Busy Weekend

My friend Leigh-Ann joked on Facebook this weekend that she as looking for the energy to do stuff around her house and I asked her to share with me if she found it...well, I may have stolen it. I was way more productive this weekend than expected, especially considering we have a sick baby too.

Saturday morning was mostly spent with Kenzie; poor thing is so congested but still very happy, which is surprising. Her nose is still both runny and stuffy but she's eating and sleeping normally so I'm not too worried. I went on a "Cook for the week" rampage Saturday afternoon. As I've been really digging into the Simply Filling plan through Weight Watchers (and seeing awesome results), Mike and I have committed to cooking/preparing our lunches to take to work rather than eating out. Typically we do this together (which I also love) on Sunday evenings. I started early...

I tried out three new recipes this weekend (and highly encourage you to try them as well):

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Oatmeal

I am not a huge fan of large chunks of pumpkin so I substituted with Honey Crisp Apples (yum!) and I decided to am up the flavor with Pumpkin Pie Spice instead of just the cinnamon and Nutmeg (highly recommend). 

Sweet Potato Pudding

This was for Kenzie- I used actual Sweet Potatoes rather than yams, which is clearly what is used here (the orange color). I chose the Rice Milk over the Almond milk just because I haven't introduced nuts to Kenzie yet. I doubled this recipe and added a little more milk than the recipe called for.

Baby Bolognese

I couldn't find the alphabet letters so I used Arthur shaped noodles from a box of organic macaroni and cheese from Spouts. 

Altogether, each recipe made 5 meals so I froze and stored them in containers for dinners for a couple weeks (the oatmeal made 6 one cup servings). It's true that Kenzie is also getting to the age where she can eat many of the things we can (for some crazy reason the kid loves Salmon!) but I don't always want her eating our meals because the meats can be tough for her (we love our red meat) and sometimes our spice or salt content is too much for her. I have noticed that keeping an assortment of roastable veggies and fruits make great combos for her at dinner time. She will plow through a couple bananas, half a roasted sweet potato and half a pear in a meal. 

I'm not ashamed to admit we are also prepared baby food people. We prefer the Plum Organics brand and are blessed with Grandma and Nonni who help supply Kenzie her yummy food. And of course we are not above all the Gerber snacks that Kenzie loves loves loves... like Puffs, Wheels, breakfast bars, fruit leathers, and Mum Mums. We keep all of those stocked constantly. I find myself in a content mix of making Kenzie's food and having some prepared stuff on hand. 

Today, I focused on meals for the week. For lunch I decided to take a break from my salads and embrace some lean sirloin with roasted onions and yellow peppers paired with steamed edamame. It's fun to keep things new and fresh. So Leigh-Ann, maybe I did steal your energy :)