Irish Soda Bread Sandwiches

One of the best parts about having St. Patrick's Day on a weekend is the opportunity to celebrate it with family.  We celebrated Nana's birthday on St. Patrick's Day (Happy Birthday, Nana) and we were so happy to have Grammy and Papa out for our traditional Irish dinner tonight.  The girls stayed at their house this weekend so that Daddy could run his first half marathon (WAY TO GO, DADDY!) and Mommy could go to her athletic training on Saturday morning.

Grammy and Papa contributed dessert (chocolate Guinness cake...YUM!), some smoked salmon and Irish Soda Bread that the girls helped to make.  We contributed the corned beef and cabbage, carrots and potatoes.  It was quite a feast.  We were lucky enough to even have some leftovers.

Our main entree is an Irish Soda Bread and cream cheese sandwich.  Molly and her sister did a fantastic job making this.  I had suggested that they use whole wheat flour and we all agreed that it turned out better than the original white flour that the recipe called for.

Our vegetable side is canned green beans.  Molly has been asking for these so we were happy to add them.  Also, our other option was carrots and with a few missing teeth in the front, we were confident that the green beans would work much better.

Our fruit side is fresh strawberries.  This pack had some gigantic strawberries in it.  Molly's little brother had one today that was bigger than his hand.  He was loving it!

Finally, our dairy/dessert is plain old vanilla yogurt.  It will be a nice compliment to the rest of Molly's lunch.

All Better!

Molly is feeling much better.  She made it to school today, had a great day and lived to tell about it.  No call from the school nurse made me a very happy Mom.  Molly was pretty happy too and even had a fantastic night because she finally lost one of her top teeth.  We've been waiting on it for weeks and finally, the tooth fairy will be stopping at our house. ☺

Our main entree is a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich on whole grain bread.  Our cupboards are a bit bare because Mom hasn't had time to run to the store with two sick kids.  This is a great standby sandwich when there isn't much left in the pantry.

Our vegetable side is canned green beans.  Again, not much left on the fresh vegetable front aside from salad.  Besides, canned green beans are so yummy.

Our fruit side is a Macintosh apple that has been sectioned and sliced.  We've had several questions about how to keep the apples from browning.  The long and short of it is the type of apple.  We usually choose Macintosh and Empire apples because they naturally don't brown as much.  There may be a small bit of browning but nothing like a Red Delicious.  If you aren't a fan of these types, try fresh squeezed orange or lemon juice to prevent browning.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is plain vanilla yogurt.  We have no Cho!  We definitely have to make it to the store very soon to stock back up on Chobani Champions.

A Fishy Sandwich

Sometimes something as simple as switching up the bread of a sandwich will get the kids giddy with excitement.  We found the Pepperidge Farm goldfish bread last year but we are trying the soft whole wheat variety for the first time.  Molly's siblings were the lucky recipients of the new bread in their lunch today and they both really enjoyed it.  Here's hoping that Molly feels the same.

Our main entree is an herbed turkey and smoked Gouda sandwich.  We are using the Pepperidge Farm whole wheat goldfish bread, Castle Wood herb roasted turkey breast, Castle Wood smoked Gouda and a few pea shoots to make a fun, yummy and nutritious lunch.

Our vegetable side is canned green beans.  We rinse these so that they don't have the salty flavor that the can usually gives.  Molly really likes these and would probably eat the whole can of them, just like her Mom.

Our fruit side is a red pear.  We found a great sale on pears the other day and stocked up on a few different varieties.  They are really delicious and juicy.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Horizon Organic Tuberz Yogurt in the strawberry variety.  We picked these up at Panera Bread as part of a lunch but the kids were too full to eat them.  Leftovers win again!

Warm Lunch!

Winter is coming into it's own now in Western PA.  This means that we will be using Molly's thermos more often so that she can have something warm in her lunch.  This is the first of many warm lunches to come.

Our main entree is Trader Joe's Gnocchi al Gorgonzola.  This is a HUGE hit with all three of our kids.  It was part of tonight's dinner and Molly asked for the leftovers in her lunch.  It has tremendous flavor and it more filling than you might expect.

Our vegetable side is canned green beans.  These are the no salt added variety.

Our fruit side is strawberries, blueberries and star fruit.  There were lots of great fruits available at the store today.

Our dairy side is a colby jack cheese stick.  This will serve as Molly's protein in her lunch.  We also added some new Club Mini Crackers to go with the cheese.

Finally, our dessert is vanilla yogurt.  Molly will most likely put some of the berries in it so we left it nice and plain.