Veggie Chicken Turkey Patties

One thing Hamburger loves to do is feed himself, so anything he can grab in his chubby little hand and shove in his mouth he'll eat. Crackers, blueberries, even asparagus. These tasty little baby sized patties get your protein and veggies in in one go. Who doesn't love that!?

Ingredients:
8-10 carrots
1 head of broccoli
1 large summer squash
1-2 zucchini squash
10 baby bella mushrooms
1/2 package (2.5 oz.) baby spinach
1/2 large onion
3-4 garlic cloves
1 large shallot
Cilantro
1 lb. ground chicken breast
.5 lb. ground turkey breast
1 lb. ground chicken thigh
.5 lb. ground turkey thigh
1 cup breadcrumbs (or make your own)
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper
Paprika

Instructions:
1. Chop carrots, broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, and mushrooms.

Oooooh pretty colors! (That means "oooooh nutrients" in nutritionist talk)

2. Steam chopped veggies and spinach until cooked. Carrots and broccoli will take the longest, spinach the shortest, so split it up accordingly.

3. In a blender combine cooked veggies, onion, garlic, shallot, and cilantro and blend until mostly smooth. If mixture is too thick add in some cooking water.

Mmmm green goop!

4. In a large bowl combine your meats and green goop. Add eggs, about 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, and salt, pepper, paprika.  Or other spices you prefer. You have to go pretty heavy on the spices because you're working with a giant mass of food. Get in there and mix that shit up! Until thoroughly mixed...

More appetizing photos for your enjoyment...

5.  Set oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly dust a baking sheet with olive oil. Make a small plate of breadcrumbs.

6. Shape your not so green anymore goop into small patties and cover each side with breadcrumbs.

7. Bake for about 40 minutes, until golden brown.









Makes about 30 patties. I leave some in the fridge for the next few days and freeze the rest.

As with most of my recipes, these are just guidelines. This is what I used to make this batch. Last batch I used less meat and different vegetables. It comes out quite well regardless, it's pretty difficult to mess this up. I particularly like to mix turkey with chicken because I don't cook much with turkey so this way we get a little more variety, however using all turkey will make it more dry so you would have to compensate with the other ingredients. All chicken would work fine. So experiment with it and if you come up with some amazing combination let me know! Hint: Add cheese ;)

Happy Hour Friday

(Because my kid just handed me a bottle of Grey Goose)

Everyone knows that little kids just like to imitate everyone... Hamburger has a little extra estrogen to imitate around the house: Trying on shoes, wearing a purse, putting on my lacey bra... Ya know, girly garbage.

But this one takes the cake....

Today Hamburger informs me, "POOP," usually it only means he wants to go see how much toilet paper he can get into the toilet before I notice. So he climbs up the stairs to my bathroom, I follow him, he pushes his step stool towards the toilet and tells me he wants to sit. Ok, I play along and put his potty on the toilet. He goes into a drawer, grabs a tampon, and tries to climb onto the toilet with it!

Time for that vodka!

Happy Friday, Cheers.

Bluum Box - October 2013

Bluum is a monthly subscription for baby (with a little something for mom thrown in there!)

Memberships also include an annual subscription to Family Fun or Parents magazine and can range in price from $14.95-$24.95 depending on whether you want to pay in advance for your boxes or not.

I've been getting Bluum for six months now and although I don't always LOVE everything in the boxes, I always find a use for them. One of the things I do LOVE about Bluum is the fact hat they always send a book, sometimes two, and the quality of the books they send is outstanding. They usually make up the majority of the value in the box and for me the books are high on the list of things I want from a subscription like this. Some of my favorite baby and toddler items have been sent to me in a Bluum box and I look forward to getting it each month!



This month the theme for our Bluum Box was "Let's Make Friends" 

Here's what I received including the company description of the items and a little about what I thought of them...

Little Learners pull out picture book

Introduce first concepts of manners with four double-sided sturdy tabs to pull-out and explore and simple interplay between illustrations and story. This robust padded and cased format promotes tactile exploration. Beautiful and engaging animal illustrations bring the subject to life with simple, rhythmical text that links concepts to clear, real-life examples.

I like this book and it is going to be put away for Christmas. Stefanos will probably understand it a little by then. Teaching a toddler to do the right thing is a challenge so I'll take all the help I can get! He will love the pull out tabs too, I just know it.

Circle Of Friends - Han's Blueberry Shampoo

This shampoo is something to ''Oom Pah Pah'' about. Lathering into creamy blueberry bubbles, this shampoo cleans, conditions, detangles, and adds shine and body. This wonderful blueberry scented shampoo, full of fresh botanical ingredients and formulated for all hair types is tearless and free of Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfates for the ultimate gentle shampoo.

So I didn't actually get this in my box...I got the girls detangler which smells delightful by the way!! I contacted Bluum who agreed to send me the blueberry body wash but they sent me another raspberry detangler! I will update my thoughts on the item if I ever get it!!

Priddy Books - My Little Counting

Basic concepts of numbers and counting introduced with fun activities to reinforce learning. Illustrated with beautiful color photographs.

This is a great book and another that I am going to put in our Christmas pile. Stefanos knows one, two...and that's it so far so we will be expanding on that with the help of this book! 

Circle Of Friends - Organic Makwa Calming Cream

Circle of Friends Makwa's Organics Calming Cream is a non greasy cream that helps strengthen the natural water-barrier properties of skin. It is enriched with the goodness of vitamins A and E. Meant for the entire family, it's an organic product made with natural ingredients.

This is a great smelling cream and it will be used as Stefanos has sensitive skin. I will write an update when we use it. 

B Kids - Pet Miniature World - Cat

This play set from B Kids is a great collectables toy with all pets involved in building the Pets Wonderland.

So I don't love this toy and it seems rather girly to me. Not something I would buy and I was honestly disappointed with it. It's going in our gift pile! 

Luna - Carrot Cake Bar

An indulgent cinnamon-spiced bar with carrots, walnuts, white soy chips, and sweet raisins—drizzled with creamy vanilla icing.

I love me some Luna bars but the carrot cake....they can keep it! I'm glad it tried it though. 

So what do you think of the Bluum box this month? We have some other boxes on their way and we are looking forward to comparing them to see where we are getting the best bang for their buck!
To check them out click here

Homemade Breadcrumbs

If you are like me, and don't like most commercial foods, you probably won't find suitable breadcrumbs. So I make my own out of the bread that I like (I use Berlin Bakery sprouted spelt bread, but there are great gluten free alternatives).

1. Set oven to 170 degrees.

2. Lay out bread slices on an ungreased cooking sheet.

 BREAD.

3. Bake until the bread becomes hard as a rock! About an hour or two, even if you forget about it for longer than that it will be fine. Just make sure you don't burn it, which I'm not even entirely sure is possible, cuz I let it go for about 5 hours last time and it was fine. Ah mommy brain!

4. Break up the bread and toss into your blender and blend until you have bread crumbs! Don't overdo it though because you will end up with flour.

 BROKEN BREAD

That's it! You can also add spices to it such as salt, garlic, basil, etc. depending on the recipe and your preferences. Throw the leftovers into a Tupperware container, it will store for quite some time.

 CRUMBS!

Veggie "Cheese" Sauce Pasta

Like most parents I am always looking to find ways to sneak veggies into my kid's diet. And since Hamburger refuses to eat anything he can't feed himself, this task becomes quite a bit harder. But what kid doesn't love pasta?!

This is a VERY healthy mac n' cheese alternative, the "cheese" sauce is actually made entirely of veggies! Does it taste like mac n' cheese? WEEEEEEEELLLLL... It does taste good! And I don't mind eating the leftovers!

Ingredients:
1 package pasta
Breadcrumbs (or make your own)
1/3 cup butter
1 large shallot
3 small sweet potatoes
6 medium sized carrots
1/2 an onion
1/4 cup raw almonds (or any nut that you prefer)
1-2 avocados (optional)
2-3 garlic cloves
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Black pepper
Cayenne
Paprika

Note: You can really just eyeball these quantities to taste! I give guidelines for about how much I use, but I rarely measure things... Unless it comes to baking ;)

Instructions:
1. Cook your pasta! We like to use spelt pasta around here; spelt is a type of wheat, so it does contain gluten, but spelt is not processed the same way that regular wheat is and therefore retains more of its nutrients. There are, of course, plenty of great gluten free pasta options, including rice pastas!

2. Drain the pasta in a colander and set aside.

3. Set oven to 350 degrees.

4. Chop up the sweet potatoes, carrots, shallots, and onion. Throw them in a saucepan with about 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Cover the saucepan and bring to a simmer until the veggies are very soft, about 15 minutes.

5. In a blender, combine almonds, garlic, salt, butter, lemon juice, black pepper, and cayenne. Press the button and get it as smooth as possible.

6. Then add the cooked veggies and avocado, if desired, and blend until perfectly smooth.

I absolutely LOVE avocado. And it's insanely good for you... Yes I know it has tons of fat but that fat is GOOD fat and therefore it's wonderful! Plus kids NEED fat! So I sneak in avocado every chance I get. I went overboard here and did 3. I would not suggest so many, stick to 1-2. The sauce color before adding the avocado is a nice orange, very similar to cheddar cheese, obviously the more avocado you add the greener it gets. Do note that when avocado is warmed up the taste becomes stronger, so if you really can't stand avocado I would suggest skipping it. But don't, because avocados are awesome.



7. Combine pasta and sauce in a medium sized baking dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs and paprika on top. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

It tastes better than it looks... I need to work on my picture taking skills and presentation...

EASY PEASY!

When I reheat the pasta I like to throw it in a skillet and scramble some egg with it to add some protein, you can add chunks of chicken, tuna, maybe some tomatoes or mushrooms... Whatever you and baby like! Get creative! And let me know, cuz I like new ideas :D. Or just eat it as is, it's quite healthy all on its own!