Banana Almond Cacao Muffins

I have recently started making my own almond milk (way easier than I had ever imagined) and love the fact that I know exactly what is going in my family's body as well as the fact that when I make fresh almond milk I get milk AND almond flour... good stuff huh?

With a few bananas browning on my counter and some freshly made almond flour I was ready to try out some recipes. I adapted a recipe from the one I saw Mamma and Baby Love's site.

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas (if bigger bananas only 3)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups almond flour

1 cup chopped almonds

1/2 cup cacao nibs

Next time I will add coconut!

Mix everything together well and make into cupcakes or loafs. Oven at 325 for about 30 min for cupcakes and about an hour for loafs.

A perfect snack for little girl when she woke up from her nap! 

BIC Mark-It Permanent Markers Review

Thanks to Smiley360 I was able to try out this 36 count pack of BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers:

I was generously given this big pack of markers along with some fun crafty things to decorate a witch hat (we ended up making it a regular hat by pulling the pointy part down). 

My little one playing with the spiders that were sent along with the cool hat. She ended up trying to glue them to her paper with no success, but enjoyed singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" over and over. 

I tried for fun writing with the markers on the hat and you can barely make out some letters... it was worth a shot.

This is the sushi costume we made a few years ago for our oldest daughter and now our younger little girl will be wearing it this year. I added some new "fish lines" to the salmon with the markers and it came out nicely. 

I really wanted to use the markers to make some baby food jars into cute little pumpkins, but out of the whole 36 pack there was no orange color :(    UPDATE: I am a silly lady and found a color that is orange, but had to actually write with it to see that it was indeed orange... shouldn't it be easy to see that it is orange?

So, just for fun I tried making them red for Christmas and this is after the first coat:

Overall, I really enjoyed using the markers because the smell wasn't very strong (which is a big issue for me) and they were able to be used on multiple surfaces. Too bad some basic colors like ORANGE were left out.

I received a 36-Pack of BIC Mark-It Permanent Markers for FREE from Smiley360.

Fisher Price House Party

House Party is a a site that gets products directly into the homes of consumers. All you have to do is apply to host a party and if you are selected you host the party and then share your experience.

I apply to host a House Party every so often depending on if I think I will really be excited about the product. Recently I had the opportunity to host a Fisher Price House Party and it was a blast! 

I have a 2 year old and almost 2 month old and love getting together with some mom friends from church and their little ones so Fisher Price was right up my alley.

When we first received the packaged I was a bit overwhelmed by the size! Over $300 worth of stuff was delivered to our apartment's office and I had to have my husband use a dolly to bring it up. I made the mistake of opening it up in front of my daughter and she was SOOO excited, but I explained we may not keep all the toys because we would be sharing with friends. 

This is my husband (and our 2 month old behind him) amazingly putting together the almost 2 feet tall Wheelies Loops 'n Swoops Amusement Park which retails for $45!

I displayed all the boxes to show our guests all the features of the products.

The awesome swag bags that were provided for everyone that included DVDs, CDs, Wheelies and savings!

Coloring books and snacks that included carrots, thin pretzels, homemade hummus, and popcorn.

The Servin' Surprises Barbecue Set which retails for $15. 

 Ice Cream Party Set that retails for $15.

Playing with the awesome toys.

Little People Princess Songs Palace that retails for $50.

It also came with two sets of "princesses" that retail for $7 each.

Servin' Surprises Kitchen & Table that retails for $80! 

The girls enjoyed the boxes almost as much as the toys!

As the host I was able to keep ALL the toys, but I chose to give most of them away to our friends and bless them. 

How to know what's in your food...

The only way to truly know what is in your food is to grow it and make everything from scratch... but the next best thing is to make everything yourself and avoid the middle aisles and freezer section (I will continue to buy frozen organic veggies) in the grocery store.

I have started educating myself on what is in the food I have been buying and was not happy with what I learned. Companies can slap any label they want on a package and we eat it up. From now on I will be looking at the actual ingredient list to see if our family will be consuming a product. Don't get me wrong, if we are at someone's house or my daughter is offered a snack from a friend we will eat what we are offered.

Two blogs I have enjoyed reading and learning from are:

Food Babe

100 Days of Real Food

(I am sure there are many more and would love to know what you look at.)

I want to try and make my own food and snacks for my family, but don't want this to take over my life or take away time from my girls.

Today, I made enough granola to last two weeks and am glad to know exactly what's in it!

(This batch has homemade apple chip pieces.)

Granola Cereal

(adapted from this Granola Recipe):

7 Cups Gluten Free Oats

1 cup Almonds (chopped)

1 cup Cashews (chopped)

1 cup Sunflower Seeds

4 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix the above ingredients in a large bowl.

Next, melt 

12 tablespoons Organic Coconut Oil

1 cup Organic Blue Agave

Once they are melted together add 4 teaspoons of vanilla extract. 

Pour warm mixture over Oat mixture and mix together. 

Finally, spread it all over a baking sheet covered by parchment paper and bake at 250 for 80 minutes. 

Once the mixture cools add dried fruit if you want or when you eat the granola top with your favorite fresh fruit!

I have also made "larabars" (link- 100DaysofRealFood) and hummus last week so easy thanks to my new food processor my husband bought me as my "push" present. I pushed our two daughters out and now I won't have to chop/grate/slice anymore haha.

Second Time Around...

I had my mom stay with us for a whole week and was able to do some freezer cooking again. I wanted to try out some new recipes and get a wider variety for us to eat. 

These are the links to the recipes I made this time around:

Granola- 
http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/04/04/recipe-granola-bars-cereal/

Taco Corn Fritters-

http://onceamonthmom.com/gluten-free-dairy-free-taco-corn-fritters/

Chicken Nuggets-

http://onceamonthmom.com/gluten-free-dairy-free-chicken-veggie-nuggets/

Rice Casserole with Bacon and Spinach-

http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/2012/03/rice-casserole-with-bacon-and-spinach/

Almond Quinoa with Asparagus-

http://angelaskitchen.com/2009/07/31/gluten-free-zer-friday-almond-quinoa-with-asparagus/

Low Carb Enchiladas (used a little goat cheese instead of cream cheese)-

http://dashingdish.com/recipe/low-carb-chicken-enchilada-bake/

Going Gluten and Dairy Free (temporarily)

I am so thankful for the Internet... when my husband decided he wanted to try and go gluten free I also decided that while nursing my second little girl I was going to try and go dairy free to avoid some issues that my first little one dealt with.

So I decided that rather than making different meals for all members of the family we would all go gluten and dairy free for the time being. It seemed a little daunting and I was worried we would only be eating chicken, rice, and veggies every night, but I am so thankful to have access to an online community of people that are also going through a similar diet.

Not only were we going gluten and dairy free, but I also wanted to find recipes that didn't have much tomatoes (since they don't agree with my husband) AND of course were freezer friendly. Hmmm... doesn't sound daunting at all right??


These are the recipes I decided to make. Sadly, raising a 2 year old and dealing with a newborn didn't leave me time to take pretty pictures of everything, but I did take one when I was working on three different meals:

This picture shows the chicken nuggets I made that are cooling, the soup in the middle of being made and the Mexican chicken and rice is on the right. 

I used the following recipes and am quite pleased with how everything turned out. It also took me about 3 hours to make everything and will last our family of four (one doesn't eat obviously since she is only 6 weeks old) for about 10 dinners and multiple lunches with the nuggets.

1. Gluten Free Dairy Free Chicken & Vegetable Nuggets (really good with a dip) from 

http://onceamonthmom.com/gluten-free-dairy-free-chicken-veggie-nuggets/

2. Mexican Chicken and Rice (simple and yummy) from

http://www.elanaspantry.com/mexican-chicken-and-rice/

3. Thai Chicken Soup (it's got a delicious kick) from

http://www.elanaspantry.com/thai-chicken-soup/

 4. Rice Casserole with Bacon and Spinach (we all loved this!) from

http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/2012/03/rice-casserole-with-bacon-and-spinach/

 5. Crockpot Italian Chicken with Potatoes (simple and yummy) from

http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/2012/08/crockpot-italian-chicken-with-potatoes/

6. Gluten Free Shepherd's Pie (not my favorite since I didn't have cheese haha) from

http://www.irresistiblyglutenfree.com/2011/06/gluten-free-shepherds-pie/

I also made a shopping list from things I didn't have in my house already:

2.2 cups ground chicken (I ended up getting turkey)

1 lb ground turkey

6 halves chicken breast

12 oz bacon

1 cup carrot grated

1 cup zucchini grated

2-3 lbs red or gold potatoes

6 oz fresh spinach (I ended up getting frozen since it was on sale)

1 cup celery finely diced

2 cups frozen mixed veggies (could have used fresh)

eggs

1 can diced green chilies

26oz can spaghetti sauce

Italian dressing

salsa

fish sauce

grapeseed oil

4 cups chicken stock

28oz coconut milk 

red curry paste

Just Another Tuesday...

I haven't been very good at doing "crafty" things with Lillian (besides her birthday party, which I will post about later if I feel up to it) and I had a lot of energy for some reason yesterday so this was our day:

Lillian LOVES having her nails "pretty" so we started off with a little mommy/daughter mani/pedi. I soaked our feet and then gave both of us a foot scrub, even though she couldn't stop laughing because it tickled her little toes so much :) 

Next I apllied the color (fast drying kind) and decided to try some polish on her finger nails for the first time. Not sure about color on her finger nails, so we stuck with "sparkles". 

After our nails dried we got ready to head down to the pool at our apartment. I have never had a desire to live in a place that had a pool, but now that we have every day access to one I'm not sure I want to look at places in the future that don't have pools! 

I knew I would have a hard time getting my newly turned 2 year old to wait until her sunscreen dried and was on her for a little bit of time so I took some little paint sponges I got at Michael's for 7 cents and we painted with water in the shade. It was actually a lot of fun and little girl enjoyed it very much.

While swimming I decided to try something I saw on a blog some time ago (wish I remember which blog). You simply take dark construction paper and place whatever you want on it in the sun for a few hours and let the sun bleach the paper and like magic you get a cool piece of paper with whatever image you want.

After pool, lunch, and nap little girl got to play with her "construction paper puzzle" as I called it. I am starting to get her to say all her sounds along with the letters (A is aahh) and introducing "sight words". The first two words I thought of were THE and AND. She had fun putting the letters where they matched up.

Last, but not least, we did another fun activity I saw on a blog a long time ago (that I don't remember which haha) and decided to try it. Little girl knows all her ABCs and can recognize them and knows 1-20 almost perfectly and can recognize them, but for some reason colors were a little harder for her so I thought this game would be fun. 

You simply trace your child's little hand on felt (or really any colored paper) and cut out each tiny hand and then ask them to "high five" a color. She had fun smacking the hands and I am sure if we were on the floor it would not have been so fun for our neighbors so we played on the couch :)

I believe that about sums up our day yesterday and kinda sad that it looks like it's about to rain during little girl's nap because I really wanted to take her swimming agin.... maybe it won't last long. Awww Boston weather- how I am still baffled by thee.