Mostly Plants Monday

Day: 61

Where: Home

Type of Yoga: My Yoga Online.com Awaken the Flow 
Time: 30 min
(I LOVE this one!)

Here's the plan, today I will post recipes with pics of my meals, snacks and beverages in action as the day goes on. I will tweet every time I add something to today's post for anyone who would like to follow along. Vodka Yoga Mama on Twitter. These may not be the best, most fanciest recipes ever (that's the opposite of the point), these are just examples of easy, quick recipes that don't include meat or dairy. 

8am-Breakfast
To start off the day I made my:

Green Morning Smoothie

Ingredients

frozen peaches

frozen mangos

big handful of fresh baby spinach

banana

about a half cup of water

Blend it all up! I usually put the fozen peaches and frozen mangos in first with the water and then do a few things, i.e., switch out laundry, make my coffee, water plants, etc. and then add the other ingredients and blend. Grab my big sippy cup of water, coffee with a bit of honey added to it (I did almond or coconut milk for a while, but then just got used to it without anything) and voila!

The kiddos get the choice of the green smoothie or granola with fruit in the morning or a little bit of both. 

Sidenote: For those of you with kids who think "there is no way my child will drink something green." Don't bet on it. Rome wasn't built in a day, so don't expect it all to happen right away, and don't give up. My philosophy is if you keeping having them at least "try" things, they might surprise themselves (and you) with what they like. I do not believe in making separate meals. Although:

a) they do get more "cheating" foods then I (kids need more calories then we do)

b) they are never expected to clean their plates, but the rules are...everything given to you must at the very least be tried once & the majority of your plate needs to be eaten in order to get dessert ("How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!" except there is no meat and we don't have pudding! Great, now that jam be stuck in my head all day)

c) if they're still hungry after dinner they may pick some fruit or veggies to snack on. That's it.

d) they do still have some dairy and meat, but not tons. You will always get much more calcium and protein out of plants then from any other source. 

Bottom line. They eat what I eat and that's that. Their taste buds will eventually change. Just be patient.  

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11am-Snacky

An orange and a handful of the addictive Freaking Awesome Trail Mix made yesterday. An actual handful is an important part to keep in mind. If you sit in front of the whole jar of this stuff you can quickly get carried away...because it really is freaking awesome.

1pm-Lunch

I typically eat the same as the kiddos, but have decided to do smoothies/juice for breakfast and lunch all week for this particular week. I have eaten this lunch (minus the yogurt) multiple times with them and I love it!!! 

• PB Banana Toasty (natural pb, sliced bananas and honey drizzled on top in oven under broil for five minutes)
• carrots and Pesto Hummus made yesterday
• yogurt with blueberries
• strawberry, lime, mint water (just cut up fruit and mint and throw in a pitcher of ice water)

For Mama:

V8 inspired Juice

(I think I added too much spinach, as the color is usually reddish orange, but I'm feeling very spinachy today)

• tomatoes
• orange
• celery
• carrots

That's it for our lunch! (My juice was great, but that banana honey toasty looked delish!!)

4pm-Snack Attack

Veggies and Maple Mustard Dip

• 1/4 real maple syrup
• 14 cup dijon mustard
• a teaspoon of white wine vinegar
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• garlic powder, pepper, sea salt to taste

This is a great idea to put out right when you start cooking dinner. This helps avoid the constant whining of hunger from kids, and if they eat too much before dinner-really no big deal! It's all good stuff! This is a dressing I thicken up a bit with more chickpeas (mashed) to make a dip for the kids. Then right before dinner, I add some balsamic vinegar and a bit more maple and mustard and it doubles as salad dressing!

Now time to cook up some dinner!

6pm-Din Din

Baked Ziti with E's Summer Salad & Pesto Bread

We will start with...

Pesto Bread

• your fav bread cut into small squares
• pesto

Doesn't get any easier!

Place bread squares onto baking sheet and broil on high in oven for about 5 min. Take out, flip each bread square over and brush generous amounts  of pesto on each square. Place back in oven to broil for five minutes more.

Now it's salad time!

E's Summer Salad (aka Whatchu Got In Your Fridge Salad)

• green leaf lettuce chopped
• kale chopped into small bites
• chopped onion
• chopped tomatoes
• diced carrots
• finely chopped radishes
• sliced strawberries
• sunflower seeds

Top with the Maple Mustard (and Now) Balsamic Dressing

Baked Ziti

• 1lb whole wheat ziti
• fav tomato sauce (I used some roasted red pepper salsa/sauce, plain ol' tomato sauce, and a bit of my V8 inspired juice left over from lunch, with some sauteed onion, garlic, and red pepper)
• handful and a half of crushed cashews

Boil the ziti and cook up your sauce. mix together and pour into a casserole dish. Bake pasta in the oven at 350F for 20-30 minutes. Take out of oven, sprinkle cashews on top (this is a nice substitute for parm) and broil on high for about 5 min.

That is it! This Day is done!! What did we have for dessert?? Nothing! We are all stuffed and this Mama is ready to relax!