Besides preparing that meal, I also got everything organized for my two menu items for the baby shower: a green salad with mandarin oranges & candied almonds and coffee ice cream punch. I washed and cut up 56 cups of green leaf lettuce (whoever invented the salad spinners is an absolute genius!), toasted and caramelized 5 cups of candied almonds, diced green onion and mixed the dressing of canola oil, honey, cider vinegar and parsley. The shower went very smoothly and the coffee punch (a recipe courtesy of my sister's friend, which I have made several times for various functions) was nearly gone before we even served the lunch! I have a small amount of salad leftover and a big bag of leftover fruit salad from the shower to serve for meals this week. I'll make a post about the shower soon too. I have lots to catch up on this week!
Given the special occasions of the weekend, I only planned two meals for the week and it looks like we'll be having lots of leftovers.
1) Shredded BBQ beef sandwiches with green beans and fruit salad. Sundays are my favorite day for crock pot meals and with the shower consuming a large part of the day, I needed something that throws together super easily in the morning and smells good when I walk in in the late afternoon. It makes enough for leftovers and I even got to send some along with my brother, Taylor, who sat with the kids while they napped today. (Craig had to attend the diaper party at the same time as the shower.)
2) Continuing on with week #6 of my SOUPapalooza: Black bean tomato soup with cilantro lime cream. http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1835256 Doesn't that sound awesome? I'm missing my subscription to Cooking Light! Such a great resource - and I've been without it for about a year now. Maybe I'll renew soon? Anyway, I haven't actually prepped this recipe in advance - very unusual for me - but I just didn't have time and it seems to be a pretty easy recipe so hopefully it's not too time consuming during the week. Probably what I'll do is make it up one night after the kids are in bed and serve it the next day. I have a few more soup recipes waiting in the wings for the weeks ahead so soupapalooza shall continue!
Will has been extra sweet and appreciative lately with meal time. Lately, when he sees me setting his plate down just before we wash his hands, he runs up to scope out what we're having and says something like "Ooh, mommy, that looks delicious!" or "Mmm! Thank you mommy!" How could you not want to spend extra time making his meals special after responses like that? It's all the encouragement I need to keep making food healthy and fun for him. He still often refuses the main dish, but I've learned to take it in stride and I make a point to give him several sides that entice him. He LOVES his fruits and veggies and he's very good about sitting "still" long enough to enjoy a meal with us instead of wanting to get down immediately, so I appreciate his good habits.
He's also very sweet with Sophia at meal time. He watches her and makes a point to tell me what "she wants", i.e. "she wants her water cup, mommy". He's also been spotted trying to help her with finger feeding. :)
And for my sweet Miss Sophia... I am feeling guilty. I have basically been on autopilot with her meals for the past few weeks. Still homemade and still healthy. But I've taken for granted that she's already been offered a wide variety and so I'm just serving the basics that I'm comfortable with instead of continuing on with creativity. She did try grapes last weekend - cut up into tiny pieces as a finger food - but that's about the only new thing for her in awhile. So that's my goal for the coming weeks: getting serious with more finger foods and trying new twists on her meals.
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