Making Pizza

In an effort to spend more quality time with my daughter and to involve her in the meal process, I had her help me make pizza for dinner.

Sophia loved helping press out the dough and spread a little olive oil over the top.

We baked the crust for about 6 minutes. Pulled it out of the oven and spread the sauce and added the cheese. We popped it back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Sophia was more interested in eating the cheese from the bag. In fact, in the above pic, she asked, "mom, is that enough cheese?". I'm assuming, cause she wanted to eat it from the bag instead because that was obviously not enough cheese. 

And of course she loved the pizza she made. I need to remember to get pepperoni when I'm at the store next time. Sophia has graduated to liking pepperoni on her pizza. 

Sunday, Funday

On Sunday, we had a few errands to run and then we ate lunch at Del Taco. It was our first time to eat there. It was kinda weird. My tacos came with a side of fries. Never have had that combo together before. And they also serve burgers there. Double weird. The food was fine though. Just have trouble trusting a place that serves tacos with fries.

Then we went to Nana and Paw-Paw's house for a visit.

They had set out some eggs for Sophia to hunt since she had to miss the regular Easter egg hunt due to strep. That was so sweet.

We also got a chance to see their garden, which is in full bloom. It was kinda cool for Sophia because she "helped" plant these plants when they were just baby plants.

But Sophia wanted nothing to do with harvesting any of the veggies.

Back to the eggs.....they were full of candy and money.

Sophia loved that!

Then Sophia got to spend some one on one time with Nana. They read books.

They did puzzles.

They colored.

All in a span of 20 minutes. :)

And so I got to chill out, poolside. It was a gorgeous day!

Then, after that, we went to a plant sale at my parent's church where Sophia helped pick out these Knock-Out Roses.

Guess we missed our window for a nap today? Oh well.

Real Food

Recently I started reading articles from this website Real Food Challenge . It promotes eating less processed foods. Actually, The Real Food Challenge is to go 100 days without eating ANY processed foods. Now, I didn't want to go crazy and go cold turkey but I've started to look for ways to cut out some processed foods. 

I decided that the weekends are the best time for me to try out these new recipes since I have more time (and the summer vacation).

My first mission, search for a recipe for homemade chocolate chip waffles to replace the Ego variety Sophia usually eats in the morning (yes, I'm feeding my daughter junk in the mornings, don't judge. LOL). 

I decided to do this on a weekend morning so that I'd have time to make them and then freeze the ones she didn't eat.....wishful thinking.

Sophia did love to help stir up the ingredients (And no I did not use Bisquick or a pre-made mixture. I used a recipe I found on the Real Food Website).

The only addition I made was to add mini-chocolate chips (yes, still not healthy but it's gotta be better for her body than the Ego variety. Right?). 

We poured the mixture in and waited for the red light to turn off and the green light to turn on.

There was a lot of steam, hissing and tooting sounds. First batch came out ok.

Now to start batch number 2. I guess I poured too much batter in. Yikes!

But this batch turned deadly when the safety locking mechanism flew off. Yes! It shot out from the waffle maker (Keep in mind, it was brand new. I just bought it. I've never made waffles with Sophia so we had to buy one).

Sophia declared that she did not like the waffle maker. It made scary sounds, tooted, overflowed (was messy)and then part of it blew off.

She wanted no part of these waffles.

Here they are. 

Like I said, Sophia didn't really want to sample these waffles just based on her waffle making experience. 

So getting her to take a bite was like pulling teeth.

So I took a bite. YUM! It tasted like a chocolate chip cookie.

Sophia didn't believe me but was willing to give it a shot.

"Mom! Stop taking pictures of me! OK! Fine! I'll just hide behind my waffle".

Finally, she took a bite.

Only one.....but at least she tried it. It actually was good. So I think if maybe we try the whole process again and she knows what to expect, maybe she'll eat more. I mean, it worked with our family meals and now she's pretty much eating whatever we eat including grilled chicken. The thing with her, is that she's such a creature of habit (wonder where she gets that from?) that if it looks different or tastes different (or has a different texture), then she doesn't want to eat it.

But back to the Real Food Challenge...I told Sophia were going to start limiting our boxed foods. So when we run out of the cheesy Ritz mini crackers, we're not buying more right away. Which we did. We ran out the other day. And I showed her how to make homemade cheese and crackers (folding the cheese and making squares of it then making a cracker sandwich). She LOVED it and declared that I make the best snacks ever.

I think as an on- the- go kinda mom who works outside the home, I've kinda become dependent on the quick, prepackaged snacks, which I think in moderation are ok.  But literally our pantry is overflowing with prepackaged/processed foods. 

Don't get me wrong....I'm not going all crazy and making homemade pasta or anything. That will still come from a box for sure. But maybe I'll try to find a homemade, quick recipe for the pasta sauce? 

I just figure it's easier to break our bad eating habits now while she's still young.