We add this granola to our yogurt and berry snack! It's a healthy alternative to store bought granola and can be spiced up with the addition of nuts or raisins - just not as fix friendly if you do. We are currently working our way through the second batch, which lasts our family of five a little less than a month. For the next batch I want to substitue the honey with pure maple syrup and see how we like it. This one doesn't need a change, but it's fun to mix it up sometimes :-) Homemade Fix-Approved Granola 1 cup honey 1/2 cup water 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp almond extract 1 tsp salt Sprinkle of cinnamon 1/2 cup ground flax 8 cups rolled oats
Mix liquid ingredients. You may have to melt honey a bit to combine. Add in salt, cinnamon, and flax, stir then add in oats. Spread out onto two baking sheets and bake at 300 degrees for 40 minutes. Stirring halfway through. Cook until crisp and lightly brown, don't over bake. Granola will crisp a little as it cools Fix count: 1/4 cup granola = 1 yellow, 1/2 orange, & honey allowance for the day
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I thought it would be good to collaborate my collection of mason jar salads from over the past few weeks (I have three to share with you today). These are our favorite go to thing for lunches. At the start of the week I make 4-6 jars and then Kyle and I have them to grab throughout the week. I don't make 10 because we don't want to eat them every day of the week. Instead they are made and ready when we don't have something else. We typically have left overs in the mix so it adds some variety to what we grab for lunch. And if I have a kid day activity I can toss one in and know I'm taken care of while either the kids eat out or I fix them something not so healthy but quick.
Chickpea Salad with Minty Yogurt Dressing Makes 4 jars
Ingredients:
½ cup reduced-fat (2%) plain Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
¼ cup fresh mint leaves
2 cups chickpeas, drained, rinsed
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chopped cucumber
4 cups baby spinach
⅓ cup crumbled feta cheese
½ cup chopped flat leaf (Italian) parsley
Preparation
1. Place yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, and mint in a blender; cover. Blend until smooth. (I made a double batch because I didn't have a smaller blender at the time)
2. Season with salt and pepper if desired; mix well. Evenly divide dressing between 4 pint Mason jars. Set aside.
3. Evenly layer chickpeas, bell pepper, cucumber, spinach, cheese, and parsley on top of dressing in jars.
Fix container count: 1 green, 1 yellow, 1/2 blue
Nutty-Apple Jar Salad
Makes 4 jar salads
Dressing: (place all ingredients in small jar, cover and shake until mixed)
3 T almond butter
1 T rice wine vinegar
1 T pure maple syrup
2 T water
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp sesame oil
Other ingredients:
1 Apple (presoaked in salt water & rinsed to prevent browning) chopped in bite size pieces
1 c celery chopped
1 c radishes chopped (I couldn't fit these in, bigger jar next time)
1 1/3 c walnuts roughly chopped
3 c chopped chicken breast
4 c leafy greens - I used a power blend (kale, spinach, arugula, baby chard)
Place in mason jar in order listed:
Orange container of dressing, 1/4 of the chopped apple, 1/4 c celery, 1/4 c radishes, blue container of walnuts, red container of chicken, green container of greens
It's taken us four years to make it to Ridgedale Library but we finally did today. I was hoping to find a book that explained St Patty's day but of course they were all checked out. But we did get a healthy stack of books checked out while playing. The kids LOVED it!
Isaac was pretty excited (he loves books) saying "we've never been here before!!!" He played so well while the girls ran from here to there. They did fairly well but started to get onery. After a little stroller time and strick talking to I let them loose again and they were better behaved.
They have so many fun play areas in the kids library book. We spent the last half of our playtime in the kitchen.
Mary loves cutting the food. We have this at home but I only bring it out when I can sit and do it with them. The girls tend to turn into beavers and I don't want the wood pieces getting all knawed to shreds.
Emma liked looking out the window. It was a gorgeous day!!
Our last full day was spent taking it easy and soaking in as much beach time as possible. We went out in the morning and the kids had fun playing as usual. The low tide wasn't until a little after noon, but we were still able to find a lot of shells.
I love, love LOVE this!
It was fun watching all the surfers
Emma loved the little shells
Isaac's pants kept coming untied, it was quite humerus.
We went back up to the condo for lunch. We ate through all the left overs we had accumulated in the fridge trying to clear it out in preparation to leave. Then I got the girls down and went back out to check out the shore at low tide. We had already had quite the collection of shells but I was interested in knowing if I could find some unique ones at low tide. Didn't really see anything different, just lots of shells!
After nap we drove up to Coronado to meet Kyle. We met him at a park near the Coronado Bridge. It was starting to get cloudy and actually looked like it was going to rain, but luckily it didn't.
The kids of course loved playing on the playground.
After some park play we walked along the bay up to the Ferry Landing Marketplace for dinner. It was nice to let the kids wear out their legs, although we had to keep them close because the sidewalk was also a bike path. About halfway up we saw these two big pelicans flying around and nose diving into the water. It was pretty cool! We stopped and watched them nose dive probably a handful of times.
Kyle got a good video that is better than the pictures I took from my phone:
And an attempt at a family photo... impossible to get all five looking at the same time.
Thursday morning it was time to pack up and get the condo in order for check out. I started to put the pack n plays away but was able to capture the girls showing off their new skills.
Video:
Had to capture the kids watching Curious George in the condo, it was such a great place!
Off to load up the van which was parked in the basement garage.
We had to make one more stop as we left Imperial Beach! There was a Daisy Ave that we kept meaning to stop and get my photo with. This avenue ran all the way to the beach but we were able to just turn south and hit a random intersection for a photo :-P
We met up with Josh before going to return the rental van. He was taking the two pack n plays from us to return to the people we borrowed them from. It was so great to see him one last time and it was the first time I got to see him in his uniform!
We got the van dropped off and car seats unloaded. Phew what a haul we had to lug around.
We rode the shuttle to the terminal, got the car seats and our one back checked then in through security we went. Pretty smooth sailing. They did have to look through Isaac's bag due to liquid showing up on the xray camera. It was the two snowglobes we had got that were sitting together making it look like a bigger mass of liquid than allowed. Luckily they weren't confiscated from us. Once through security we found some lunch and watched the airplanes.
And since we arrived at the gate before boarding we were some of the first to board! Don't be fooled by the empty seats, it was a full flight again.
Kyle even got Mary to sleep the last 20 minutes or so before landing!
We made it back to Minneapolis and the kids and I waited with our luggage near baggage claim while Kyle took the shuttle to get the van. Luckily there is a little 'play area' however it's just little riding machines that the kids had to 'pretend' to ride since I didn't want to spend a fortune, haha. And of course we had to have one fall, Emma fell pretty good off the motorcycle but eventually shook it off and got back to playing.
Kyle pulled up and we QUICKLY installed the car seats. Luckily it was just Emma's and Isaac's that we had taken out because Isaac was in a booster in California for ease of transporting. Got Mary in her seat, popped the booster in and headed home. I re-installed Isaac's later, which was more of a hassle since it was to Mary's settings and had to be completely redone, glad I didn't attempt that while in the pull off for baggage claim.
The kids were so happy to be home, but we all had a wonderful trip and Isaac asked many days following "When are we going back to Imperial Beach?" "When are we going back to our San Diego apartment?" I love that sweet boy!
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