher mac and cheese with hot dogs! It's become so common in our household -- whenever we have steaks, Christopher knows he's having mac and cheese, hot dogs and broccoli.

I love hot dogs too and with kids, we ALWAYS seem to have hot dogs in the house. And, me, being the cheapest person I know, I don't like seeing food go to waste and would rather save it, eat it, make something out of it or take it for my lunch. But, who really wants to be eating hot dogs all the time?

When Lisa started storing the hot dogs individually, I thought it was pretty darn smart.  When we'd open a new package of dogs, she storing the rest, a couple of dogs at a time, in little snack zip lock bags in the freezer!  So when we get that primitive call for bloody rare red meat, she grabs a set of dogs out of the freezer for Christopher's "tube steak" dinner and next day lunch. And, to save yet another pot from being used (and cleaned), she tosses the dogs in with the pasta water.  As the pasta cooks up, the dogs warm up and are ready to serve with the man and cheese!

Back to the snack bags --> We used to think those little snack bags were such a waste. But now, we use them all the time. We even toss them in the dish washer and reuse them to keep together games that have lots of little pieces, legos, or crayons.

We have an addiction in our household

I will take the first step and admit it...we had an addiction in our household.  I love chips. Lisa loves chips. Our close friend loves chips and even once referred to it as the "food of the gods." 

And, this is how bad it's gotten -- Christopher loves chips too! Christopher has his recommended favorites based on taste, texture, crispyness and color. His teachers know of his love of "spicy chips." THIS IS NOT GOOD. WE KNOW THIS.

It's just that we all have our favorites!!

Pardon all the "product placement."  This is no joke - this is how many chips we have in our house today. This does not even include "crackers" or other snacks like animal crackers.  On the weekend, we're so happy to be home having lunch together, we grab a bag of chips to have with our chicken soup or grilled cheese sandwich or tuna melt. It's just so perfect.

Do we need help?

Fallback Fried Rice

Some mornings, I give Christopher a choice of what he'd like for lunch. It's usually a choice between fried rice and a pb&j -- the quick and easy food to prepare. He always picks fried rice!

One week, he asked for fried rice every day! That's when I altering my recipe for Christopher's fried rice.

Now, my fall back fried rice has: 2 shrimp, 1 1/2 eggs (I use one whole egg and the whites of another), steamed broccoli (usually left over from the night before), about 2 spoons of rice, a spoonful of soysauce and about 1/2 spoonful of sesame oil.  Take me less than 5 minutes to prepare!

Once, I added some carrots. He likes carrots with ranch dressing so I thought he might enjoy a little variety of color and veggies. He came home and said to me, "Don't put carrots in my fried rice anymore." When I asked why, he said he likes it just shrimp, egg and broccoli. And then he added, "You don't have to put broccoli either." Yeah, right.  That's almost the whole point!

Anyways, in schools now, all the kids have these thermoses that keep the food warm. I think part of his enjoyment of fried rice is opening the thermos up at lunchtime and smelling the yummy food that's still warm. It does smell pretty darn good.

Pretty fruits and hidden veggies

Some morning, we just have to start off the day with fruit!

I usually put fruit in Christopher's lunch every day. But, some days, it's just better to have it for breakfast! And, once in a while, when he awakes up a little cranky and has an "opposite" day -- claiming he hates fruit, I try to do a little something to remind what he could be missing.

That fruit salad in the orange peel is really all about eating  with a toothpick! I like those 2-pronged ones since they're not as sharp.

Those muffins are my zucchini carrot mini muffins. All the kids on our block are familiar with these hidden veggie delights. I think it helps that these little treats look like cupcakes.

The fruit plate here is a mango, bananas, strawberry and grapes.

In my next posts, I plan to cover "the No-Thank You Bite," our shared love of spicy chips, and the vegan cupcakes described to me as "the most delicious cupcakes in the whole life world!"

"Some Mommy" for Lunch

When Christopher was 2 years old, he and Lisa had this fun weekend picnic lunch they'd pack when they'd go to the playground together:

bread, cheese, crackers, fruit and salami.

He was so little, he couldn't pronounce salami and it would come out as "some-mommy."
We thought it was so cute, we didn't correct him.

So, this morning when Christopher had a request for "some-mommy" in his lunch, I indulged.

After asking "what kind of cheese is that?" he gave me his smile of approval.
(It was Provolone but I told him it was Monterey Jack cheese. He claims to love Monterey Jack cheese ever since we went to Monterey one weekend and had Monterey Jack cheese.)

The 4-sectioned container makes all the difference. He likes to have all the food in one box but not have them touch each other.