Want Free Stuffed Animal Patterns?

I am working on making more patterns and have pretty much finished a giraffe and lion to add to my wild animals collection with the elephant but I'm not sure when I'll get around to sewing them, plus I'd love more than one example of each for my shop so if you are interested in them and are willing to send me pictures of the finished products let me know and I'll send you the patterns for free.

Teaching Nutrition to Tots

Today's post was inspired by Simply Modern Mom's post about the "Choose My Plate" gov. site.

Teaching good eating habits to my kids is easier said then done, my 5 year old son is particularly difficult, he won't eat any fresh fruit and only takes a taste or two of smoothies but he could live off of milk, mac & cheese, and sweets or junk food of any kind.  He's not too bad with his veggies, esp. broccoli but he struggles with trying new things and I'm frustrated with how little fiber he gets.  This is the same boy who used to eat broccoli like it was candy and ate curry anything with gusto when he was two.

My daughter is easy as long as I keep the food coming in small quantities, she'll eat half a doughnut and hand me back the rest but I have to remind her not to eat the seeds in her apple if I didn't cut out the core, it's pretty great.

So out of frustration came inspiration, I would make a "food rocket" that my kids could put together piece by piece with every meal until it is finished at the end of the day when they add the flame on the end so it looks like it's flying.  If they have too many sweets, junk food or don't finish the rocket then they can't add the flame.

Here's my "prototype" for it, I'm working on getting a much cuter version of it.

(Speaking of feeding tots, my 6 month old gags on sweet potatoes but adores broccoli. Go figure.)

Mango and Chicken Thai Pizza

I LOVE this pizza, it's my absolute favorite pizza of all time.

My pictures don't even come close to doing it justice but I'll post them anyway so at least you have an idea what yumminess you are in for if you make it yourself.  This is also part of my Thai Kitchen party recipes so, thanks again House Party and Thai Kitchen for all the free stuff.

I got the recipe for the pizza dough from Goop and I loved it so much I made extra and cooked up a bunch of rounds and saved them in the fridge for later, which is what I used today, it makes it a little chewier but still great.  Get the recipe here.

Since the pizza rounds were already prepared and I used leftover chicken I started with chopping up the mango, red bell pepper and cilantro.

I also chopped up the left over chicken to roughly the same size as the mango pieces and then I drizzled some of the Spicy Thai Mango Dipping sauce over the pizza round

Then I threw on the peppers, chicken, mango and mozzarella and I took a heaping tablespoon of the Peanut Satay Sauce and added about 1 teaspoon of peanut butter, their peanut sauce is "currier" than the kind I usually make and a little water to thin it out and drizzled it over the pizza and tossed on the cilantro.   Last, I put it in the oven on low broil since everything that needed to be was already cooked so I just put it in until the cheese had bubbled and browned a bit.

VOILA!  A super easy and scrumptious pizza that took only a few minutes to throw together.

It was so good I ate two.

Super Easy Beef and Broccoli

(Sorry about the pics, they're from my phone.)

Simply Asia's sauce pouches are a great way to throw together a meal in a hurry and still have something super yummy.  For this one I used the General Tsao's mild pouch which was mild enough for my kids but still something my DH will enjoy eating.

All I did was quickly cook up a nice steak to medium rare, cook it to your preferred doneness, and put it aside.

Then in the same frying pan I tossed in onions and frozen broccoli until heated through, and then added in the sauce. 

 While the broccoli and onions were cooking I sliced up the steak

I cheated with frozen rice but you can start the rice first and cook up the rest about 15 minutes before you want to eat, then I just plated it up so that it looked as good as it tasted.  It was a hit for my whole family, from 2-35 and it only took me 15 minutes.  Thank you Simply Asia.

Who Likes Thai?

I LOVE ethnic foods and flavors so I jumped at the chance to hold a Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia BBQ "House Party" and to let you enjoy some of the great stuff and recipes I got I'm posting all of my dishes here and then I'll have a giveaway at the end so that you can try out the yummy food yourself.

My first recipe I forgot to take pictures of because I had family visting and pictures weren't my first thought but it turned out scrumptious so I had to share anyway.  I call it

Thai Mango Chicken

• Chicken
• Rice (brown, jasmine, whatever you have on hand)
• Mango
• Cilantro
• Red Onion
• Lemongrass or ginger
• Lite Coconut Milk
• Fish Sauce
• Peanut Satay Sauce 
• Mango Dipping Sauce
• Optional- Frozen Asian Veggie Blend

My inspiration for this dish was a Thai style pizza I had.  First cook your rice, about 4 cups cooked.  Saute your chicken until nice and brown, I used 1 pound of boneless, skinless thighs, then take them out of the saute pan.  Now drain your pan of any excess oil and put in your rice and red onions, sliced really thin, on medium heat and add about 1/3-1/2 cup lite coconut milk, a splash of fish sauce, 1 tsp. of fresh lemon grass or ginger or 1/3 of dried.  Add one to two heaping tablespoons of the peanut sauce and mango dipping sauce and cook down just until the onions are cooked through and the coconut milk has been absorbed.  

While that's cooking slice up the chicken, dice the mango and finely chop the cilantro.  Once everything is cooked up dish up the rice and top with lots of chicken and mango and liberally garnish with the cilantro.  Thin out 1/4 cup of the peanut sauce with a little coconut milk and then drizzle a little of the peanut and mangos sauces over the top of the whole thing.  YUMMY!!!

You can add more veggies to the rice or have them on the side as well, I'm a huge fan of veggies and it tastes great either way so I serve them however I'm feeling at the time.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I enjoyed making and sharing it, I can't wait to share the rest of the recipes I've used/ made up with you.