Sunday, September 12, 2010

Monday Love

The weekend was beautiful and its back to school tomorrow.  I think its important to start the week of on a positive note so that the sentiment carries on through the week.  It dawned on me though, that sometimes even the kids can get a "case of the Mondays" now and then, so I decided to celebrate Monday with a little love.


 We start with a very yummy honey roasted peanut butter and Nutella sandwich on wheat bread that is cut into heart shapes.  This shows the little extra love from her family that Molly might be looking for on a Monday.  There are 2 large hearts that represent Mommy and Daddy and three little hearts that represent Molly, her sister and her brother.

Next we have crudités (or some fresh veggies cut up cutely but crudités sounds fancier!) served with roasted red pepper hummus.  There are cucumbers and baby carrots that are both cut with a crinkle cut knife, celery and a pepper from our garden that was half green and half red.  That's part of the fun of growing vegetables, you never know what they are going to look like until you pluck them off of the vine.

*side note - Not all kids are going to be jazzed about veggies and hummus but most kids that I know will at least try some vegetables if they are cut up in interesting shapes and/or served with a dip.  If you child doesn't like hummus, try ranch dressing or ranch dip made with sour cream and a dry ranch mix or even honey mustard.

For our fruit side, we cut up some strawberries (you have to take advantage of them before they are out of season) and added in a few red grapes that come from a batch that are particularly crunchy.  I like to mix textures to keep the food interesting.

Finally we have our dessert!  We made a healthier rice krispie treat.  We used puffed wheat cereal that we found in the inexpensive bagged cereal section of the grocery store.  We added the normal marshmallows but cut back on the butter just a little bit.  They taste similar to Sugar Smacks cereal only in bar form and the best part is, the nutritional value is MUCH better because you are using a whole grain durum wheat instead of a bleached rice.  ☺ Eating healthier doesn't mean sacrificing all of you favorites.  If there is a way to modify it to be healthier, then try it.

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