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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

Muffin Tin Monday – Spring is Blooming

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Spring is blooming all over our yard. The trees have flowers. The bushes have flowers. The grass has little blooms in it. The only thing that has bloomed is the flowers beneath the mailbox.

In honor of spring JDaniel had a muffin tin filled with flowers and a few worms. There was a cheese and turkey flower, flowers made of crackers,  a flower made of pickles and carrots, a flower made of pineapple and dried cranberries. Flowers wouldn’t grow without worms to work  the soil. JDanie had a pudding cup with dirt and worms.

Can you guess what he ate first? Yes, it was the worms. He wasn’t to sure about eating worms at first. Once he bit into the first one, he was all over the worms.

He liked this meal so much he requested it again the next day.

What could you eat over and over again for lunch?

 
 
This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday. 
 

Muffin Tin Monday- Saint Patrick Needs Fruit

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Saint Patrick is weary from chasing all those snakes out of Ireland. His eyes are bulging from lack of sleep. His hair is need of a red dye job. It has gone turkey colored beige due to the snake removal stress. Pat’s lips are chapped from having to outside in the chilly night air searching under rocks for the slithery animals Ireland no longer wants.

What Saint Patrick needs are a great fruit salad and a wonderful night’s sleep!

JDaniel really wanted a turkey sandwich to go with his fruit salad in his muffin tin. Turkey doesn’t make the most attractive hair, but St. Patrick and JDaniel both got turkey anyway.

Saint Patrick also got a reward for the hard work he did in the form of Sweet Hearts. JDaniel gets them for peeing in the potty and Patrick got them for snake removal.

 
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Muffin Tin Monday- Construction Equipment After Party Snack

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construction site themed cake
JDaniel had his birthday party on Friday. He chose a construction machine theme. It was a lot of fun to put it together. All his pals were given construction hats to wear while they played. JDaniel received a construction hat with light from my husband and I to wear in the salt mine he created upstairs. I bet you can guess which hat everyone wanted to wear.

When you have a construction machine themed party, you have to have a construction site cake. Tammy of Tammy’s Two Cents came up with the idea for this cake. We were e-mail chatting a few weeks ago about her son’s birthday and I shared with her JDaniel’s birthday theme. Literally she walked me through how to create the cake. It is just a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Crushed Oreos were placed on the cake along with three construction vehicles. Traffic cone candy corns edge the sides of the cake. It was the hit of the party.

JDaniel was so wound up after the party. He really didn’t want to take a nap. I promised that if he took a nap of any length he could have a construction machine muffin tin snack. It took about thirty minutes for him to fall asleep, but he eventually did.

The top row of the muffin tin was inhaled quickly and the second row was dismissed. I don’t blame him. The health things are in the second row and the fun foods we don’t have often are in the top row.

The tortilla chips, candy corn, and Oreos disappeared faster than you can say front end loader. The salsa was deemed too spicy. The cucumbers and carrots were left without mention and teeth marks.
Muffin Tin Monday- Digging into a Good Lunch

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Mom. 
 
 
 

Muffin Tin Monday- Some of My Favorite Foods

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Dear Mom,

Thank you for fixing me a meal with some of my favorite foods. Sometimes I look down and my muffin tin and want to add an extra sentence to my mealtime prayer. I would say something like, “Thank you God for this great food to eat. Mom made some of my favorites today.”

I just love your meatloaf. I don’t know if it is the tomato juice you add to it or the Italian breadcrumbs. It just tastes wonderful!

Sweet potato french fries are my favorite vegetable right now. I never seem to get enough on my plate. Dad doesn’t want to part with his when I ask him for some off his plate. We both just really like them. Could you make it more next time?

I didn’t think I was going to like the navy beans and yellow squash in my tin, but I did. I am glad you had me try new foods.

Blueberries are my favorite fruit right now. I ask for them at every meal and for snacks. Thank goodness you find them on sale and stock up on them.

Grape tomatoes are such fun to eat. They squirt seeds all over the inside of my mouth. Sometimes they squirt all over my shirt too. It is fun to bite into them and see what happens.

Love,

JDaniel

P.S. I would love to have chocolate fudge icing on my chocolate birthday cake. My friends will enjoy it too.

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Lunch by George

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In honor of President’s Day JDaniel had a George Washington lunch. Allegedly George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a young boy. It was fun to try and come up with foods that had cherries or would relate to George’s tree experience.

The first items in the tin are turkey sandwiches. George probably hunted for turkeys on his various properties. I haven’t read anywhere that they were a particular favorite of his. I do know that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national symbol of our country. JDaniel has made the turkey sandwich his personal favorite for lunch.

The second cup contains broccoli trees and cherry tomatoes for dipping in the blue cheese dipping sauce. I mentioned the fact that George likes to chop down trees or is remembered for chopping down a tree. JDaniel has a special fondness for trees but, didn’t want anything to do with these. He ate all the tomatoes and the dip though.

The third cup contains cherry jello. It came out a little soupy this time. I am not sure what I did wrong, but it had enough clumps it that JDaniel thought it looked like jello and wanted to eat it.

The last cup on the second row contains JDaniel’s favorite part of the meal. I made biscuits and put cherry filling over one for him. I guess you could call it a cherry biscuit cake. It disappeared as soon as the tin hit the table so, I guess you could call it the disappearing cherry biscuit cake.

 

What is your favorite cherry related food?

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Valentine’s Day

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We have been sick at our house for about a week with head and chest colds. I first noticed JDaniel coughing a week ago Saturday. We kept him home from church on Sunday and playgroup on Monday. I knew he was really sick on Monday at lunchtime when he ate two pancakes and a marshmallow for this lunch and announced he was done.

He was so excited about making the meal. The tin was based on a book about a special grandfather and grandson and the fun they have together called Lucky Pennies and Hot Chocolate by Carol Diggory Shields.

The grandfather in this book looks a lot like JDaniel’s GranDan. GranDan, my husband’s father, died last February. The grandfather in this book does so many of the things GranDan would have loved to do with JDaniel. They tell knock-knock jokes, visit construction sites, play with trains, wash dishes (The men in my family love to wash dishes.) and so much more.

One of the things more is making pancakes with raisins, bananas, and marshmallows. I decided we would try them out and see how they tasted. The marshmallows got all gooey and icky. JDaniel wasn’t interested in tasting that pancake.

I made pancakes without marshmallows and place them in the muffin tin with syrup, marshmallows not in pancakes, scrambled eggs, and berry applesauce. As I mentioned above he ate the pancakes without marshmallows and a marshmallow.

After taking a three-hour nap, JDaniel asked if he could have the scrambled eggs for a snack. I decided to give him something light instead. He got scrambled eggs for lunch later in the week.

 

 

Are you having a special Valentine’s Day meal today?

 
 
 
 

Muffin Tin Monday- Valentine’s Day Party Treats

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Before I share my Muffin Tin Monday Meal, I want to let you know I have a guest review up at The Book Chook today. I reviewed the book the Alaska’s Three Pigs. If you get a chance, please stop by and check it out.

 

To celebrate the second day of the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party I am sharing a muffin tin of yummy lunch treats.  We both enjoyed the foods in this tin.

This week JDaniel had a heart-shaped empanada ( I will share the recipe for them tomorrow.), homemade tomato soup, grape tomatoes, a heart-shaped crouton to dip in the soup, red grapes, and strawberry heart-shaped marshmallows.

Here is the recipe for the tomato soup:

Tomato Soup

 

3 large cans of stewed tomatoes

3 large garlic cloves

2 cups of chopped onion

1/4 cup of minced basil

1 can of chicken broth

1/2 cup of half and half cream

Salt and pepper to taste

2 slices of whole-grain bread

Directions:

  • In a large saucepan, sauté onion, garlic, and olive oil. Add tomatoes and basil; cook for 5 minutes.
  • Add broth; bring to a boil.
  •  Puree in a blender until large chunks are removed and return the mixture to the saucepan.
  •  Warm half and a half in a small saucepan over medium heat.
  •  Stir half and half, salt and pepper into the soup.
  •  Enjoy with croutons cut out of bread with a cookie cutter and sautéed in a pan with olive oil.

 

This post is linked to the Muffin Tin Mom’s Muffin Tin Monday meme.

What is your favorite Valentine’s Day treat? 

Do you have a post on Valentine’s Day treat you would like to link up to the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party?

 

Muffin Tin Monday- Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox

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I found this wonderful book about a groundhog that encounters a fox when he wakes up to see his shadow called Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox. The fox is excited to find lunch while out on a walk. The groundhog invites him to spend time wandering the woods and have a picnic with him. Of course, the groundhog never plans on being lunch his plan to outfox the fox.

Since Groundhog Day is this week, I thought JDaniel would have a groundhog and fox picnic. I wasn’t sure that a fox and groundhog would eat for lunch so; JDaniel and I explored the reference section at the library. We pulled out the F and G encyclopedias and searched for what they would eat. He is way too little to totally understand what an encyclopedia is, but I thought it would be fun to show him a new section of the library. He enjoyed looking in the big books for a few minutes then he wanted to go look for machine movies.

What did we learn? Foxes are omnivores. They will eat meat and plants. They really prefer meat. Groundhogs like to eat plants and tree parts. They like nuts, berries, and grains the best.

JDaniel’s tin contained split pea soup, blueberries, cornbread, pears cut like trees, Cheerios, and a blueberry muffin. Most of the contents were things a groundhog would eat. The ham in the soup was for the fox.

 

What would you serve at a winter picnic?

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Mom.

 

Muffin Tin Monday-Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Lunch

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The theme for Muffin Tin Monday today is big, little, short, and tall. I decided to go with small and call the meal the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Lunch. I borrowed the name from the song about the itsy bitsy teeny weenie bikini. There are no bikinis in this lunch or anywhere in my house as a matter of fact. I just thought it would be a cute title.

JDaniel feasted on wintertime comfort foods this week. The tin contained beef vegetable soup with tiny letters, tiny bits of turkey hot dogs, mandarin oranges, baby carrots with dip, tiny bite-sized sandwiches made with turkey and cheese on the most wonderful sundried tomato bread, and goldfish crackers.

JDaniel’s favorite part of the meal was the goldfish crackers. We don’t buy them often and he really loves them. He took one look at the tin and asked, “Do I really get to eat them for lunch?”

My favorite part was the sundried tomato bread. I had it on the same sandwich JDaniel did. A local bakery here in Greenville called Strossner’s makes it. JDaniel calls it pizza bread. It really is wonderful and at three dollars a loaf is a great price for homemade bread.

 

What are your comfort foods?

 
 
This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday. 

Muffin Tin Monday- The Weather Outside Was Frightful!

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Well, the weather outside was frightful but, the lunch inside was delightful. We had snow! We had snow! We had snow! With all the snow and ice we had in South Carolina I went with a snow and ice theme for the muffin tin.
I started a simple turkey and cheese sandwich cut it out with a snowman cookie cutter. The scraps from the sandwich were placed in the adjacent muffin cup. The second row contains snowman parts. The carrots could be used for a snowman’s nose and olives that could be used for a snowman’s eyes or smile. The third row contains popcorn puffs of snow and lemon ice chunks.
The lemon ice contains juice from the last of the lemons I received from Mrs. Matlock. It was sour and sweet rolled into one.
Here is the recipe for the lemon ice:

 

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup of lemon juice (from about 4 lemons)
 Directions:
  1. Bring the water, sugar, and salt to a simmer over high heat and stir until you no longer see the sugar. Take off heat and stir in lemon juice.
  2. Pour into a 9×13 pan and cool from 15 minutes.
  3. Cover the pan with plastic and place in the freezer for one hour.
  4. Take the pan out of the freezer and scrape lemon ice from edges to the center of the pan.
  5. Return the pan to the freezer and freeze one more hour.

 

 This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

 

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