Okay, so I’m late getting on the bandwagon. So many bloggers have mentioned, given away, and reviewed this book.

Not feeling the need to actually hide vegetables in my children’s food, I didn’t feel the urge to buy the book. But since my 3 year old has now decided he can live on fruit, noodles and air, I’m seeking new and interesting food to give him. Even so, I didn’t know if I wanted to buy the book, but recently a friend of mine lent it to me.

This morning the Taxman & I made pink pancakes. I made the batter, and he cooked them up. For those of you that don’t have the book, the basic idea of these pancakes is that you mix some beet puree, some ricotta cheese, a bit of cinammon and shredded apple into a prepared pancake mix.

The batter was a bit runny, and a bright pink colour. We didn’t have ricotta cheese, so I used cottage cheese that I pureed in a small food processor.

The Taxman got into the act this morning. Our general routine has him making pancakes on Saturday mornings. This week we moved our pancake day to Sunday, but he was still our resident pancake flipper.

That pink circle in the air? Pancake flipping.

Check out these pancakes! They are not QUITE as fluorescent pink as they look, but they were quite bright. We ended up putting a bit extra pancake mix in our batter because it was a bit runny. The thicker batter resulted in fluffier pancakes.

I wasn’t so certain about these, to be honest.  The real test, of course, is the children.

The little one, Stewie? Well, yes, he ate them.  But I must be honest, he eats most anything these days (including snow) so he’s not the most reliable judge.

The real test, of course, is the Big one, my Happy Boy.  Since he turned 3, he’s become much more picky.

He ate them.  4 of them for breakfast, 1 for snack, and the last 2 for lunch.  When we asked him, he told us he liked them not for the taste, but because they are pink.  Pink and red are his favourite colours.

I’ll take what I can get!

On my other blog I talk a lot about my two children. One of the issues that has come up with them lately is food. Now what mother doesn’t have feeding issues with their children – too much, too little, the wrong stuff…you get the idea.

If you looked at our meal plan this week, one of the items on it was Chick Pea Burgers. This was a new recipe for me, so, as I always do with a new recipe, I tried to follow it as written. I did substitute green pepper for the red (didn’t have any red) and used a bit less chili powder.

Here’s the batter, after mixing:

Doesn’t look like that much, to be honest. However, I decided, instead of shaping it into burgers, to create small nuggets. And, since the batter was fairly thick, I thought about cutting these nuggets into shapes.

So I dug through my miscellaneous kitchen stuff drawer (you know you have one too), and pulled out some tiny cookie cutters. I patted the dough on a cutting board, used the cutters to cut out shapes, and fried them in a pan like in the recipe.

Here are the burgers frying up in a frying pan. I cooked them with a little bit of oil and some cooking spray.

As an alternative to frying, I also tried baking them in my toaster oven. I liked that much better (less labour intensive, more even cooking). I sprayed the toaster cookie sheet with cooking spray and then cooked them at 375 for 10 minutes per side. All toasters are different, so you would have to play with it to see.

Here are the nuggets, as I now call them, on a plate. (By the way, if you see these plates anywhere, could you let me know? They’ve been discontinued, and we want to get some more of the glasses that go with them, to replace the ones we have broken.)

Of course, the real test of a food being good or not comes after eating. Since my older son was at school, I had the younger one give them a try:

I think because of the shape he didn’t realize it was food at first, but once he did, his verdict was a resounding “mo! Mo! (more)”

The true test, however, comes with the preschool boy, who, lately, has stopped eating much of anything. We weren’t quite as successful with him – he took just one bite and then left the table to go play. Which is a regular occurrence for him, unfortunately.

Overall, I think the recipe was a partial success. I will try again with my older boy, who ate only noodles today. The younger one ate 7 nuggets, so I’d say he liked it!

Our most recent toy acquisition is the Imagiplay Arctic Expedition play set. I have to be honest, I was sceptical when I saw this, opting more for the zoo and safari sets (we got those too, but they are still in the toy cupboard). But I was pleasantly surprised when my son gravitated to this set:

He knew that it was an igloo, and I think that was the most fascinating part. He put the Inuit people on the sled, attached the dog (I showed him how, just once) and was pulling them around the table.

He loved the animals, and even pulled the polar bear and another seal from the zoo set to keep together.

Their toys are made from plantation-grown, chemical-free rubberwood (according to the company website) and the quality looks good so far. The pieces are chunky without too many tiny details (that could break in little hands!) and just the right size.

Imagiplay is proud of their toys, and the even talk about their manufacturing process right on their website. While the toys are still made overseas (Sri Lanka, Vietnam and some carefully selected factories in China the company is open and honest about their process and their products. Very refreshing!

I would strongly recommend this and the other playsets that they offer. We have opened the zoo set but when we opened this one, the zoo set was pushed aside. I am sure it will be picked up later!

We are in no way affiliated with the company, but we are very impressed with their products and business practices!

When The Happy Boy was born, I was all about the creative gift.  I liked finding things that other people didn’t have, from clothing to toys to room decor.  So when I found the Name Your Tune CD at a local craft fair, I was hooked.

We bought that CD for him over 2 years ago, and it’s gotten a lot of use.  He loves to hear the songs with this name in them, and so do I.  Now that we have a second little boy, it would be nice to have some songs with his name, too.

Convenient then, that there is a contest to win one over at The Laughs will go On. Have a look, but don’t enter – I want to win!