Weekly highlights

It’s verrrrry slowly turning into Fall.

V loves school SO much.

Time to get things organized in the kitchen.

Valley girl requested granola for breakfast the next morning (while I tucked her into bed at night) and since I hadn’t made any in a while I decided to give her what she wanted.

It’s so quick and easy to make.  It literally takes under 5 minutes to mix so the only thing I have to account for is when I start because it takes an hour to bake.  I started it at 8 so I was fine, though.

Still making this recipe because if it aint broke, why fix it.  They love love love it and it’s so nutritious.

I added the raisins and let it cool overnight before breaking up the coconutty clusters the next morning.

Yum!  Served with almond milk, it’s been breakfast all week.

Don’t let the look of the jar confuse you…it’s PACKED in there and will probably last another full week too.

My FPIC visited from LA 🙂 so we went out to lunch after picking the kids up from school.  Such a treat.

They loved her (duh).

Go speed racer.

Shall we chat about this dinner?

First I made an almond butter sauce with minced ginger (I’m not sure why it looks puke green in the photo above…).

It also had tamari, garlic infused olive oil, sesame oil, and rice vinegar.

For greens I used the rest of the Napa cabbage from my recreation of my Full Belly salad as well as curly kale.

I massaged the cabbage in earlier in the day so it would have time to break down, but left the kale on top so it wouldn’t be all soggy by dinner.

And then right before dinner I tossed it all up.

I added in mint for the adults, but nixed it in the kiddo version.

I served it on top of white rice and then added almonds roasted in coconut oil, maple syrup, and sesame seeds.

I made these almonds so long ago, but for some reason they got shoved to the back of the pantry.

In an effort to purge the plastic, I have been trying to finish off everything stored in our tupperware, but it is going to be a longer process than I had first thought because there is PLASTIC EVERYWHERE…

In the meantime, I have donated the sets that are cleaned and not in use so they will get another life from someone else.  But not us.  Because of this and this.  No thanks.

Anyway, back to this meal.

I added mint, cilantro, and avocado, and BOY was it good!

A solid hit from everyone.

And it left me so full I didn’t have room for either kombucha or chocolate that night.  So that’s really saying something!

Plant powered (insert fist bump here).

He went on a work trip…

She wanted to go.  😛

And then he came back with “gifts” (aka hotel pads of paper and pens).  They thought it was the best thing ever, of course.

Half of these were free because they were #rummagesale scores.

That said, there is a reason they were ditched by their original owners…

I did get three other cookbooks from the library recently that I need to discuss because I’m REALLLLY into them.  The favorite being all about canning and preserving by ATK. I am really considering working through my fear of botulism before next year’s nectarine and tomato crop comes.  Our freezer is at capacity and it just seems so economical and awesome to can your own produce for the rest of the year!  Stay tuned.

Small Victories is anther library score, which has a few things that peaked my interest, but I’m not totally sold that it would be worth owning.  I’ll make a few recipes and let you know.

See that cough drop above?  Womp womp.  I finally caught the kids’ nasty bug.  My immune system could only hold off so long, I guess.  I really have been thrashing my body lately.  I feel like I am just barely keeping all my balls from falling down.  Like hanging on by a thread.  Once Kyle got home my body really pooped out.  I spent Thursday totally phoning it in as a parent.  Luckily they are decent at entertaining themselves these days.  They played soccer for HOURS and then I got water beads set up for them (because I was doing it for play group the next day at stroller strides anyway) and before we knew it, dinner time arrived.  Phew!

Obligatory pumpkin patch trip.

They had way more fun than this photo would indicate, though.  HA.

I organized a field trip with stroller strides so they ditched me for the friends as soon as we showed up.

V still agreed to be my partner on the cow train though.  🙂

Lula’s!  Thanks to my husband for this treasure that perked up my snotty face.

School photos came back…

He picked this background.  So there’s that.

Hi, this bread is my breakfast all week.

Miyoko’s cultured organic butter is PHENOMENALLY vegan indeed.

Accidentally twinning and loving it.

He had a chocolate kiss for the first time.

I’ve never seen someone savor chocolate the way my kids do (aside from me).  Genetics  😛

Reason number four we are not sad about quitting Costco.  This was so tempting, but I said no, because we are dosing with honey roasted peanuts now and as much as he would prefer to dose this way, I want to keep on the path we are on with the more natural option.