Pancakes, Picnics & Pasta Salad

Monday:

Ryan & AJ: dinosaur grilled chreeze sandwiches; steamed broccoli; grapes.

When I'm pregnant I treat myself to all sorts of goodies...like this amazing slice of carrot cake from Cafe Indigo in Concord, NH. Soooooo good. Our local Whole Foods sells it now and my husband raves about it.

Tuesday:
Ryan: marinated mushroom; Sunshine Burger on a whole wheat english muffin; strawberries.

I couldn't resist...So Delicious Neopolitan ice cream with Soyatoo whipped creme & Enjoy Life semi-sweet mini chocolate chips.

Wednesday:
Ryan's preschool class had a pajama breakfast on wednesday, so I packed him his own pancakes with maple syrup and a bagel with Tofutti cream cheese. He also ate bananas, strawberries & juice, but of course skipped the scrambled eggs & cereal with milk. I use the simple Basic Pancakes recipe from The High Road to Health; they always turn out perfectly.
AJ: pancakes with maple syrup; raisins.

Both boys were too full to eat lunch after all the pancakes. So mid-afternoon I made a "picnic" plate and they demolished it. Anytime I make a shared platter of food and serve it on the playroom floor over a towel, or outside on the picnic table, they call it a picnic.
Today's picnic: Veggie Booty; almonds; dill pickle pieces; cucumber slices; baby carrots; apple slices with peanut butter for dipping; crunchy peas.

Meanwhile, I whipped up a grilled chreeze & tomato sandwich on 12-grain bread with the leftover chreeze sauce from earlier in the week. I usually use the Melty Nutritional Yeast Cheese recipe from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook with a little added cornstarch.

Friday:
AJ & Ryan: melon (& strawberries for Ryan); pasta salad.
I figured out why AJ didn't eat his honeydew melon the other day, something he normally loves; apparently "the giraffe was sad"...I explained that if he held the giraffe fork upside-down it would look like a smile, and that made him happy, but I decided not to chance it and I put in a regular fork today instead.

Italian Pasta Salad
1 box pasta (I often mix half a box of whole grain flax rotini with half box tri-color rotini)
1 head broccoli, chopped & steamed (or 1/2 bag frozen broccoli florets)
1 large tomato, diced
1 can chick peas, drained & rinsed
1/2 can sliced black olives
1/4 cup onion (I often leave the raw onion out of the boys' portions)
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/8 cup olive oil (or a mix of olive & walnut oil is delicious too)
1 T. dried oregano
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

Cook pasta. (Add broccoli during last 3 minutes of cooking if using frozen variety. Rinse under cold water and drain. Place in large bowl.
Add vegetables & chick peas.
In a measuring cup, mix last 6 ingredients for the dressing. Pour over pasta salad and mix.

Makes great leftovers to eat over the next day or so.