I wasn’t very on top of it with my food photography on Monday…
These are actually the only pics I have of my food until dinner. Oops! I have 400 of my kids on bounce houses, though.
My birthday boy had the day off school. He shares a birthday with Lincoln, although the 12th isn’t the President’s Holiday that everyone else gets off. I’m not sure why his school gets back to back Mondays off, but either way, we had planned to go to Kids Gone Wild in Vacaville. I’d never been but many of my friends had. It’s basically a huge warehouse with bounce houses inside. Kinda weird, but the kids loved it, and since the temp finally dipped back down into Winter territory it was a great way for them to get some physical activity without the wind taking their faces off.
We went with a bunch of friends after breakfast, which made it seem very birthday party like. And because I packed them lunches we were able to really maximized our time out. Such a fun day for my big five year old.
Once we got back home…
Just doing what I do best…baking without recipes or measurements. Whenever I attempt to write things down for you guys it messes up my “by sight” technique so I apologize for the lack of pancake/quickbread/cake/muffin recipes that show up here. I need my food to turn out and Murphy’s Law tells me to stay away from measuring cups.
Since I knew I was baking treats to bring in to Pattycakes’ class for his birthday celebration, I signed up to bring in snacks at Valley’s paint and sing class the following day. May as well bang it all out in one sesh.
The only difference was that his got frosting and decorations. Oh, and I made her class’ minis. Because they get a fruit/veggie too.
These gummy candies are from TJs and the coloring is from fruit and veggies (carrots and currants mainly).
I’m not a gummy person (anymore – that was totally all I cared about in my 20s though) but these smelled realllllllly good! They reminded me of “fruitios”. Did you guys ever have those growing up? They were the only “treat” my mom bought us for lunches (or swim meets snacks) and while they were nothing like fruit roll ups (which I was sooooo jealous all my friends got) they were still pretty good. I only started getting them in my lunches when I was in high school, so I am pretty sure my mom was over it when it came to making lunches by then. We begged so hard for processed food!! Man, we didn’t know how good we had it with the stuff she packed for us. Thank you mom!!
I made a pretty big mess beating this coconut frosting, which is probably why the photo is blurry. I bet I had frosting all over my hands.
Ta-da! <3
The chocolate on chocolate was his request to bring in to school. Which differs from the request he made for his party (which is in a couple of weeks). For that he wants a vanilla cake with pink frosting.
Don’t mind me, I’ll just be baking desserts for the next month straight. I think they think I’m a pastry chef.
The cupcakes were vegan because I used aquafaba in place of eggs. I kept them free of most allergens because his school is tree nut/peanut free. They had wheat, but were otherwise dairy free, soy free, nut free, egg free, etc.
My little buddy wanted pizza for his birthday dinner. Can you believe pizza surpassed tacos!? To be fair, my parents are coming this week and I told him he could have tacos when they came. So really he gets both. I feel like he’s a typical five year old now – as opposed to an “allergy kid” or a “foodie kid”. A kid who loves pizza! How cliche! I’m still proud of him for loving all the other stuff I make too so I’m more than happy to give him pizza on his birthday.
I made two pizzas with the Vicolo crusts – one for the kids and one for Kyle. All he wanted for toppings was cheese, pepperoni and bell peppers. Easy enough.
Melt in your mouthhhhhhhh.
I made myself an entire Capello’s pizza, but unlike the last time when I made it on a naked crust, I got the sheep’s milk cheese pizza.
I wasn’t too impressed with the appearance when I opened it, but you never know.
I added pepperoni (I’ve been storing the same package of applegate pepperoni in the freezer for a while and finally finished it off with this dinner), popped it in the oven, and waited until things started smelling goooooood.
OH. MY. WORD.
This is better than the naked crust and way better than the TJs cauli crust. It’s maybe the best pizza I’ve ever had. It’s a soft kinda floppy crust (but you can still hold it like a normal pizza), but once you get over that and don’t expect to be eating bread, it’s major.
Make a wish, my love!
Coconut is considered a tree nut allergen
It is palm fruit.
Okay, where’d you buy the Cappellio Pizza?🙌🏻🙌🏻 And my mom was exactly like yours—everyone had chips and Oreos in their school lunches and I had homemade lunches and fresh baked apple, cinnamon bran muffins for a snack or homemade blueberry corn muffins all sweetened with banana. I thought I was missing out, but now I look back and see all the work and effort that went into our home life the same that you and I do. You get out, what you put in. I remember backing those treats for school bdays and my children were always so proud to bring them in. Their fav was a banana, corn, dark chocolate chip muffin—I called a cup cake-that I would either make with apple sauce or banana—life’s good when children appreciate the heart we put into them. Always remember: The direction you take, is the area you grow. Although we are choosing the path our children travel that journey with us and the means are so much more important then the end. Have an awesome day and many, many, many more healthy happy bdays to your “awesome little guy!”
Nugget! So excited our Nugget market is filling in where WF left a gap. Although the coop had them too I think but probably for way more $$$. Definitely a pricey splurge for a freezer meal but whatever.
Thanks for the inspiring words. It’s been a tough week but we are forging on…