Mission Accomplished

My dad grew up in the 1950's. I love hearing stories of his childhood and thankfully Dad still enjoys telling them. Story has it when he was a boy he had to eat a hot breakfast every morning. Be it oatmeal, malt o meal or cream of wheat; it did not matter as long as he ate something hot to "stick to his gut."
My first thought of that was, 'that so would not fly today.' If I told my kids hey you must eat a hot breakfast everyday and no waffles or toast would not cut it. I envisioned fits and complaints. Which then turned my thinking to how spoiled American kids are (mine included!) I thought of other cultures and nations who gladly eat their grains plain, thankful to have a meal. I thought of the poor and impoverished, the homeless, those who would be happy for a hot meal. And I thought that I needed to change my kids thinking about breakfast.
So a few weeks ago I decided that we were going to eat oatmeal(unprocessed) at least once a week (preferably more) for breakfast. That first morning I dished up a half serving of oatmeal (1/4cup) and laid out some toppings on the table. They gladly garnished the oatmeal with dried fruits and honey. Then they took the first bite. Total looks of disgust. They were completely unimpressed. They ate a few bites, begrudgingly. I am sure they whined, most likely complained. Needless to say that first day they did not finish their bowls.
I was undeterred. If anything more persistent in the fact that things needed to change.
So a few days later it was oatmeal again. This time I put about 2 tablespoons into their bowls. With the challenge that if they ate that they could chose something else to eat if they were still hungry. With thoughts of chocolate covered waffles they got through the oatmeal. Probably more honey than oatmeal but they ate it.
Week two: I upped the amount a tiny bit.
Week three: They discovered brown sugar.
Week four: They happily eat the oatmeal with no complaint and don't need the waffle afterward.

I would say: "Mission Accomplished!"

Hey Dad, bring on some more stories. I have some children to raise.

The Tale of Three Sioux Indians

This is the story of Brother Black Bear, Little Blue Flower and their mother Princess Bare Feet.

One Monday morning the three Sioux Indians joined together with other tribes for a day of fun and learning.

First the children colored pictures of Native American in tradition clothing as...

One of the mothers did an overview of the similarities and differences of different regions.

Then each tribe shared what they had been learning.
Brother Black Bear shares about the Sioux tribe including the loin clothes they would wear while hunting.

The boys decoration on his robe. Also note his awesome head dress.

The cradle board Little Blue Flower made to carry her baby, Blue Eyes. The Sioux mothers would carry their babies everywhere in their cradle boards. If the mother needed to do something she would hang the baby on a tree.

Little Blue Flowers dress. I wish I would have gotten a better close up of all the bead work as it is ADORABLE.

One tribe did a reenactment of Chief Pontiac and the affects of small poxs. Did you know the English infected blankets with the diesease and distributed them amongst the Native Americans?

All the kids in their costumes.

Our tribe on the stairs.

After each family shared we had a feast. Every one brought different foods the Native Americans would have eaten.
Corn chips, beans, hominy, hominy with cactus, vegetable mush, wild rice, smoked turkey, dried meat, smoked fish, nuts and berries. (not pictured but also sampled; cactus pear, raspberries, meat and potato soup, elk sausage) It was all so tasty.

I tried fish eggs. Salty but not bad.

When all the indoor stuff was done, the kids went outside to enjoy the snow. They made forts, went snow boarding and had an absolute blast!

The boys stayed outside for hours while the girls came in to warm up and make some crafts.

It was such a fun day!

The three Sioux Indians traveled home that day being enriched by the others, knowing that community is important and sharing our stories is important too.

Adventurous Eater Meme

The Very Great Taste Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp Pretty sure this is the same as catfish.
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich Many many times.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Stomped the blueberries with my own two feet.
19. Steamed pork buns-I think so but the steamed part makes me wonder.
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans beans and rice
25. Brawn, souse or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava see this post
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (Clam chowder minus the sourdough bowl.)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects I seem to remember chocolate covered ants
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut- YUMMY
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal McDonalds everything but Big Macs
56. Spaetzle see this post
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV taste only, I can not stand beer but my hubby is a beer snob and he makes me try stuff.
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill -perhaps a deer killed by a car
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate ? I love chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell (?) crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish apparently there is a difference between carp and catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (Lobster yes, "thermidored"??.)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake ? I think I have

I had to look up on wikipedia many of these dishes. So many things I have yet to explore.
Thanks to Diane for this fun food meme. If you do it yourself let me know so I can see how adventurous you are when it comes to food.

For Those Who Like Food

Mediterranean Monday!
With two ethnic foods remaining, we decided to bring dad along for Woody's Oasis. Before we had kids Dave and I enjoyed going there. Now it was time to introduce the kids.
We chose meat grape leaves, chicken schwarma with rice, falafel, toubolli, greek salad and pitas with hummus.

For dessert we had baklava and fingers.

The kids were a bit squeamish at first about the grape leaves. I mean really, they look weird. But they taste oh so delish. The boy thought they were awesome. Little girl ate one, enjoying the filling but still not impressed with the leaf.

They loved the chicken schwarma. And were indifferent about the falafel. Little girl liked the hummus, the boy did not. Hubby could not get enough of the hummus.

Yum, Yum and YUM!
I feel blessed to have adventurous eaters. Ethiopian is the next food of the ethnic roster. Should be interesting.

Daily Plate

After being SO diligent during the month of January, I slowly stopped tracking on My Daily Plate. In February, I did track half-heartedly. Then I got bronchitis and workouts were more sporadic. ARGH! I have been floating around the same weight all of Feb and March. Give or take a pound, I have been at the same weight.
So Daily Plate, I am back. I am going to be as diligent during the month of April as I was during the beginning of the year. I have to be, the triathlon is 2 months from today.

OH YEAH...my sister won the weight loss challenge at her work yesterday. She has lost over 30 pounds since the beginning of the year. Conrats, sis! You rock.

Secrets From My Food Diary

It's official, I have successfully logged every bite of food I have eaten for 31 days. The entire month of January. I started out writing in my notebook and tracking the basics, then on the 7th I found The Daily Plate(TDP) and kept at it electronically. At first I thought I would do it occasionally on TDP but found it rewarding and meaningful to keep at it. There are a lot of things you can tell about a person by reading their food diary. And lucky for you mine is public so you could read it for yourself if you so desired.
Here are a few secrets from January:
Guilty pleasure- Right Bites Chocolate Chip cookies (Keeblers 100 calorie snack packs)
I love the Hibachi Grill, we ate there twice. I had to enter it under a different restaurant to get it as close to possible.
I also ate at Subway 3 times. I don't consider this fast food. I did not eat what I would consider fast food (McDs or BK) at all. Yeah!
I have found I can eat the blandest of breakfast food with a glass of orange juice. I completely switched to healthy cereal (Go Lean by Kashi) and homemade oatmeal. I actually find them flavorful now at the end of the month. At the beginning, not so much.
I have reconnected with salads. Salad bags used to go bad before I even opened them. (Good intentions.) Now, I find I enjoy a salad every day or every other. I played around with making my own salad dressing but finally settled with Newmans Light honey mustard. Yum! I top my salads with a variety of things including, red peppers, carrots, almonds and rice noodles.
I get plenty of protein.
I get plenty of fiber.
Yogurt is a good safe snack. I stock my fridge with lots of different flavors. We try to have one a day. It has become the kids favorite snack.
I LOVE orange chicken. The sauce I make from scratch and it still has a lot of sodium. BUT my recipe is 2/3 less calories than my favorite at Applebees.
I have greatly improved by water intake but I still have some low intake days.
It also tells you about my fitness. What exercise I did for the day and how many calories I burned. Sometimes I remember to include the mileage. As for accurate swim, bike and run mileage check out the side bar.

• Swim- 3.13 miles
• Bike- 43.75 miles
• Run- 14.75 miles

Yesterday I swam half a mile. I believe this is my furthest distance during a workout to date. It felt really great. I see a much improved swim year for me this year. I also think I need to up my bike miles. I got the application in the mail for the family bike tour I want to do this summer. The first day is over 50 miles. So one day of biking is greater than my whole months total. I have to start somewhere.

There you have it some secrets from my food diary. There are many more I am sure but you will have to go discover them for yourself.

The Boy's Soup

My boy loves to cook in the kitchen. He is quite the little chef. Today he asked if he could make his own soup recipe and I obliged. It was so incredibly good! I mean really really good. And not to mention simple. I wish I would have taken a picture of it as it looked, smelled and tasted great.
Here is HIS recipe:
1/2 cup cooked turkey- broken into bite size pieces
1 can Veg-All original vegetables with liquid
2 cups water
2 tsp soup base
1/4 cup stelline #35 (small flower shaped pasta)
salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash Chicken to taste

Bring to a boil all ingredients except pasta. Then add pasta and cook for 7 minutes.
Serve with bread.

You could substitute turkey with chicken and stelline with any pasta.

Hope you try it out and enjoy!

Hibachi Grill

Ukai 2 Hibachi Grill to be more specific. One of our good friends had a surprise 30th birthday party at this fabulous restaurant last night. I loved it! Seated in groups of 8 around the grill, you watch you dinner be prepared. The chefs were amazing as they bounced around eggs and then cracked them on the side of their spatula. They were full of tricks I for one was highly entertained. The food was incredible, delicious, fantabulous! I got the Sukiyaki Steak which came with salad, Miso soup, shrimp appetizers, rice, vegetables and the steak. Yum, yum. While it is on the pricey side, we plan to return soon and take the kids.
I highly recommend you give it a try.

My Daily Plate

This site requires a post of its own.
http://www.thedailyplate.com/

I am thoroughly enjoying this free site. It has such a large database for foods and their nutritional facts. Not only that but if you find they do not have a food that you eat, you can enter it in. Meaning, the data base is getting bigger everyday.
Already a couple of my friends have joined. If you do, please add me to your friends list. My user name is(bet you can guess) momteacherfriend.

Seriously, if you have made any sort of health goal for yourself this site will help you.
Let me know what you think.

rav·en·ous

very eager or greedy for food, satisfaction, or gratification

I have a ravenous appetite tonight after working out. I had a 8 oz protein shake, a banana and raisin bread with butter. I feel like I could eat the whole pantry.

I have kept under 2000mg of sodium today. I am really surprised how much salt is in my food. 2 Tablespoons of Italian dressing has 525mg. The salad however had only 8mg. This is something I learned today; fruits and vegetables have little to no salt. Go figure.

Food Analyze

No fast food, more water. To help me keep track of my water consumption, I added my yearly water consumption to the side bar. Check it out. It is just below my miles for swimming, biking and running. At the gym last night, I ran 1 mile and biked 5. Drinking 40 ounces while working out. This felt productive.
In the evening I decided to take a look at foods consumed for the day. I made a list of all the food. Then I figured out the calories; 1665. Then I looked at the sodium; 2925. I was a bit shocked by this. Daily average should be 2000 or less. If I got nearly 3000 while eating more healthy, I cringe at the thought of what it was a week ago. Probably double maybe even triple. Next, I checked protein; 58 grams. Right on track there. Last, I figured out the fiber; 32 grams of fiber. Yeah!
I will probably keep track of my food intake for the next week. While I may not do it to the degree I did last night, I think it is helpful to see what I am eating. An informed consumer is a smart consumer.
How about you? Do you keep track of what you eat and calories?