Repeat!

Molly was so happy with her lunch today that she requested the sandwich in her lunch tomorrow.  Luckily, we had enough left over that we were able to fulfill her wishes.

Our main entree is an Irish Soda Bread sandwich with whipped cream cheese.  This bread is a generations old recipe and we've added our own little touches to it to make it our own.  As I've said before, this generation is making it whole wheat.  Grammy's generation added golden raisins and Nana's generation added regular raisins instead of just currents.  No matter what generation, it's delicious!

Our vegetable side is a romaine lettuce salad with a small amount of light Italian dressing on the side.  We also added a Babybel Cheese as per Molly's request.  We cut a small heart out to show her how much we love her.

Our fruit side is a sliced kiwi.  Molly said that the Kiwi Leprechaun tasted so yummy that she was craving a kiwi again.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is vanilla yogurt with a sprinkle of Trader Joe's Elegant Cocoa Pearls for a special touch.

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.

♣Irish You A Happy St. Patrick's Day!!♣

Our favorite time of year!!!  St. Patrick's Day!!!  We have a great Irish heritage and are proud to celebrate it.  We read stories about how St. Patrick taught the Irish about the holy trinity with a shamrock, we do the traditional corned beef and cabbage, we bake Irish soda bread, we wear our green and watch out for sneaky leprechauns.  We just love it!

Our main entree is green pasta.  It's actually mini shells with pesto on them.  We topped it with some Gouda cheese cut into shamrocks and embellished them with our food safe markers.

Our fruit/veggie side is a Kiwi Leprechaun.  Yep, we thought back to the Frankenkiwi and the Kiwi Elf and went a little wild.  His hair is all shredded carrots, his eyes are mini chocolate chips, his mouth and nose are sprinkles and his hat is plastic from our favorite cake decorating store.  

Our dairy side is Irish emerald moss.  Vanilla yogurt with green food coloring and some mini shamrock sprinkles.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is a few Irish Soda Bread Scones.  Molly goes nuts over these.  Its a great combination of whole wheat flour, dried currants and just a sprinkle of sugar.  YUM!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! ♣

Beannachtam na Femle Padraig!

Lunch?

Molly asked if she could buy her lunch tomorrow.  I don't know what it is about popcorn chicken that makes our girl outrageously happy.  (Her Daddy had the same reaction to Chicken Patty sandwiches.)  Since I chose to have her buy lunch on Tuesday (in case she didn't go to school), we decided that her choice of buying tomorrow would be fine.

Tomorrow is the last day of preschool for the week for Molly's little sister.  This means that they will have their "wearing of the green" and St. Patrick's Day celebration.  Since we are a bit Irish (well, a bit more than a bit), we are sending in a special little something for the teachers.

Green tea and Irish Soda Bread Scones!  The recipe came from my great-grandmother and has been a favorite of our family forever.  I decided to switch it up a little bit and use a healthier whole wheat flour instead of white flour.  I must say, they are pretty tasty and I might just have to make it a permanent switch.

We will do the same for Molly's teacher on Friday.  Just a little something to let the teachers know how much we appreciate the work that they do. ☺

We'll See

Poor Molly can't win.  She is just over that awful stomach flu and now she has a cough and cold.  She looks terrible and all I can do is just give her lots of love.  I think that when your child is sick, it eats away at you as a parent.  So, we'll see what the morning brings for our favorite 1st grader and whether she'll eat lunch at home or at school.  Say a little prayer for her that she gets well and stays well.

Our main entrée is a "tea sandwich".  Molly's Grammy picked up some Irish soda bread for our family and since Molly really likes it, we figured that it would be a nice comfort food for her.  We spread cinnamon honey butter on the two slices to keep them moist.

Our fruit side is a kiwi and a clementine.  These both have a sweet and tart flavor that will both taste great and feel great on Molly's sore throat.

Our vegetable side is a yellow bell pepper.  A nice crunch with a mild flavor.

Our dessert/dairy side is Dannon Light and Fit vanilla yogurt.  Molly requested this because she said it will help her tummy feel better.

Finally, we added a cheddar and mozzarella cheese stick to add some protein to Molly's lunch.  We're not sure if she'll even eat it but just in case, we decided to add it.