The Scullery, and the Felafel Burger

I have loved a locally owned restaurant for a while now. The Scullery is a quaint cafe and coffee shop in "Uptown" Greenville, NC. The food is fresh, tables are painted in chalkboard paint (and come with a little cup of chalk), and the owners are very friendly! They also make fresh homemade ice cream that is irresistible. Parts of the menu change with the seasons.  See what a local photographer wrote up in her blog here.

The felafel burger is on our list of favorites. Just the right amount of garlic and herbs. Crispy on the outside, warm deliciousness on the inside.  Their description says "Ours is made fresh every day with chick peas, herbs, lemon and garlic, pan fried and served with basil mayo, lettuce, tomato and mozzarella on delicious bread baked at The Scullery."

A great place to eat healthy, fresh foods.  Do you have a local place you love to go?   If so, what do you love to eat there?

Veggie Quiche

I grew up knowing this as Broccoli Quiche, but think there's enough veggies in this one to call it a veggie quiche.  I just love it because it's full of veggies, where many quiches are mostly egg.  I usually throw in some extra broccoli because that's just how I like it.

I also grew up with Bisquick in the original recipe.  I don't use the stuff, I think it's scary, at best, and prefer to use ingredients that I know how to say and know what is in them.  That's why I used an Olive Oil Crust recipe.  After eating some, I recommend only using half of the olive oil crust recipe, making for a thin crust layer, but this week I used the full crust (and just didn't eat all of the crust).

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Veggie Quiche

Crust

10 oz (2-3 cups) frozen broccoli florets, thawed

1 bell pepper, diced

1/3 cup onion, chopped or diced

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

3 eggs

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

1 cup milk

Prepare your crust in a pie dish.  Evenly spread out your broccoli, bell pepper, onion, and cheese.  In a separate bowl, blend together remaining ingredients until eggs are well beaten.  (You can use a blender, whisk, beater...)  Pour liquid mixture over the veggies.  Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when inserted in the center.

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I made this for myself to eat for lunches this week, but my 7 year old tasted it and decided that she'd also like some in her lunchbox.  That's my girl!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Am I the only mom in the world who has kids that don't peel their crayons?  This year I decided to melt crayons into heart shaped ice cube trays, but the most difficult part was peeling all those crayons!  I used the double boiler method with some leftover food cans.  They turned out fine, but I think I took on too much this year, with 2 kids, we had to do enough for about 25 kids.  Hopefully they will use them!  I tied them into tiny cello bags with a bow on top.  I recruited daddy to help, since it ended up being more work than I bargained for.  This might be a great project for parents whose kids enjoy peeling all of their crayons.  It takes a LOT of crayons to do this.

Here's my oldest's lunch for Valentine's, complete with heart shaped PB&J and I hulled the strawberries in a way that, when sliced, looked like hearts!  Daddy wrote the message with a food marker.

I included this card and a simple bead bracelet in her lunchbox:

Hope your Valentine's is full of love and friendship!

Lunches- trying not to be boring!

My oldest daughter has to have lunch packed daily for school.  I actually started doing this when she started summer camp, which was a day camp that she went to all summer.  I will say that I enjoy having fun with this, but I do not go to quite the extreme that some bloggers do. 

I believe that lunch, just like all other meals, should be healthy.  I also believe that kids will be exposed to junk, and that while they should be eating and enjoying the healthful foods, you should not completely deprive them of the things they will see the kids around them eating.  One day they will be making choices on their own, and it will be good to give them a balance.

That being said, here are some lunches, with comments on some:

 This one has chips, homemade salsa, peaches, blackberries, cheese cubes, some homegrown lettuce and a sprig of parsley (and yes, she will eat that), and standing in the middle is 1/2 of a Kashi bar.


This next one here has little sandwiches, fruit strip, carrots and spinach, Doritos, and Kashi Warm Cinnamon cereal.

 

 Above are cucumbers as flower stems, tortilla and cheese flowers, pear slices, strawberry applesauce, Kashi crackers and dip.  Below I did air-popped popcorn, Kashi crackers and cheese, granola and Craisins.

 Below was canteloupe, Kashi crackers, peanut butter, cheese cubes and carrots.

 Above is my black bean salad (see recipes), raspberries, spinach, tortilla & cheese flowers, and pear sauce (Trader Joe's).  Below (one of her favorites) was refried beans and chicken (got heated up at camp), spinach, cheese, tortilla, and grapes.

 Sunshine egg salad over a Sandwich Thin, cheese for the rays, freeze dried peas for the eyes, and an apricot smile.

 Above she got chicken, whole wheat blueberry muffin, bread, spinach salad (with 1 grape tomato), and 1 large strawberry.  Below she got chips and salsa, spinach, apple slices, chicken & cheese.

 She really liked this butterfly, with a Simply Fruit rollup antennae.  The sandwich was tuna fish, and I found some food markers at one of the local arts & crafts stores.  Served with an orange.

 This last one is supposed to look like a palm tree, with apple slice palm leaves, a Flat Out original flatbread with peanut butter for the trunk, cherry "coconuts" and a monkey.  Served with carrots and teddy grahams.

I'm not perfect, but adding in a little creativity makes lunches interesting for my daughter!  There are still many days of just a sandwich with fruit or chips. 

I hope to soon post a recipe of something I do with the leftover scraps of bread & crusts from making lunches.   Perfect for autumn!  Would love to know what some of your favorite autumn recipes are...

Muffin Tins

Sometimes it's nice to know that the items taking up space in your home are good for multiple functions.  I've been thinking a lot lately about muffin tins, which typically don muffins and cupcakes. 

Many moms out there are serving up bento style lunches at home in muffin tins.  It's a way to use up leftovers, offer a variety of foods to your child, and it's also fun for your child to eat out of a muffin tin on occasion.  Here is a blogger who I like to follow, she does 'Muffin Tin Mondays' with her child.

My garden has had an over-abundance of basil and parsley this year.  While I still have a LOT to use, I decided to save some for use in the winter months when my garden is long gone.  I washed mounds of the leaves, big and small, then stuffed a muffin tin full.  Each one is about 1/2 cup of packed basil.  I then filled up the muffin cups with water and placed it in the freezer.  Once frozen solid, I was able to remove the big cubes of frozen basil and place in a large zipper bag and freeze out in the deep freezer.  If you decide to try this and are having difficulty removing the cubes from the muffin tin, try tilting the tin near the kitchen sink and spraying with lukewarm water on the underside.  This should help them loosen up without melting them!

I work an early morning shift at my job so that I have the ability to pick up the girls in the afternoon when school lets out.  The downside is that I have to rely on my husband to feed them breakfast in the morning.  About once a week I'll prepare something that will be healthy or just different from the ordinary stuff.  I think that making a pot of homemade oatmeal or grits, then freezing in muffin tin cups, would allow him to defrost breakfast in portions as needed!

Why not make quiche or breakfast casserole in muffin tins?  This is a fantastic idea for brunches or pick-me-up breakfasts on the go.

Having a casual ice cream social?  Put different toppings in the muffin cups, add some spoons, and it's an easy setup/cleanup!

What about non-food uses for muffin tins?  If you and/or your kids like to work with beads, you can separate out beads by size, color, use tins for different string types, etc.  Easy for hands to reach in and pick out, and keeps things organized!

Use  your muffin tins when cleaning up small things that pile up in the laundry room.  Emptying out pockets?  Hair bows in one cup, money in a cup, crayons... then when you're done doing laundry, or cleaning up, take the tin with you to put those little things away!

What ideas do you have for muffin tins?
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My friend Kimmy chimed in on Facebook, and so I had to share (thanks, Kimmy!):
"I like to make meat loaf in them!! Also at Thanksgiving I make my stuffing in them., called stuffin muffins! :) You can melt down old crayons in them and make new round crayons!!"

Bento Lunches and a Red White and Blue Food

Busy busy busy... We're in the final countdown for lots of end-of-school-year activities.  After this coming weekend things will be a lot less hectic.  This weekend we had an outdoor dinner of grilled chicken (Greek seasoning from Pampered Chef), zucchini and pineapple, some tzatziki sauce for the chicken, garlic artisan bread, garlic and olive oil couscous, and some of this fruit salad, red white and blue for the holiday.  The salad consisted of ripened d'anjou pear (peeled), gala apple, blueberries and raspberries.  All of the berries are just amazing right now.

Last week we had to start packing lunches for our oldest daughter every day.  I didn't want her to feel like she's eating a sandwich every day, so some days I've done Bento box style, and other days I've given her the opportunity to choose what she wants to eat.  One day she said, "Mommy, I want a banana dog on Friday!  It just so happened that I had extra hot dog buns from a cookout, and a fresh banana, to which we added PB&J- voila, you have a banana dog.  Here are some of the Bento lunches:

Bento 1: Not too creative, she ended up just making a sandwich.  LOL.  American cheese and Oven Roasted chicken from Boar's Head; whole wheat bread, strawberries that we picked at the farm, and some teddy grahams.  Got some cute animal food picks designed for Bento lunches such as the ones seen here.

Okay, a little more creative on day 3, maybe.  Hearts and stars for bread, chicken and colby-jack cheese; yogurt tube, organic carrot sticks, blueberries in a cupcake liner, and some teddy grahams.  (Day 2 consisted of PB&J, I'll be blogging about sandwich ideas on another day.)

Week 2, Day 1 (Bento #3): Ants on a log- I used Smucker's natural peanut butter and Craisins (she will not eat raisins); cheese bites that I got from couponing, raspberries, and tortilla strips.

Today, being a holiday, I decided to do a quick fun treat for the family, so I broke down and made red white and blue Rice Krispie treats.  I used 5 cups of the cereal (instead of 6) and replaced the last cup with 1/2 cup freeze dried strawberries and 1/2 cup dried blueberries.  They were 'berry' delicious!  Our 2 year old had never had the regular version of those treats before and didn't eat much because it was so sticky.  The rest of us thought they were fabulous!

Happy Memorial Day!

I'm so thankful for those who have sacrificed their lives for our freedoms.

God bless the families of those who served sacrificially.