Menu planning? / art / and a bit more

Menu Planning - What's that?

I was asked by a reader a few weeks back -  "What does a meal plan look like in the wiseman house??How do you find the time to make everything??"

Lets start by answering the first question.  I will address the second half in tomorrow's post. We don't have a menu plan.  I used to plan all the meals every second Friday; then make sure the groceries were all bought and so on.  I found that I was spending too much time researching what to cook and then things would happen and the planned meals were not mad; then food would be wasted.  So sometime over this last winter I stopped pre-planning my meals.  I like it better this way - some of my best cooking comes from just opening the fridge and getting inspired but what's in there.

To give you an idea of what C Monster eats (he does not always eat what we do - he is 2 and 2 year olds are picky - at least mine is) I decided for the next 3 days I will post a diary of everything that goes in his mouth plus recipes if applicable.  As you will notice as you read C Monster food intact we are not perfect he also eats a lot of crap - well sometimes.

Saturday April 3rd - C Monster's Food Diary

Breakfast: 

Organic Spelt Waffles with Organic Maple Syrup 

Strawberry & Kale Smoothie

Breastmilk

Morning Snack:

12-14 Organic Raw Unsalted Cashews

1 PCO Toddler Berry Granola Bar

Strawberry & Kale Smoothie (left over from breakfast)

Lunch:  

He refused to eat

Glass of Organic Almond Milk

Breastmilk

Afternoon Snack:

Kiju Organic Apple/Grape Juice (%50 juice / %50 water)

Supper:

1/2 Slice of Cheese Pizza from Amato

Glass of Organic Almond Milk

Breastmilk

Evening Snack:

1 Square of Chocolate

1/2 Box PCO Raisins

4-6 Organic Unsalted Raw Pistachios

Homemade Herbal Iced Tea

Breastmilk

 

 Strawberry & Kale Smoothie Recipe

300g frozen strawberries (1 bag)
5 curly kale leafs vines removed
1 banana peeled
3/4 cups yogurt
1 cup apple juice
2 tbsp maple syrup

Place Strawberries in blender and crush using your blender's ice crushing mode. Once all large chunks are gone add Kale and half of the apple juice blends scraping sides occasionally until kale is mostly chopped. Add all remaining ingredient and process until smooth. Makes 3 - 4 smoothies.

I place C Monster in his sippy cup with a few ice cubes; when he done I put it in the fridge - he knows to ask for it when he wants it back.

Organic Spelt Waffles Recipe

1/3 cup Spelt flour

1/4 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

2 tbsp maple syrup

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup milk

1 tbsp melted butter

2 egg whites

1/4  cup plain yogurt

1/2 zuchinni, shredded 

1 1/2 tbsp mixed seeds

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In another bowl beat the egg whites until they are just stiff peaks (it’s better that they are a little soft than over beaten). Mix all wet ingredients (minus eggs) into the dry ingredients until just combined. Preheat the waffle iron.

Add the egg whites to the bowl and fold together quickly.  Brush or spray the hot iron with a little canola oil and then cook the waffles per your iron’s instructions.

Serve with butter, and maple syrup.

Makes 5 waffles.

Art - crocodile

Yesterday C Monster did some painting; I am particularly proud of this one.  He told me it was a crocodile. I see it do you?

Coxwell &  Fairford 

After some residents in our are complained about too much trew trafic the city temporarly blocked off one section of Fairford at Coxwell - to see if it would improve things.  The youth of the neighborhood did not waste time to take over this section of pavement that is now safe for them to play in.

 

Looking Forward To

Seeing Christophe reaction to his easter egg hunt and finally building a box around our vegetable garden tomorrow.

Kitchen's here and more...

This morning

It's gorgeous out, you would think it is summer today. C Monster and I spent the morning outside; me cleaning the front yard and him drawings with chalk; ridding his tricycle; helping out with the cleaning; playing with his cars.  We also cleared out our little flower patch; we picked all the flowers that had grown - as I want to plant some vegetables here this year; Carrots and Onions.

Now lets rewind backwards and take a look at yesterday...

C Monster Talk

I have to say some of the stuff that comes out of my sons mouth is too cute.  Here is a few conversations.

A toy and him this morning were having a conversation at the table:

C Monster :”whats this?”
 
Toy : “yum yum me gona eat it”
 
C Monster : “Oeuf”
 
Toy : “num num”
 
C Monster : “mine”
 
Toy : “me gona eat it”

This one is his reaction to going to Sports Ball at a different time of day. See he started level 2 in Sports Ball (ages 2-3) this week the class is at 9:45 instead of 9am. Geoff dropped us off half way and we walked the other half in the stroller (we used to get dropped of at the door). Geoff dropped us off in front of the Donlands Subway Sation.

C Monster in the car: "more vroom vroom doing doing" - translated "more car ball" or "we did not drive far enough we are not at Sports Ball"

C Monster as I place him in the stroller "cho cho doing doing?" - translated "train ball" or "are we taking the train to Sports Ball"

When we got to Sports Ball we had to pass the door and park our stroller; in the winter we used to bring it in with us because their was construction happening in the stroller parking area.  As we approach and pass the door:
“There it is yeah”
“doing doing ohoh”
“no doing doing”

When he finally understands we are going:
“yeah doing doing”

The Kitchen Arrived

C Monster’s birthday present finally arrived today (I was just one month late). We got him a toy kitchen set from WonderWorld Toys.  I have to say I was a bit disappointed when I opened the box - the description on line was a rubber wood kitchen.  The top and bottom are made from laminated MDF and the round contoured bright bits are foam.  I we would have known this in advance I am not sure it would have changed our mind on what kitchen to get for him but it might have.  I was expecting all the parts except for the little window on the oven door to be rubber wood.  That being said the kitchen is really nice; lots of storage space for all his stuff and the most important thing is that he loves it.

C Monster’s Space Part 3

I was waiting for his kitchen to arrive to do the last segment of C Monster’s space. Like I said perviously we have an extra small home so you need to maximize your space usage as much as possible also it is important for me that C Monster has space to play and store his toys in both the living room and the kitchen as these are the 2 rooms most used in our home.

In my kitchen I have a few open shelves at the end of my cabinets - one section is allocated to toys; again I use the same bins that way toys can be rotated around easily.  In the hallway that connects the living room and the kitchen in order from the living room to the kitchen are:

His tickle trunk (dress up box) - I always stash a few toys on top of it when I am cleaning (in this picture is his abacus and xylophone).  Next is his potty and after that his new kitchen.

To make the space more kid like without making it look horrible I framed a few educational posters and mounted them on the wall.  The frames are designed in a way that the posters can slip out easily and be changed.  We have about 20 posters and I try to change them once every few weeks.

So there you have the Monster’s space... after we are done landscaping and figuring out our back yard I will post about his little corner outside.

One of A Kind Show

Yesterday Grandmama, papa, C Monster and I went to the One Of a Kind Show. It's running at the Exebition Center until the end of the weekend. This is one of my favorite places to shop and to get ideas from.

C Monster was a champ and listened very well to us all morning and afternoon (well until he passed out in my arms during a nursing break. For those of you with kids big or little the show is ready for you. First little ones get in free. They have a nursing room with lots of chairs and change tables; they also have a microwave for those of you that are bottle feeding.

For the kids 2 and up there is a complimentary child care center (you get 1 1/2 hours free) it's a first come first serve - keep that in mind. We talked about dropping C Monster off for a bit but I just could not bring myself to do - he was having lots of fun running around with his papa.

What did we get?

• A Watch from Patina Canada for me.
• Extra funky underwear for Geoff by the candi factory.
• A wooden tractor for C Monster from Thorpe Toys. - let's talk about Thorpe for a second. I love their toys C Monster now has the tractor, the plane, the boat and the car. You can really only get their toys at shows (you can order them via email but the shipping is more then the toy) The plane was around 13$; the tractor 10$ and the one person car was under 5$, the boat was around 13$. The quality of the toys are fantastic - C Monster is pretty rough with his stuff and these are all surviving very well.
• A Nugs for C Monster. - The gut selling them said they were extra solid as long as you stayed away from the ones with the long legs and arms. So far it survived many throws... lets see if it keeps up. These were just so cute and C Monster really loved them.
• A modern and stylish tea cozy from Tenacious Life. - This is something we had been looking for, for what seems forever.
• A Dragon puzzle for C Monster from Sleepy Hollow Creations. This is C Monster 3rd puzzle from Sleepy Hollow. They are mode from wood; and when I asked her about her paints she said they are all food grade. If I remember correctly the dragon was 24$ - the quality and hours of amusement C Monster gets from the puzzles make it money well spent.
  
• For our sweet tooth we got honey and honeycomb from Honey Pie. I want to try to make honeycomb ice cream.

Worth a mention

We would of loved to buy everything we saw that we liked but at-last our pocket books and the environment can not handle that. So here are a few things we though about getting but did not - some of wish I did buy, but the good conscious consumer in me told me I did not need them.

• L'Atelier du cheval de bois; he has some of the most beautiful hand crafted toys I have ever seen in made in Canada. We stared at them for a very long time but could not justify buying C Monster any of them as he already had tones of everything.
• billy would designs; innovative and creative jewelry and accessories made from recycled and reclaimed wood. I so wanted the EarWings.
• Stand Up; not only is this clothing company trying to make a difference in the world with donating a portion of each sale to help various causes world wide - they offer very fashionable funky designs for t-shirts. We both wanted one of their shirts but could not justify adding another t-shirt to our already overflowing dresser drawers.

If you live in Toronto you should definitely try to check out the show, I now actually try to wait till the show to buy stuff we need - I just finished going without a watch for 3 months because I wanted to see what would be at the show.