Day 9

Holy crap my kids actually like my cooking!  I thought I would be struggling with them to eat what I put on their plates (see Day 5 blog), but tonight I made something they really liked.  It helped that I made meals for two nights, so if one didn't work we had options.  Thank you Top Chef for introducing the idea of mise en place.  And I also figured this out about the kiddos - Malea hates sauces and Isaac wants to be fed like a baby.  Probably not the most encouraging information, but for the next couple of weeks we're going to go at this from a strengths-based perspective and take off sauces for Malea and feed Isaac airplane-style.

As I was packing Malea's lunchbox for school tomorrow it dawned on me that I am proud to be giving her this food.  There is nothing in that lunchbox nutritionally unsound, and when she looked at it she was actually excited to show her friends what Mom made.  Thank goodness Isaac's Nana Tori, our daycare provider for eons, already gives him great, organic homemade meals, but I worry a lot about what Malea gets at school.  It doesn't help that I've watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and seen the school bus load of sugar, pink slime, and other crap that makes its way on our children's lunch trays.  So, I'm doing my part by packing her lunch like this:

This isn't about vegan ethics or the vegetarian collective mind (as I like to think of Jason as he used to stifle a gag when I ate steak).  I just like to think I'm being a good parent by giving my kid healthier options. Damn, I got her to eat udon for crying out loud.  So what if she said she liked them because they look like worms? At least she ate them.

Day 9 Menu:

• Breakfast - Nature's Path Organic Optimum Blueberry Cinnamon cereal with almondmilk
• Snack - Salsa fresca with veggie flaxseed tortilla chips
• Lunch - Leftover veggie chili
• Snack - Almond cranberry trailmix
• Dinner - Udon noodle salad (udon, broccoli, red pepper, carrot, cabbage, green onion, and a rice vinegar/soy/ginger/garlic dressing); orange slices.  BTW, I'm digging raw cooking, which apart from the udon noodles everything else was raw.