This morning Gracen and I made one of our go-to breakfasts… Eggs in a hole. Except we always make ours with a fun shape instead of a plain old circle and then change the name just a tad. ☺ On this morning’s menu? Hearts in a hole.
I love this breakfast because it’s so easy, but it’s more fun than just plain eggs and toast. Plus Grae gobbles it up every time and all you really need is eggs, bread, a little bit of oil, and a cookie cutter of some sort.
This is really so simple that it doesn’t warrant instruction. Just place the cookie cutter in the middle of the bread…
And really push down.
Then place the bread, along with the cut out in an oiled pan warmed over medium heat and carefully crack the egg into the hole. Because we like our eggs cooked hard, we cover the pan right away.
When the white appears cooked through, flip everything over and let it cook a couple more minutes.
That’s it – breakfast is served. And today, just for fun, we added strawberry hearts too. (This meal may just have to be repeated on Valentine’s Day.)
♥
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First off, I have to say that I just love setting up fun play invites for Gracen to discover. The way her little face lights up when she finds something new just melts me. And she dives in so enthusiastically that I seriously could just stand back and watch her play forever. 
Gracen got all kinds of really cool cooking and baking supplies for Christmas this year, so I made sure to include them, but you could easily just use regular-sized bowls, pans, and utensils.
For the ‘food’, I filled up some small jars and bowls with dried goods from our pantry and added in a couple of spice shakers, one filled with rice and the other with some of the 
Of course our observant little girl noticed the cooking station within 10 seconds of exiting the bathroom, long before she had completely dried off or put clothes on. After retrieving a shirt, some underwear, and a hat (weird doodle!) it was time to play.
Pie anyone?
She whipped up concoction after concoction, offering us tastes along the way. ☺
She had so much fun that at the end of the night I simply tidied things up a little, made them looking inviting again, and left them out for her to explore again tomorrow. 
After eight hours, we had a lovely sheet of fruit leather.
One of the few ready-made packaged foods I buy now and then is organic all-fruit fruit leather strips. They’re a very special treat for Miss G and I don’t feel horrible about letting her have one once and a while (as long as her teeth are brushed extra well that day), but I’ve always known that I should probably be making them at home instead. Recently, our local grocery store stopped restocking their organic fruit leather supply (I think they’re getting rid of the current stock and then no longer carrying them) and they were down to just two lonely strips on our last visit. It was the perfect push I needed to try making my own. 
Today I asked Gracen if she’d like to try making some fruit leather of our own, and she responded enthusiastically with, “Sure! Purple ones.” so I decided we’d try a berry variety first. Since we don’t really buy many berries when they’re out of season, we went with what we had in the freezer – strawberries, raspberries, and wild blueberries. Plus an apple and half a lemon for texture and a little kick.
As we were prepping the fruit, which really only consists of peeling and coring the apple, we decided to add a banana in the mix for sweetness.
With all of the ingredients ready to go, Gracen popped them into a large pot…
Then squeezed the lemon on top…
And added a little bit of water.
Then we popped the mixture on the stove to stew over medium heat for a while.
About a half hour later, this is what we had.
We let it cool for a little bit and then dumped it in the food processor to puree for a bit.
With our mixture nice and smooth, we lined a baking sheet with parchment paper…
And poured our berry mixture on top.
Using a spatula, we spread the mixture out to cover the entire base of the pan (on our next attempt, I’d spend a little more time getting it as evenly as possible) and put the pan in the oven on the lowest temperature.
Eight and a half hours later (yes – it takes a long time!) this is what we had.
We carefully peeled off the parchment paper…
And then I used kitchen scissors to cut it into strips.
A little parchment paper and baking twine later, we had our own homemade {and healthy!} version of a Fruit Roll-Up. ☺
sous chef // best part of baking
I know that green smoothies may seem a little trendy with all of the New Year’s resolutions happening right now, but the truth is that they’re really easy, really healthy, and pretty much a fool-proof way to start your day. 
Here’s the lineup of ingredients… Some cold water, several ice cubes, pure orange juice (or better yet – a fresh squeezed orange), half an apple, a pear, a banana, and a few kale leaves.
To get started, peel the banana, chop up the pear, and peel and chop the apple (as long as you don’t mind some added texture, feel free to leave the apple peel on).
Now pop those things into the blender {while sneaking a few bites of course}.
Next, remove the stems from the kale.
And add it to the blender along with the orange juice, water, and ice cubes.
This part isn’t necessary and certainly doesn’t change the flavour, but we always add a big scoop of chia seeds to our smoothies. The nutritional benefits of chia are amazing and it keeps your smoothie from separating if you store extras in the fridge overnight. Bonus!
Next, blend everything up. We normally start on a low setting until the ingredients are combined, then crank it up and let it blend a while longer so that it doesn’t feel as though you’re drinking a salad. ☺
Now pour into cups and enjoy!
I’ve seen snow ice cream floating around the web a lot lately (like 
Here’s our line up of ingredients… Cream, vanilla almond milk, pure maple syrup, pure vanilla, and some really good cinnamon. 
Oh, and a bunch of this – light and fluffy freshly-fallen snow.
To get us started, Gracen poured both the cream and vanilla almond milk into a large mixing bowl.
Then she added some pure maple syrup…
Some pure vanilla…
And a few pinches of cinnamon.
Then she stirred everything up.
The next step involved adding the snow.
The monkey requested a mitten in order to get the job done.
With all of the ingredients added, it was time to mix, mix, mix.
We found that alternating mixing with a sort of mashing motion worked really well and broke up the clumps at the same time. Here’s what our batch looked like once it was ready.
To serve it, I added a little sprinkle of cinnamon (Miss G loves it and it has great health benefits, so we add it to a lot of things) and topped it with a pecan.
Not only was it delish, but it was a really fun snowy day activity.
Gracen and I whipped up one of our all time favourite treats this afternoon. Sadly, I can take ZERO credit for the amazingness that is this dish… It’s something my friend Lara made all the time (she even has a special dish!) while we were living in Kuwait and it was just too amazing not to steal and call my own (sorry, Lara!) It is seriously the easiest, yummiest {and naughtiest} appetizer ever. Bring it to a party and you will instantly win everyone over – I promise. 
Here’s the lineup of ingredients… A wedge of brie, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes.
First, remove most of the rind off of the top of the wedge.
Cut the wedge into chunks in order to fit it snugly in the baking dish.
Next, round up between 2 and 4 garlic cloves, depending on how garlicky you want your dish to be.
Enlist your sous chef to peel them for you…
And chop them up into small pieces.
Sprinkle the garlic on top of the brie. Sneak a few pieces down along the sides too if you can.
Next chop up a few big pinches of sun-dried tomatoes.
Sprinkle them on top of the brie too.
Pop the cheese into the oven and watch it melt into a delicious bowl of cheesy goodness.
Remove from the oven when the cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown. Serve with crackers or fresh baguette rounds.
Here are our ingredients… Whole wheat flour, plain organic yogurt, baking soda, baking powder, organic butter, honey, frozen raspberries, vanilla, and a lemon.
We started by combining the dry ingredients.
Then we added the butter and cut it into the flour mixture with a fork because I could not for the life of me find my pastry cutter (perhaps I owned one in Kuwait, but not in Canada? Hmmm…)
Next, we added the frozen raspberries and lemon zest into the dry mixture and gently stirred them in. 
Then, in a separate bowl, we mixed the yogurt, honey, lemon juice, and vanilla together.
Grae then poured the wet mixture into the dry mixture and gently stirred it until just combined.
Afterwards, we plopped in onto a piece of parchment paper, kneaded the dough a few times, and shaped it into a circle about an inch thick.
Our dough was pretty sticky at this point, and probably could have used a little extra flour, but we just went with it and cut it up into triangles.
Then we carefully moved the scones onto a parchment-lined sheet, and popped them in the oven to bake.
Voila! A delicious homemade snack or breakfast.
But onto the recipe. Here’s what we use to make our overnight mango coconut chia pudding… Your choice of milk (coconut milk is especially delicious in this recipe), pure maple syrup, chia seeds, pure vanilla, unsweetened coconut, and a mango (not pictured because it isn’t needed until morning).
I like to make this recipe in a mason jar because it seals well and I can give the jar a little shake every now and then, but any sort of bowl or container that has a lid will do. 
Then add the coconut…
The maple syrup…
And the vanilla.
Give everything a stir…
Pop the lid on and put the jar in the fridge. If you come back to the fridge again that night, give the jar a gentle shake to prevent clumping. If not, it’s not a big deal.
When you wake up in the morning, retrieve your mason jar of pudding. It’ll be thick and creamy by now and will resemble the insides of a passionfruit. Grab a mango too. (Though mango / coconut is one of our favourite combinations, strawberries, bananas, and blueberries pair well with the coconut too.)
Now peel and chop up your mango into small pieces…
And add them to the jar.
Mix everything together well.
Breakfast is ready!
This morning Grae and I woke up and decided on pancakes for breakfast. We were just about to gather our ingredients as the phone rang. As I snuck in a very quick conversation with my sister-in-law, Miss G got started without me apparently… Anyone up for cornmeal-cocoa-double-salt-tomato pancakes?
Only I would try to amp up the nutritional value of bananas… Haha! I kid. (Kinda.) The truth is, Miss G has been on a 
Here’s the ingredient lineup… Bananas (ripe, but not overripe), roasted ground flax seed, and cinnamon. 
Start off by peeling the bananas and making sure all of the white stringy things are removed.
Chop them into coins (maybe about a half inch thick?) and set them aside.
Next, pour some roasted ground flax seed into a container with a lid (or a zip close bag).
Enthusiastically dump some cinnamon in too.
Put the lid on the container and give it a little shake.
Place the lid on the container again and shake until all of the banana coins are well coated.
Next, place the coated banana pieces onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Place the tray in the freezer for at least an hour.
Serve them frozen to your excited toddler and watch them disappear. (Without a word of a lie, Gracen gobbled up our entire batch – and that was after a full meal!)