May 2012

May Foodie Pen Pals

by Lisa on May 31, 2012

I really love to get mail, especially when that mail is a package full of foodie goodies. It’s no wonder I enjoy participating in Foodie Pen Pals!

This month’s box came from Jessica of What Would Jessica Eat. I was so excited when I saw the box on my doorstep and when I opened it to see this:

a bag of hemp seeds
sugar free peach preserves
Cappuccino Larabar
A Kind bar
Coconut Cacao Bliss
Chocolate Tortilla Chips
Dried Mangoes

I’m so excited to try these bars! I’d love to find a recipe to bake with the peach preserves and cacao bliss {though not likely in the same recipe!}

I loved the chocolate tortilla chips. Food Should Taste Good is one of my favorite snack chips. I wasn’t sure how to feel about chocolate tortilla chips but they were delicious! Crisp and crunchy with a hint of salt with a chocolate finish. I dug into the mangos as soon as I opened the box—dried mangos are one of my favorite snacks!

I’ve been wanting to try hemp seeds for awhile but still haven’t picked them up at the store. How perfect that Jessica sent me a bag to try? I can’t wait to put them in a smoothie!

Thanks so much, Jessica, for an awesome foodie pen pal package! This month I sent a box to ~~a reader~~ a brand new bloggger! Martha, I hope you enjoyed all of your treats! Head over to her site to see what was in my box.

Want to join Foodie Pen Pals next month? Here’s the deal!

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

Fill out the formto participate.

Have you discovered any new fun foodie finds lately?

{ 7 comments }

Honey Mustard Salmon

by Lisa on May 30, 2012

There are a few qualities that I like in my weeknight meals:

Quick.
Easy.
Short ingredient list.
Full of flavor.

If the entire meal can be made in one baking dish, that’s even better.

I put this dish together a few weeks ago on a whim, thinking that the flavor combination could work. They worked so well that I’ve made it once a week since then!

Honey Mustard Baked Salmon

by The Splattered Apron

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15-20 minutes

Keywords: bake entree salmon

Ingredients (serves 2)

2-3 tablespoons honey mustard
1-2 tablespoons minced tarragon
1 lemon, zested and sliced thin
salmon filet for 2 {a pound or less}
less than a 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
a spray of olive oil
baked kale

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the baked kale in a baking dish.

Put the salmon filet on top of the kale.

Spread the honey mustard evenly over the salmon.

Coat with the tarragon and lemon zest, sprinkle with panko bread crumbs.

If you have spray olive oil, give the panko a very light spritz, otherwise drizzle very lightly.

Cover the salmon with lemon slices.

Reduce the heat of the oven to 350 degrees.

Bake the kale and spinach for 15 minutes. If you prefer salmon to be cooked more, continue baking and check in 5 minute increments.

Serve immediately.

Disregard the fact that the panko bread crumbs are on top of the lemons in the pictures. Go by the recipe, it’s better.

Kale and salmon are two super foods that I could eat every day. If it’s possible for a dish to be light and hearty at the same time, this is that dish. The lemon keeps it fresh and bright while the honey mustard provides a sweet tang.

This dish has earned a permanent spot in my dinner rotation.

Enjoy!

{ 1 comment }

Stroller Running

by Lisa on May 29, 2012

Running with a stroller was never something I thought I would do. If you had told my pre-pregnant self that after the baby was born, I would prefer running with a stroller to running without, I would have thought you were crazy.

But, that’s exactly what has happened. For the past three and a half months, with the exception of one run, every run I’ve done has been with Caroline. I missed her during my first solo run. It was a bad run because I wasn’t pushing the stroller. Don’t get me wrong, stroller running is hard but for me, it is so much more fun. When I take Caroline with me, I’m not just pushing her around, I’m interacting with her. I don’t have a running partner but I do have my 9.5-month-old sidekick who loves to talk. Her babbling keeps me entertained the entire time. When we approach a hill, I tell her about it and how I feel. I tell her if I think we can make it the whole way without a walk break or if I’m feeling a bit sluggish. I push myself harder because my daughter is with me. I talk to her like we’re running together, as I hope some day we will.

Instead of thinking of the stroller as a hindrance slowing me down, I use it to my advantage. I seek out hills and push the 24 pound stroller {with a 19+ pound baby in it} up the hill at a steady pace. My triceps burn by the time we get to the top. My workout time is very limited so if I can squeeze an upper body workout into my run, I will.

The downside? It still feels strange to me to hold on to something and keep my arms stationary while running, but I’m getting used to it. I take more walk breaks than I would like, my pace is certainly slower and if someone gets sick of being in the stroller, I have to cut my run short.

For me, all of the benefits far outweigh the downside. I’m so glad I gave stroller running a chance. I plan to do the majority of my training runs for the Army Ten Miler with Caroline; hopefully it will make me even faster on race day. Now that I have been running with Caroline, I don’t really want to run without her. I look forward to lacing up my shoes and heading out on a run with Caroline as often as possible.

{ 7 comments }

Scenes from the Weekend

by Lisa on May 27, 2012

Excited for the long weekend.

startofthelongweekend

Saturday morning photo class on the Mall.

Lunch outside with my two favorite people. Already, she has so much sass!

Ready for Caroline’s first dip in the pool! {She loved it}

A little shopping.

And there’s still one more day to go!

Please be sure to thank a member of our Armed Forces today!

{ 4 comments }

Feeding Caroline

by Lisa on May 25, 2012

When it came time to introduce Caroline to solid food, I gave the process some thought. I wanted to be sure she experienced food in the best way possible so that she can have a good relationship with food from the start. Here are some of the choices we have made for this process. Please remember that every baby is different and that you should consult with your pediatrician before introducing solids to your child.

Caroline eats the food we eat
I’d say we’re about 80/20 when it comes to clean eating. Rather than feed Caroline packaged baby food, I have been preparing her food and will continue to do so. I’ve tasted jarred baby food and I don’t really like it very much. Why would we feed that to Caroline? Of course, when we travel I do take a pouch of organic baby food with me for convenience. We’ve seen though that the processed food does not sit as well with Caroline’s stomach, so we try to limit feeding her pouches of food for dinner as often as we can.

When it comes to organic or conventional, I follow the dirty dozen list for buying organic fruits and vegetables. I also buy HappyBaby Organic puffs, yogurt melts and rice cakes. I buy organic milk and yogurt for us, so Caroline will also drink organic milk when she starts drinking cow’s milk and she eats organic whole milk yogurt. I do have trouble finding organic cheese, so that is normally conventional.

dirty dozen list {Source}

Caroline feeds herself the majority of her meals
Since she was very hungry and ready to eat at 4 months, we started her on pureed cereal, oatmeal, vegetables and fruit. At her six month well child visit, our pediatrician advised us that we could begin giving her poultry and dairy. I’ll tell you, the idea of pureeing chicken turned my stomach. Rather, I poached chicken breasts and fed it to Caroline shredded into pieces the size of a rice kernel. I slowly increased the size of the pieces of chicken over a few weeks until they were large enough that she could feed herself. Once Caroline reached that point and was also feeding herself puffs, I started giving her chunkier foods to try. Mashed peas instead of pureed. Small diced cubes of butternut squash. Small pieces of cheese. Lentils. Chick peas split in half. Of course, some foods are naturally spoon fed, like oatmeal and yogurt, so I still feed those to Caroline, even though she likes to hold the spoon and guide it to her mouth.

Is this method considered Baby Led Weaning?
I’m not sure that it is. Caroline’s food is always in very small pieces so that she either uses her pincer grip to pick it up piece by piece or she picks it up by the fistful and shoves it in her mouth. She’s quite the little lady. What’s different about our approach is that while Caroline is feeding herself we are not giving her large pieces of food to experience. Instead, we’re making things easy for her to get into her mouth and chew {with her gums}. We also feed her with the mesh feeder every now and then, usually for banana or avocado, mainly because both of these foods are slippery. We tried the larger pieces the way baby led weaning suggests, but Caroline gagged a couple of times and it was enough to make this worrywart of a mama change her methods.

We’ve found that a combination of fresh purees and small pieces of food has worked really well for Caroline. It may not fit into a specific method of feeding, but it works for us which is all that matters. She enjoys the process of eating and has not yet met a food that she does not like.

DSC_9672 (2)