nuts & bolts mix

 

This idea for the nuts & bolts came from Wendolonia's robot party ideas. She also has the adorable bag topper template to print off. Nuts & Bolts is essentially what Chex Mix is. It is apparently the preferred name for Chex mix in the South. I had never heard of it until recently, but it's the perfect name for a robot party treat! There are probably hundreds of ways to preparing this, but I kept it simple, and did no baking or adding of spices and butter.

Chocolate Chex cereal

Honey nut Cheerios cereal

Pretzel sticks

m&ms

In a large bowl, combine desired amounts of each ingredient. I started by emptying half the box of Chex into the bowl. Then I added a little less than half the box of Cheerios. I added 2-3 cups of the pretzels and about half of a large bag of m&ms. I wanted it to be sweet and chocolaty. I put about 2 cups into each treat bag. The treat bags I got at a craft store in the cake decorating aisle. Then I topped each bag with a robot bag topper and voila! It was ready to go. The kids gobbled them up and asked for more to take home.

traditional bento

Here is a traditional bento that I made for HF. It's brown rice and broccoli with roasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top. On top of the rice is red pepper lips I cut out of the pepper on one of the indents. On the right is a bed of green leaf lettuce with California Rolls. No, I did not make these myself, but saw them at Costco (16 for just over $5. not bad!) On the bottom right is a slicone cupcake holder with fresh cut pineapple. A small packet of soy sauce is tucked in the corner.

Wall-E bento

Wall-E sandwich is turkey inside. Instructions found here. Underneath Wall-E is nuts and bolts robot mix (recipe to come). On the other side is a bed of green leaf lettuce. Cucumber coins with star shaped carrot coins on top, a babybel cheese wheel, a heart shaped silicon cupcake holder with a clementine orange in segments and 2 raspberries inside. I was trying to make it look like a flower. Then a hard boiled egg to look like Eva, Wall-E's main squeeze. Her face is a sliver of olive with nasty blue cookie icing that I had leftover from HF's graduation cake.

apple pie trail mix

 

This was so easy to make and it really did remind me of apple pie. The longer you store the mix, the softer the teddy grahams and granola become. I prefer it crunchy, but it was still enjoyable soft. I like how the teddy grahams have belly buttons. . .

This is one of those recipes that you sort of eyeball until it's to your liking, but I started out with a cup of each ingredient and then added more of one or another until it was to my liking.

1 cup Teddy Grahams

1 cup Granola

1 cup yogurt covered raisins

1 cup dried apples, cut into bite size pieces

Mix all ingredients together and store in airtight container. I put mine into tiny little one-serving containers so my kids and husband could snack on them conveniently. I ended up adding the whole bag of dried apples, and used my kitchen scissors to quickly cut them in the size of pieces I wanted. I also added another cup of granola and a shake more of both the teddy grahams and the raisins. Yeah, a shake. Not a perfectly healthy treat or snack, but not too bad either.

food updates

I haven't been making any original recipes or anything lately. I've been eating boring ole healthy foods and snacks. I did eat more junk than I would've liked to during the holidays, and have made some big fitness and health goals that I am working on. I am also busy preparing for a local healthy cooking class I'll be teaching at the end of this month. I will be doing a demo on hummus and ways to use it, and talking about feeding our children healthy snacks and lunches, the resources I use such as websites, blogs, cookbooks, etc. to find inspiration for ideas and showing bento products and how to arrange them. It should be fun.

I'm going to start doing Menu Plan Monday again. I have noticed that t helps us with our healthy eating habits, and our grocery budget when I plan ahead and you can find lots of ideas through the links of others doing it.

I did get Pioneer Woman's cookbook for Christmas, which is one of the things I wanted. Here are the recipes I've tried:

Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes. OMG these are good! They melt in your mouth and are just delightful. LOVE these. This recipe has now replaced my Fly Off the Plate pancakes, which are also very good and also use sour cream, but these pancakes are much more simple. It uses 1 cup of sour cream and just 7 Tablespoons of flour. You should definitely give these a try. You can find pictures and the recipe here at the Noshery.

Beans and Cornbread (page 101): This recipe is also on her website. This was good. One of those filling, comfort foods.

Tomato Basil Pizza (page 112): This is one of our favorites! This is also on her website.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes (146): Good golly these were good! And you wanna know why? Because there was almost 2 sticks of butter, and a package of cream cheese. Wow. And then we paired it up with her meatloaf (150). FANTASTIC!! You cover it with bacon. Out. of. control. Next time I make it however, I think I will precook the bacon and then make it in muffin tins and sprinkle the bacon on top of each cup and then cover it with the sauce. Yeah, these two recipes are hard on the ticker for sure!

That's all for now. That's a cookbook to pull out occasionally.

bentos 29-32

bento 29:  Ritz crackers with squares of Gouda and Havarti with dill cheeses, olives, carrots, turkey skewered, applesauce with a shake of sprinkles on top for fun, and a chocolate cinnamon bear.

bento 30:  HF's bento- banana cut in half, mini carrots, olives, a spinach salad with toasted sesame seeds, craisins, and roasted almond slivers with a little container of poppyseed dressing, and cocktail sausages.

bento 31:  carrots, strawberry yogurt, pulled chicken, clementine orange, craisins and cheerios mix, and a mini dark chocolate 3 musketeers with mint.

bento 32:  I don't know why sometimes the pictures turn this way. Just cock your head to the right to see it properly. This one has mini spinach quiches, mini pretzels, grape tomatoes, apple slices, and strawberry yogurt.

PB smoothie

We love this smoothie. And you know, it's pretty healthy! If you like Jamba Juice's Peanut Butter Moo'd, this is a good copycat recipe. 

3/4 cup nonfat milk
3/4 cup nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (we use natural)
2 fresh bananas, sliced and frozen
1 cup ice


Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.