FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Nutrient Dense Banana Pancakes

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Oh hey! Starting this out with… It feels really wonderful to be creating content again. Fancy meals are rarely a thing over here, so I’ve struggled to find my place over the past year. But after surviving over a year with the most toddler-y toddler, it’s been brought to my attention that I have some valid content to share (thanks supportive family and friends!). So here goes! And a few recent pics of Ez fun 🙂


I’ll touch briefly on where Ezra is at in his food journey as it’s easy for things to look extra perfect on the ‘gram. Ez is a much stronger personality than Haven was at this age and thrives when he feels in control and is given notice when transitioning from one activity to the next (especially when the current activity is fun and the following activity is… not). The kid is a breakfast monster and loves pancakes, french toast, steel cut oats, yogurt, and fruit. He definitely front loads his calories! Lunch gets a little trickier, but is still fairly easy. We’ve found that the earlier the lunch, the lower the potential for hangry, and the best chance of a pleasant meal. He’s pretty open to whatever we serve, but he def has a strong presence for cucumbers or fry shaped veggies during this time. Or soup… he lives for soup! Dinner has been difficult. Remember that calorie front load blip? Between breakfast, lunch, snack, and nursing on demand, he’s front loaded his calories pretty well. Dinner brings new challenges as activities are winding down and, it’s becoming clearer by the day, that bedtime is near. 


Our solution for this has been low pressure dinner, which falls in line with both the Feeding Littles and Big Little Feelings courses that we love. It is not a big deal for us if Ez doesn’t want to sit at the dining table the minute we sit in the dining table. Often we’ll leave his high chair pulled out and he’ll climb up a few min after we start eating (see where that control thing comes into play?). We apply the “always provide a safe food” rule, especially when serving new foods. And that’s where this pancake recipe comes in. Pancakes are devoured over here 100% of the time (by both kids)! And we will often serve him what we are having as well as some fruit and a green smoothie to drink. Sometimes he works his way through the plate, but sometimes he doesn’t. But since we are low pressure, we don’t sweat the food waste that comes with not forcing foods. The important thing is exposure – providing food and letting Ez decide (“You provide, they decide” per Feeding Littles).


But in addition to exposure to foods, it’s important to me that our safe food feel relatively complete from a nutrient standpoint. I loved the idea of the Feeding Littles pancake recipe, but they were a little flat for my taste and had so much potential. Adding almond flour and hemp hearts really helps fluff up the pancakes as well as add a ton of good fat and protein. And zucchini adds fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin B-6, among several other nutrients. Serving a more complete safe food ensures that Ezra is fuller longer, getting the nutrients he needs, and feels in control of his meal. They’re not a bad “complete” snack for mama either!


What are some of your toddler’s safe foods?

Are meal times more challenging than you anticipated during these toddler years?

Baby Breakfast: Green Pancakes

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Nothing could have prepared me for how much work feeding an infant would be. Perhaps I made life more difficult by going the Baby Led Weaning route, but at the time {6 months} it felt like the right approach. Five months later {at 11 months} I couldn’t be happier that we toughed out the messes and the meal prep. Fixing Ezra’s meals for the week is still a ton of work, but I’ve come up with a few “go to” recipes that make it easier. And seeing how independent of an eater he is just lights me up. His fine motor skill development and appetite for textures and flavors are pretty incredible.

I created this Green Pancake recipe as a solution for weekday breakfasts. I wanted a meal that was packed with nutrients, sized/textured for self-feeding, and easy to make in bulk then freeze. I’ve been modifying this pancake recipe in some form over the past decade – it’s wonderful!

I use a cookie scoop to make baby-sized green pancakes. I keep a few in the fridge for the current week and store the rest in the freezer for future breakfasts. I’m guilty of snacking on a few green pancakes here and there too!

5 Easy Ways To Keep Your Health Game Strong This Summer

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I don’t know about you, but bathing suit season totally snuck up on me this year. Between starting a new company, moving in with my boyfriend and his daughter {what!}, and creating content for FoodFash, I was struggling to keep up with me. After I completed all of the new company “musts” and got everyone settled in the new place, I created manageable habits to keep my health game strong this summer {and beyond}.

1. Daily Green Smoothies

Whenever I fall off the fitness wagon, my first step towards positive change is re-introducing green smoothies into my morning routine. If I can have control over one thing, one thing, every day, it’s a nutritious breakfast that knocks out a few servings of fruits and veggies. When impromptu meetings and other life distractions kidnap my day, I can go to sleep knowing that I consumed approximately three servings of roughage that day.

I also have the constant struggle of trying to find a plant-based protein powder without stevia on the ingredient list. Although I’ve turned to stevia during major cleanses when absolutely zero sugars are allowed, I try to steer clear of stevia {mostly because I don’t like the overpowering taste}. When I received Bob’s Red Mill Nutritional Boosters, I was over-the-moon excited to see their protein powders are plant-based and sweetened with monk fruit, not stevia! The fact that they are also made with prebiotic and probiotic fibers are a welcomed bonus. Scroll to the bottom of this post for my favorite fruit and veggie packed smoothie recipe.

2. Vitamins

For a long as I can remember, I have always teetered on the edge of anemia and Vitamin D deficiencies, making daily vitamins an extra important part of my daily routine. Keeping my vitamin bottles in the bathroom near my toothbrush has been a helpful reminder to take my ever-growing list of vitamins before I leave the house. And, by teeth brushing point, chances are high that I’ve already finished my green smoothie and I won’t get nauseas from taking vitamins on an empty stomach.

3. Stocking the Freezer

How many times have you decided to go out to eat because there’s nothing in your refrigerator? For us, that was becoming a daily excuse. I started stocking the freezer with chicken, salmon, shrimp, and green veggies. By doing this, we had almost every protein/veggie dinner combo covered and it started to get really impossible to make up excuses. Pro tip: Shrimp thaws incredibly quickly and this recipe is extra delicious.

4. Water

Water used to be the most simple box to check when I had a desk job. I’d fill up a giant bottle of water that I’d make myself finish before leaving for lunch and I’d repeat the process before leaving for the day. Boom! But when I’m working on a construction site or out of my car, water is the easiest thing to forget. Keeping reusable bottles of filtered water in the refrigerator and making a habit of taking one with me when I leave the house helps water intake when I’m mobile. We also started keeping a water carafe at the dinner table so we can refill our waters without interrupting our meal. And we have a general rule to finish our waters before clearing the table.

5.  Quick Cardio

I am thabest at being too busy to exercise. But fitting in 30 to 45 minutes of cardio is really as easy as just doing it when you’re eating nutritious food, taking vitamins, and drinking enough water. I do not like doing any major exercising in the morning as I feel ravenously hungry and tired throughout the day. But a quick cardio session before I get ready in the morning has really helped increase my energy levels in an exponential way. And the yoga studio near our new place has a 9am practice, which allows me to fit in one to two classes per week as well.

I hope that you’ve found this list both helpful and manageable. Best of luck with keeping your health game strong this summer! Click here for $3 off coupon for any Bob’s Red Mill Nutritional Booster.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Breakfast Taco Egg Muffins

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Tyson Foods, Inc. The opinions and text are all mine.

Growing up, weeknights were super busy. Between my mom bringing home work and my endless amount of homework, I don’t have too many memories of eating dinner together. But what I do have are loads of memories of eating breakfast together on the weekends. Whether it was stacks of pancakes, cast iron egg dishes, or bowls full of steel-cut oats, the two of us always made time for weekend breakfasts.

Fast forward to today, when I’m the adult glued to the computer. I try to make time for homemade meals during the week, but they are typically rushed. More evenings than not, I am in my own cooking world, scurrying to take pictures, while my boyfriend reads a book at the kitchen bar. We eat, we catch up about the happenings of our day, and then it is off to editing and writing.

But weekend breakfasts! Weekend breakfasts are still my time for a forced, but oh so welcomed, slow down. Before plans or chores or errands, there’s breakfast. And since we have my boyfriend’s daughter every other weekend, it has become increasingly more important for us to slow down to enjoy weekend mornings and each other.

And because I was comfortable in the kitchen at an early age, I like to make dishes that she {a 3-1/2 year old} can help with, too. These dishes are typically pretty simple and don’t require a lot of steps because my focus needs to be on her versus timing everything just perfectly. And that’s where this Texas-inspired “breakfast taco” egg muffin recipe using Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked TURKEY PATTIES comes in!

Jimmy Dean® Patties, along with the other ingredients in this recipe, are super accessible and can easily be found at your local HEB. And since they are already fully cooked, they eliminate a few time-consuming and messy steps {like discarding hot grease!}. And for us, that means we get to the fun part of cooking, the assembly part, much more quickly.

There’s some prep work in this recipe that she’s not quite ready for, like shredding and chopping. But once I took care of that, whipped up the eggs, and evenly distributed the eggs into the muffin tin, it was her turn to sprinkle the cheese, onions, potato, and sausage on top of the eggs. And because the Jimmy Dean® Patties are already cooked, there is no worry of her handling raw ingredients! That means there is also no worry of undercooked meat within the egg muffins either.

These egg muffins are super easy to serve and fun for the entire family to eat. The Jimmy Dean® Patties give the egg muffins a wonderful savory flavor that makes the muffins feel fancy enough for a special occasion {like Mother’s Day}, but still simple enough for any old Sunday. And this recipe is simple enough to double, triple, or make ahead if you’re planning a get-together for a larger group.

 

Using Jimmy Dean® Patties chopped roughly fifteen minutes off of my breakfast preparation and cleanup time. That is fifteen minutes I was able to share between teaching the little one about cooking and engaging in conversation with my two favorite people. And it filled our bellies with a super protein packed breakfast so we could take on the day!

You can find all these delicious Jimmy Dean® products at HEB in the breakfast meats section of the refrigerated aisle. If you’re looking for more traditional breakfast taco recipe, click here for the Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked “Breakfast Taco” recipe. And with this HEB coupon, if you buy Jimmy Dean® Fully Cooked Product, you’ll get a Large Egg 6ct free {expires 5/16/17}!