Summer vacation can make a parents nuts., particularly near the end.
After so many days at home, kids start to get bored. When kids are bored they get whiny.
In order to fight the whiny/boredom curse and not just set them in front of iPads all day, occasionally I try to come up with ways to make each day a little different than the others.
Today’s theme was unintentional, but fun nonetheless. It started with a box of pancake mix I bought from the store. As I was making breakfast (pecan pancakes) and planning dinner (cashew chicken) at the same time, I realized both meals had nuts in them. That was all it took. Every meal for the day was going to have nuts.
When my kids woke up I told them were were “going nuts” the entire day, we had our theme.
Breakfast was pretty straightforward, the pecan pancake mix I bought was simply an add milk type of thing, so that one was pretty easy.
For morning snack I made smoothies. My kids love the combination of almond milk, frozen bananas and PB2. If you don’t know about PB2, it can best be described as dehydrated peanut butter. It comes in powder form and has less calories and less fat than regular peanut butter. When the PB2 is blended milk and a banana, it somehow all manages to taste like a chocolate milkshake. Don’t ask me how, I dare not question something that tastes so delicious.
For lunch, I made my kids sunbutter/peanut butter quesadillas. We started buying sunbutter when my kids began attending a peanut-free preschool. It has a unique taste (think really strong sunflower seed flavor), and is a great substitute for peanut butter at peanut-free schools. My kids really enjoy these with honey on a warmed flour tortilla.
Like I said earlier, for dinner we had cashew chicken. One of my favorite weeknight meals, cashew chicken is one of a handful of dinners all five of us enjoy. The recipe I used came from a cookbook called Everyday Food. The key ingredients to getting the chicken to taste like Chinese food are green onion, rice vinegar, and hoisen sauce. As long you have those three ingredients, you really can’t mess this recipe up.
I’m not sure the kids had as much fun with our “going nuts” day as I did, but I know they enjoyed the movie we watched after dinner, “Nut Job.”
Have a great last few days of summer,
-Pete
