French Toast

To change things up at home from pancakes or eggs I decided to make the boys french toast. I forgot how easy it was to make and I really liked it.  I remember when I was little having french toast as a treat with some  maple syrup and powdered sugar. With how much the boys like bread I thought it would be a winner. I ended up having to cut it up in to little pieces for them but they enjoyed it very much.




French Toast

3 large eggs
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/3 cup milk
pinch of salt
8 slices of bread
Butter for sauteing
Powdered Sugar (optional)

Directions

Heat skillet at medium heat and melt butter. Dip pieces of bread in egg mixture then place in heated skillet. Cook on each side until lightly brown. Serve immediately. Pour maple syrup and powdered sugar on top.

Banana Blueberry Muffins

My boys love muffins and it is nice that they actually prefer my homemade ones over the store bought type. I thought I would add a little extra health to the muffins by adding some old fashioned oats and blueberries to a banana muffin that I have made in the past.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
1/2 cup agave or honey
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 bananas, mashed
1 cup blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl and mix.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients together, minus blueberries.
4. Slowly add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
5. Add blueberries lightly stirring.
6. Grease a muffin tin or line it with muffin cups and fill each cup 3/4 full with the batter.
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

My older son LOVES chicken nuggets. Funnily enough, not the ones from McDonald's but the frozen dinosaur nuggets from Costco. He has been on a major nugget kick and it is driving me crazy that it is all he asks for every night for dinner. It takes a lot for me to steer him in a different direction. So tonight I decided to try making homemade nuggets. I was watching part of the Today show yesterday and saw Catherine McCord who is the creator of Weelicious.com (a site I frequent for food ideas for the kids). She was making veggie nuggets and I thought hmm...it didn't look too difficult so maybe I should try it.

So try I did tonight and I was right, not difficult at all! Actually they were quite easy and pretty quick to make. I think I may have found a new nugget for my nugget nut! I followed the recipe completely so there isn't a difference like I usually post the differences I did with my recipe versus the one I found. So for those of you with a chicken nugget nut in the house, check out this recipe for Homemade Chicken Nuggets on Weelicious.com.

We had leftovers so I popped them in the freezer so they are ready to heat up the next time my son says he wants nuggets!

Quinoa with Black Beans and Avocado Burritos

This recipe came in my email a few days ago and I had thought about it ever since so I had asked my husband to pick up some avocado on his way home from surfing so I could make it. I had all the other ingredients already and this was the final piece. One thing I didn't use was coconut oil (which is in the original recipe) because I didn't have any on hand and forgot to ask my husband to pick some up.

This was a really easy recipe to put together and made quite a bit of food. I ended up making it a burrito filling and added some chicken that I cooked in the skillet alongside for a very full meal. It was so good that my hubby and I both ate 2 burritos. My little guy who is a good eater had a little bowl full of it and enjoyed it so much that it was all over his face by the time he was done.

Quinoa with Black Beans and Avocado

• 1 cup dry quinoa, rinsed
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large onion (the recipe asked for white but I only had yellow so that's what I used)
• 10 button mushrooms, diced
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 2 small avocados, peeled and diced
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• salt to taste

1. Start by cooking the quinoa. I followed the directions on the bag (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water and cooked for 15 minutes)
2. Dice the onions and mushrooms and cook over medium heat until lightly browned and all the moisture is cooked out of the mushrooms.
3. One the quinoa is done fluff it with a fork and then add it and the black beans to the pan with the mushrooms and onions. Stir to combine and heat through.
4. Add 2 tbsp lime juice and reduce heat to low.
5. Stir in sliced cherry or grape tomatoes and avocado and season to taste with salt.
6. Then place however much you want in your tortilla, place cooked chicken on top, fold and eat burrito.

Click here for the original recipe