Where’s the place to be on a cold, dreary day?

The beach of course!

We met up with our “Get These Kids Outside Or Bust” homeschooling group and today was a true test of our pledge to get outside even in the crummiest of weather.

It was cold. It was rainy. There was whining.

Ava happily played with her friends but Maxine clung to me like a marsupial and said “I want to go home” about 100x in my ear, throwing in the occassional “I’m hungry” despite having just eaten breakfast 30 minutes earlier.

We made it about an hour in the misty rain and upper 30’s temps before finally succumbing to cold, wet feet and went back to the car for some heat and some food.

Curried Chick Pea Sandwich Spread for me – that I didn’t spread on a sandwich but ate with raw veggies instead.

Cheese sandwiches and smiles from the peanut gallery.

We enjoyed our car seat picnic and let the hot air blast us for 30 minutes before the feeling returned to my fingers again and it felt safe to put the car into gear.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert – one for each of us. Definitely feeling warmer now!

Despite today’s weather challenges, I’m still totally into this “get outside and experience nature in all kinds of weather” group we’ve hooked up with. We were unfortunately not dressed appropriately for the weather this morning – or more accurately, we weren’t dressed for the rain.

*shaking fist at weather man who mumbled “a chance of showers”*

See? I did find something else to shake my fist at today after all!

Let’s just call today a lesson, shall we?

Blast of heat + lunch = no chance of holding still for a couple pictures.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent at home – dry and inside.

For dinner tonight I made something that I’m unsure of what to call it. Sweet Potato Lentil Chili maybe? But there are no tomatoes in this. Does the lack of tomatoes disqualify this meal from taking on the title of chili? How about sweet potato lentil stew? OK. That works.

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
2 c brown lentils, rinsed and drained
2 c vegetable broth
3 c water
chili powder, cumin, salt and crushed red pepper, to taste

Saute onions until soft, add sweet potatoes, lentils, water, broth and spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until lentils are cooked. (Red lentils cook faster than green lentils if you’re in a hurry!)

Just 140 calories per 1 cup serving! This recipe made 7 servings, I had 1 1/2 servings for dinner.

This dinner was very easy, totally yummy and very filling! Especially with a tossed salad along side it.

Yeah, let’s just call this stew. The morning was chilly and I’m not in the mood for any thing else “chilly” today.

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Now this is what I call a real salad.

I guess I’ll just have to be my own fruit and salad company. You know what they say! If you want something done right you just have to do it yourself. Can do.

We kept ourselves busy today, both in and out of the kitchen.

Let’s make more MamaBars!

Let’s make something with glitter! *insert insane shrieking here* ANYTHING WITH GLITTER! Let’s make it! Gliiittteeerrrrrrrrrr…

I’m not so sure though that the “do it yourself” cliche applies to Christmas ornaments. Some things really are better store-bought.

MamaBars though? Yeah, I’ll take my chances and make those myself.

8 Dates
1/2 c raw cashews
1/3 c sesame seeds
1 banana
3/4 c ground flax seed
1 Tbsp coconut oil
Dash of cinnamon

Everything into the food processor and press the ON button! Easy, right? Well, sort of.

I started with just 1/4 c of flax but it was really wet so I added a 1/4 c at a time for a total of 3/4 of a cup until it was firm enough to shape into bars. But this meant a lot of turns of the food processor blade which is basically code for “a big hot sticky banana mess”.

Thanks to a tip I remembered from Mama Averie, I knew putting the dough in the fridge for a while would help them firm up and reduce the stickiness factor, thus make shaping them into bars easier.

Now it’s time to get to work on a Mama Pea inspired dinner.

It all started with a fun new squash I found at Wegmans the other day.

Carnival Squash!

I snagged one from the pile and sliced the lucky squash open tonight to be baked it at 375 for about an hour. Rumor has it a sweet potato kept the squash company on the cookie sheet. They are now BFF.

With banana dough a-chilling, squash a-baking, six geese a-laying, I diced up an onion.

To saute with two cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Add a 14 oz can of tomatoes, 4 cups of water and/or vegetable broth and a 1 lb of red lentils, rinsed and drained.

Once the squash and potato were soft and fork-able (about an hour), their innards were scooped out and then added to the lentils – to be smashed and broken up with with a wooden spoon.

A couple tablespoons of curry powder, a dash of red pepper, kosher salt and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes or so until the lentil are completely cooked.

While the soup was cooking, the unthinkable happened.

I let the girls wear Girl Scout Cookie glasses.

I don’t know where they get this stuff from.

Yes, yes… I was cornered by a gang of Girl Scouts and was coerced into filling out their form. Can I help it if I’m a sucker for cute little girls? NO! Fortunately for me I am not at all in the mood to wear Thin Mint or Samoa glasses – I’ve still got my contact lenses in.

Dinner is served! Curried Squash and Lentil Soup with a side of steamed broccoli and cauliflower topped with a little Parmesan cheese. The soup recipe made 10, one cup servings, about 200 calories each.

Notice the glitter on the table?

Yeah, eat first. Clean up later. That’s my motto.

After dinner my banana dough was ready to be whipped into shape to officially be knighted and named MamaBites.

After making MamaBars last week I realized I prefer small 1 oz bite sized servings as opposed to 2 oz bars. But for your noshing pleasure MamaBites come a variety of sizes – double your pleasure, double your fun.

These worked out to be 105 calories per 1 oz bite, or 210 calories for a 2 oz bar. Pretty dang close to a Larabar! Me likey!

I called the cat’s name so he would look at me for my photo. And the other cat immediately came running, surely wanting to know what he was getting to eat that she was missing out on.

Dude, doesn’t anyone do anything around here but eat? Oh yeah, we make ornaments too.

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