Easter Fun

I always have so many great ideas for things to do around Easter time, and somehow it sneaks up on me every year and I'm left scrambling at the last minute (hah...scrambling...Easter eggs...OK I'm pathetic). This year was no different. We did manage to fit in a few fun crafts in the days before Easter, but a lot of things - like dyeing Easter eggs - just didn't happen this year.

Amanda and I did make these super-cute tissue paper chicks:

I got the idea from a website and we modified it a bit...stupid dollar store was completely out of all pipe cleaners except red and black and we could only get small egg-shaped styrofoam balls. It still worked great, though. I was a bit dubious as I wasn't sure the tissue would stick well to the styrofoam, but it did, even as we rotated the balls to cover the whole area. Amanda did hers pretty much on her own, and added a few embellishments as well (hers is on the left) - lovely pom pom belly button, ears, and tail, as well as a crinkled up pipe cleaner "hat".

We also put together these great cards for family to give out at Easter dinner:

The idea for these ones came from here. (As you might have noticed, I mostly steal craft ideas from other people since I'm not great at coming up with them on my own!).

We had a lovely dinner at my mom & dad's place with both sets of parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew (as well as little peanut niece/nephew-to-be!), plus my aunt and cousins. We were also celebrating Mike's birthday at the same time...he was an Easter Sunday baby which means that his birthday often falls right around the holidays, this year on Good Friday. The kids looked adorable in their Easter outfits (courtesy of Grandma):



This meant that we were on our own for Easter dinner, which doesn't happen very often! We picked up some rack of lamb and put together a pretty nice dinner: roasted rack of lamb, oven-roasted tomatoes with a bread crumb, pine nut, and feta topping (I made these up), steamed broccoli with lemon (even though I always forget that lemon juice turns the broccoli kinda brown!), and buttery rice. Yum! It was delicious if I do say!


And for dessert, I was actually organized enough to make something in advance. I always love lemon for Easter, and lemon roll is one of my favourites, so I decided to try the recipe from Best of Bridge. It was fantastic! If you're looking for a super-lemony dessert, this one definitely fits the bill. It was actually better a day or two later once it had sat in the fridge for a bit. I will admit that I didn't use real whipping cream...I'm one of the few people on the planet who doesn't love whipping cream, and after a heavy dinner I figured we could use something a bit lighter (as in sitting in the tummy lighter, not calorie-wise...that was already a lost cause). So I used Dream Whip instead and I thought it was delicious! I also doubled the amount of Dream Whip and used half to mix with the lemon filling and half to ice the outside. Mmmm...I wish there was still some left!



I am far too lazy to type in this long recipe, but I found it online (this site does not credit the recipe, but it's from Best of Bridge, The Best of the Best and More, Volume 1.

And so ends this long Easter post! Belated Happy Easter everyone!

What's For Dinner: Speedy Snapper Soup

Mmm...this was delicious! There's something about a big pot of super-healthy soup with lots of fresh colourful veggies that makes me happy! We had a nice 60% whole wheat baguette to go with it and it was perfect.

This recipe is from one of my very favourite cookbooks – More Six O'Clock Solutions: Fast and Easy Dinner for Family and Friends by Ruth Phelan and Brenda Thompson (the first book, Six O'Clock Solutions, is also excellent but doesn't have any nutritional information). The books are from local authors, so I always know I will be able to find the ingredients, and they're interesting and fresh-tasting without being too "weird" or time-consuming.

I've been trying to find ways to sneak more fish into our diets, because I know it's good for us, but I find it tough. First, fish is expensive!! There's no way we can eat it twice a week as recommended and still stay within our food budget. On top of that, neither Jeff nor Amanda is a huge fan...they'll eat it but they never seem all that thrilled with it. Soup is turning out to be a good way to fit it in, and there's no stinky fishy smell afterwards either!

I actually made this with frozen tilapia fillets, because the snapper that was in this week's Save-On-Foods flyer (which I plan my meals around) was not available...something that always makes me very angry! I hate it when I try to plan my budget around the flyer and then they don't bring in enough of the sale items!

Speedy Snapper Soup
From More Six O'Clock Solutions: Fast and Easy Dinner for Family and Friends by Ruth Phelan and Brenda Thompson

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced (I used big carrots and peeled them)
2 stalks celery, sliced
3 cups chicken stock (I used low-salt)
2 cans (398 mL each) Italian-style stewed tomatoes
1 large potato, cut into 1" pieces
1 lb snapper fillets, cut into 1" pieces (I used tilapia)
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper

In large heavy saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery; saute for 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Add stock, tomatoes, and potato. Bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until potatoes are almost tender. Add snapper and simmer, uncovered, for 3 minutes. Stir in spinach and parsley; cook for 2 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4 large servings; each 306 calories, 6.8 g fat; excellent source of iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, niacin, and folate; high in fibre

(I will have to start taking photos of the especially yummy meals...this one was very pretty!).

Food Fun

One of the biggest struggles I've had since becoming a mom is getting dinner on the table every night. This didn't use to be a problem for me at all - when Jeff and I were first married and for several years afterwards, I was an avid reader of Bon Appetit and other cooking magazines and used to try interesting new recipes and cooking techniques almost every night. Of course, I also had a lot more time for cooking...something that seems to be mysteriously lacking in my life these days!

One thing I have learned about myself is that for dinner to happen, there must be a plan. I adopted my mom's system of doing meal planning and grocery lists, and as long as I can manage to make a plan for the week and then actually get to the grocery store, things work out OK. But planning is very time consuming, and many weeks it just doesn't happen. Then we are forced to scrounge for dinner, which I hate! I find it so tedious to have to think every night about what we're going to eat, and try to put something together out of what's in the house. We are pretty good about keeping the freezer stocked with meat staples, but I'm not great at replacing what I use out of the pantry, and of course fresh vegetables are difficult when you haven't been to the store in awhile!

I was speaking last night with another mom from Amanda's preschool and we were laughing about this – it seems we have very similar "desperation meals" for when groceries are running low – some kind of meat (often Shake 'n' Bake Chicken) with a pot of rice and vegetables from the freezer or a can. At least I know I'm not the only one! No, technically there isn't anything wrong with a meal like this, but I sure get tired of having it any more often than once in awhile.

Since Sam arrived, we've struggled to get on a regular schedule of meal planning and grocery shopping, and our energy, waistlines, and budget (from far too much eating out and picking up) have been evidence of this! In the last couple of weeks I've been slowly getting back on track and we've been eating pretty healthily for the most part. We all do feel much better when we're eating at home most of the time, and with fresh ingredients rather than the "pop in the oven" pre-made foods that were a staple for those first few months.

As a kind of motivation to keep going with it, I thought I would post once in awhile about what we've been eating. Definitely not every night, but as a reminder to ourselves of the kinds of meals we all enjoy! Plus, maybe it will serve as inspiration when I'm in the midst of meal planning and nothing sounds interesting...

Day 13: Have Hot Chocolate with All the Trimmings

Usually we really do make fancy hot chocolate for this activity, but this year we were running short on time and decided to pick up treats from Starbucks instead. Yum!

Day 11: Make Christmas Cookies with Grandma

I had an appointment to go to, so my Mom took Amanda for the afternoon and they had a great time together doing lots of baking! They made gingerbread cookies, some no-cook chocolate balls, and a gingerbread house. The balls especially were very delicious!

I love this photo of their creations:

Day 3: Eat Breakfast for Dinner

You will have to take my word for this one because I can't figure out what I did with the envelope so there's no picture.

We've been doing breakfast for dinner as one of our activities since Year 1, and it's always a fun break in the middle of the week. Usually we cook waffles at home, but Jeff was in the mood for dinner out so we headed over to IHOP. For those of you who are interested in a run-down of our breakfast/dinner selections (i.e., none of you), here goes: Amanda had a create-a-face pancake, I had a chicken fajita omelette (with pumpkin pancakes on the side...a weird combo, but they're so yummy!), and Jeff had steak and eggs. We were all thoroughly stuffed.

Which again, you'll have to take my word for, because although we took our point-and-shoot camera to the restaurant with us, we realized once we got there that the batteries were dead. Argh!