Via Colori!

Today was the Via Colori street painting festival in downtown.  It was AMAZING!!!!

Wow!

Organization!

For me, I like seeing everything that I have right away.  I started to make this happen with this pantry idea. Take regular 2X4's, spray paint them, stack them and ta-da! Instant organization! No tools required, the board were cut at Home Depot for me! No more guessing at what is hiding in there!

 My love of labels knows no end! My daughter's kitchen area was starting to get chaotic. I found these baskets in the back to school aisle at Walmart. Now everything is in its place and easy to locate.  We love these small glass bowls to heat up her food in the microwave, no BPA for us!

Taking it a step further, I got inspired to make more bows.  A semi-forced inspiration since most of my daughters bows are somehow missing!!!

I looked in the craft bin and found this mess!

But thanks to these handy plastic bands, I was able to give this drawer a makeover!!!

Its much better now!

What are your organization musts?

To market, to market!

The farmers market goodies are organic mangos and flavored goat cheese. I learned that my Cabrietta cheese would not be available until Jan or Feb! Gasp! I can make, I can make it....I think.

My daughter is a lover of hot cereal and fruit in the mornings! It's her favorite. It's filling and healthy so no biggie. But in trying to introduce new food. I will give her french toast tomorrow morning.

I took the following items. Bread, cinnamon, salt, egg and honey.

Wisked together and cut the bread into little "sticks".

Into the heated butter they went.

And out the delicious sticks came out. I hope she likes them. For the recipe please go to http://www.weelicious.com/ the best source for kiddie recipes.

Yummy Goodness!

Breakfast
This is so quick and easy that I am finding myself making it almost everyother day.

Spinach with onions go into the pan with egg.

In an effort to use something other than bread, meet my new friends.

Ta-da! Oh yeah, some cheese made its way in there! Gooey goodness

Lunch

Again the wraps made their way into lunch. Chicken with salad lettuce with a few black beans sprinkled in. That the only thing with being a small family and really the only one to eat some of these things I buy. I find myself making alot of repeats throughout the week in an effort to not let things go to waste.

And lunch was ready for work.

The weather is really changing. I cannot wait to eat oatmeal. I LOVE oatmeal. I love all the stuff you can put inside of it. Crunchy nuts, almond butter, honey, yyyyyuuuuuummmmmm. I think next week we will start. I am also debating on whether I should be making this oatmeal at work. I find myself taking the egg with me and eating it on my drive it. Impossible to do with oatmeal, so perhaps I should just have it at work. Besides I am the only one on my floor for at least an hour and half. What's the harm. We will see.

Updates Updates!

Lunch
Wrap with chicken breast, mushrooms, lettuce. Side of guacamole. Chili with crackers. And the never to be missing, cucumber water. This was so filling!



Dinner
Oven baked breaded chicken breast. Side of guacamole, black beans and canned corn with mayo and parmesean cheese. How I wish the corn would have been roasted, takes me back to my visits to Mexico.



Weekend Update.

This weekend was so great! We started Saturday with a walk to the grocery store to pick up a few things missing for lunch. Then we continued the walk towards the park. She loved it. She loved pointing out at the birds and she ran after all the dogs she saw at the park.

We visited the Highland Village Farmers Market and the Urban Harvest Eastside Farmers market! The farmers market bug bit us hard! We were on a mission. And now I am addicted to:

Cabrietta goat cheese, yummy. I have spread it on bread, as a side to my salads, with breakfast eggs and straight from the container. YUMMY. I must have more!!! We arrived two hours after opening time at the Highland market and still found alot of parking. So convenient and everyone was so friendly and informative! The setup was great and ample for me to navigate with the stroller.

The eastside market was a little chaotic. A wider selection of goods and veggies. I noticed that the same indian food and goat cheese vendors were there. There was alot more veggies and alot more energy. Serious shoppers rolling their ice chests behind them. Now that is dedicated! I might just have to copy them since I had to bring my eggs in a plastic bag with ice cubs. There was a mobile food truck, a juice bar, and more spices and flowers. It was nice to have such a greater selection but I prefer the quietness of the Highland market.

I bought 4 cucumbers for my water, organic mango snacks, water spinach and eggs.

How is that for authentic?

We had such a great time sampling so much food and buying our goodies. The chicken samosas were devine! I will definately get some this weekend. Since the weather here in Houston is cool, it is perfect for making the farmers market "our thing" to do on Saturday mornings.

Last night I prep'd these Turkey Pesto Meatballs, they are awesome. Since I have lots of leftover pesto I will make some more and freeze them. Its relatively simple to put together, simply get the turkey, add breadcrumbs, basil and cheese. Mix it all together and form balls, that's it.

You can see the prep'd meatballs in the picture below. I prep'd some veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper. We put it in the oven the next day for 30 minutes and they were delish!

Breakfast on the go. Mornings are usually very hectic, since the snooze button is my best friend. So I premake breakfast so that I can just heat and go. Here we have one egg, handfull of spinach, diced onions and diced green bell peppers.

One of my co-worker's last day is tomorrow. We all headed out to Luby's for lunch. Livers and onions, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. I usually always drink water with lemon when I go out. A big change from my used to be usual Dr. Pepper. But I cannot resist the sweet tea of Luby's. I am addicted.

Dinner- Turkey Pesto Meatballs with a side salad and yes, again with no dressing.

And of course, there was alot of water with cucumber @ the office. This was taken with my phone, please excuse the brightness, it is not that bright in my office.

And lastly, while running errands after putting the baby to sleep, i found these pretty big tote bags at the Dollar Store her in Sugar Land off of Hwy 6. I hope they turn out to be semi-reliable. Hubby is going to school on weekends to get a real estate license. So that means it will be a girls weekend from now on for a while. I am already planning what to do and that includes finally making it around to visiting the farmers market in Houston. The drive in with the baby was always intimidating before, but now that we are really starting to put together alot of healthier recipes that include more produce than I had ever imagined to be using per week. I want to support our local farmers, I hope I find some that are organic, but either way I want food that is locally grown. These bags are perfect for the farmers market. I bought two extra ones for my co-workers who have agreed to go with me.

Thank God, for leftovers! No cooking tonight, wait there is breakfast, off I go.

Yummy!

Its the end of the day again. These meals were put together very quickly and yet there were all pretty yummy . So lets recap before I get in there and get tomorrow's food ready.



Breakfast - Ricotta Spinach bites with cheese, organic blackberries and an organic banana.

Lunch - cucumber water, organic blackberries, salad, grilled cheese sandwich with spinach and carrots.

Dinner- Side salad that I could not finish. I left my balsamic dressing at the office and sadly creamy italian was just ok, but not great. Leftover pasta, ricotta spinach bites (becoming a staple in our home), and the breaded & baked salmon bites. Delish!!! The salmon bites are a keeper. Even my 14 month old ate them right away!!

Am I the only one addicted to water with cucumber slices? Here in Houston its pretty much always summer AKA always in the high 90's. Ok, ok, we have a winter but it comes and go so fast I barely have enough time to put my coat on. And by winter I am talking about weather down in the 50's-60's. Back to the water, love it, love it, love it! It's really refreshing and it takes the edge of just drinking plain ol' water. I have never really been into the Crystal Light packages.

Off I go to prep tomorrow's lunch and dinner.