Feb 29, 2012

Leap

I kept Googling images for something that might portray "leap" for leap day, but I didn't want it just about that there is an extra day in February. I kept finding this goldfish jumping from a small fishbowl to a bigger one and I love it. I love the significance of not being stuck where you are, of having the courage to leap into something bigger, better, and more fitting.

Leap.


White rice with locally made all natural food coloring (from food), a baby carrot goldfish with a flax seed eye, rice cheese letters. 


Feb 27, 2012

International Polar Bear Day

It's International Polar Bear Day! Did you know that all polar bears are thought to be left handed? Go lefties!



Some left over ground turkey for the base, and I just used my rice molds for the bear faces. I cut up some olives for the face and sunflower seeds for ears. Super easy and turned out pretty cute I would say! 

Feb 16, 2012

Birthday boy!


 My sweet son's 8th birthday! I had made all of these Valentine lunches then for some reason felt completely befuddled when it was time to figure out a lunch for him, or maybe I just ran out of creativity for the month... Fortunately, he seemed quite happy with the rice and goji berries, and I'm thankful for the letter cutters and rice cheese!

Happy birthday, son, I love you!

Feb 14, 2012

Valentine's Day Foods

I absolutely love celebrating Valentine's Day with the three little loves of my life, they bring me such joy and it's always fun to do something together to celebrate our little family.

My oldest decorated some hard boiled eggs with the rice cheese and the alphabet cookie cutters.


While I was in the shower, my kids cut out these letters out of apples and rice cheese for me, and put them by my coffee, so I would be sure to see it! 


My little one always needs a snack at Pre-K so I made her some heart shaped hearts and carrots, complete with valentine picks. 



The youngest is allergic to beef and there was some ground buffalo on sale and I thought we would try it. I made some small, heart shaped mini meatloaves for dinner. I made up the meatloaf, then used my rice mold to make the hearts and then cook them up! I also made more heart carrots and Roma tomatoes, cut on the diagonal and put together as hearts. My son is very into presentation and fancy drinks and desserts so he insisted we have our sparkling strawberry cider in our pretty glasses with blueberries, all on top of a white tablecloth. What a fun treat! 





Happy Valentine's Day!

I love this one... my favorite Valentines one.

I used beet juice to color the pink rice, and spinach to color the green rice, then put them in my heart rice molds.

I used rice cheese and my Alphabet Cutter Set (which I totally love!) to make the letters on the hearts to make conversation hearts!


Feb 13, 2012

Roses

I saw this done with ham, which is a little more pink, but, turkey will do.

I made little rice cylinders, and cut up sliced turkey into half circles and placed them around the rice to form a rose. I also made some extra turkey bacon,  and rolled them up into roses!

Placed in some greenery of spinach and some craisins on the side.

Feb 10, 2012

Spinach confetti

Triangle rice pasta, beef summer sausages that I cut into hearts, and spinach confetti, cut with a tiny heart cookie cutter!


Feb 9, 2012

Heart Dog

Nothing says I love you more than a heart dog!

All beef hot dogs cut on the diagonal, and toothpicked together as hearts, over a bed of mung bean noodles with a little spinach on the side.

Feb 8, 2012

Sugar high

I had some leftover pizza crust in the freezer, thawed it, cut it into heart shapes, and baked them. I put a little coconut oil and organic brown sugar on them.

I also cut up some strawberries and kiwi into heart shapes which took some time as I was doing it with a knife. I ended up throwing in some cashews and pecans for some protein, but I am pretty sure they just had dessert for lunch!


Feb 7, 2012

Heart shaped eggs.

This really happened at my house.

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook on how to make a heart shaped egg. We don't usually keep eggs in the house, as my youngest is very allergic to eggs, my son breaks out in minor hives and gets a stomach ache, and I also get violently ill for a few days if I have straight eggs, however in baked goods they don't seem to bother me... but I don't bake a lot. My oldest daughter does love eggs though and every now and then I will get some for her and she will make herself over-hard eggs for breakfast, and likes to try her hand at omelets.

After I saw the link though, I knew I just had to try this! So I bought our every few month purchase of a dozen eggs and knew I would have to take more time in this effort.

Step one... I had to google how to hard boil an egg because I don't think I've done that in years. It seems a bit nerve wracking with all the rules and the color change and the shells cracking, but amazingly, they turned out pretty awesome. I had collected the rubber bands and cut my half and half box apart for the molds, and we always seem to have chop sticks around, except mine were square. As you can see by my photo, the round chop sticks would end up with a nicer heart.

So here they are, a bit lopsided and awkward (kinda like me!). It was fun, a great learning experience, and easier than I actually thought it would be!


Feb 6, 2012

Cherry Vanilla

This may seem weird (or not, how about you?) but I have never bought canned cherries before. Again, I was scoping the aisles for things my kids could have, things that were pink or red, but without the food dye. I was also getting a bit bored with our standards and wanted to find something a little different anyway.

Well, unbeknownst to me, they come in different varieties of tartness so the kids weren't very happy about the actual cherries... but I did mix the juice in with some gluten free vanilla and the rice for a cherry vanilla flavor, which they did seem to like. I used my flower rice mold to make them into flowers, topped with a little cherry. The rest of the can of cherries went into a smoothie where their tartness was fortunately somewhat diminished.


Feb 4, 2012

Saturday morning tree

It was a relaxing Saturday morning and a friend sent me a picture of a tree similar to this. We didn't have all the same ingredients, so we used banana, clementine and cherries and made a fun breakfast tree. And look, a little finger puppet monkey happened to be hanging out right at the right time! 



Feb 3, 2012

Share the Love

I really do love my graduated Heart Cookie Cutter Set! We had some leftover gluten free penne pasta leftover from dinner, so for their lunches, I smothered them in honey cranberry chutney. I sliced the apples vertically and then cut them into heart shapes with my cookie cutters, which worked out really well, and the kids had the leftover pieces with their breakfast.

Lunch is completed with pecans, orange slices, carrots and raisins.

Feb 2, 2012

Pink

I often use canned beets and it's juice for coloring food, I love it's vibrant pinkness!

I decided to see what would happen if I used the beets too, and cut up some of the beets with the heart cookie cutters, and used some juice to color the Ka-Me Bean Threads, and there it is! The kids weren't really thrilled with the beets and most of the beets ended up coming back home, but the noodles and the rest of the food was gone!
 






Feb 1, 2012

Valentines Month!

Starting Valentines month... I love pink and red and hearts!

Not a super fantastic picture, and I was working on "what we had in the fridge" at this time, which was pretty much some beef summer sausages that I cut into heart shapes with a cookie cutter. I cooked some red rice the night before, chilled it in a brownie pan overnight, then cut the rice with a bigger cookie cutter the next morning. Super easy and fast. I also made some gluten free cookies (out of a box, of course) to throw in their lunches. We always seem to have box mixes in their house as I buy them when I see a good deal, but they are always last to get used because I don't even like to bake out of a box, so when I feel like we "have no food in the house" we end up with cookies.