New Products and Store Frustrations

I found this new product, well it's new to me. I have always liked Skippy peanut butter, but can't always bring it to daycare since they restrict peanut products. At home I can eat it every day for lunch; adding apples, bananas, mangoes and other fruits to the sandwich to mix it up and add nutritional value.

I've used a lot of jelly and preserves over the years, but after finding Mango Butter in Trader Joe's I am hooked. It doesn't clump, fall out, and get sticky like jelly, jam, or preserves. I will have to save up and get more.

Since my local health food store doesn't carry any sunflower butter, I also use Trader Joe's sunflower butter for daycare. It does get a little greasy, but keeping a paper towel underneath it helps. 

 

I am disappointed in my local stop and shop store. They have just left a sour taste in my mouth. First their brand of freezer bags opened up too many times at the WORST times. Then they had expired almond milk products out for over a month. Yesterday they a had NO almond milk products at all. NONE. ZERO. ZIP. They are reorganizing the store and forgot to order more almond milk I guess. 

It's frustrating because they will double coupons up to 99c, but that is just not enough to keep my loyalty. Now I have to find a local store with good savings that accepts coupons. I do a good deal of shopping in Walgreens and Rite Aide because of their deals, coupon rules, and money back in the form of register rewards and up rewards respectively. But they don't sell meat, almond milk, fresh fruit and veggies.

Trader Joe's has lower prices than the supermarkets. Instead of buying frozen meatballs I'll buy the ingredients and make my own. The brand of almond milk and rice milk was cheaper than the local supermarket. They have a pre-made  guacamole and hummus mix which is AWESOME! Dinosaur and I love hummus and guacamole, but I CAN NOT make hummus and suck at making guacamole. 

And I just found http://healthylifedeals.com this site lists the deals and manufacturer coupons each week for Trader Joe's. How cool is that! 

Where do you shop for fresh foods? How many stores do you use for grocery shopping? Do you use/like Trader Joe's? 

Pineapple Pancakes and Egg Cupcakes

Yes, pancakes again...but this time with pineapples. YES, pineapples. They were delicious and perfect. I cut the pineapples into tiny slices and added them into the batter. I did my usual mashed banana's in the syrup. Dinosaur loved them, even my picky dad ate some. 

More leftovers into eggs, only this time I have dinosaur calling them "Egg Cupcakes". Mom's are so good at being deceitful.

As you can tell from my previous recipes, I like to add lots of spices such as curry, garlic, onion, parsley and allspice. YUMMY

We used leftover fries, broccoli and fried chicken.

 Look how great that batter is, now time to cook the egg cupcakes.

Dinosaur couldn't eat them fast enough. Even though he saw green in the cupcakes, he gobbled them up. They were healthy, yummy, and filling.


What breakfast/lunch are you most proud of this week?

Dinosaur approved school lunch

I try to give Dinosaur a choice of two items for daycare food. Today he chose....

BREAKFAST: Turkey bacon, eggs, banana muffins

LUNCH: meatballs, chips, guacamole

SCHOOL LUNCH July 12 2012

I am going to start showing what I make son for breakfast and lunch at daycare. This will help me remember what to make him and share my ideas.

For Breakfast: I made pulled out previously frozen banana mini-muffins. These were easy to make and froze easily. I added scrambled eggs and dole canned manderine oranges.

For Lunch: I gave him cars chicken nuggets and tortilla chips. There is a wholly guacamole packet and a bbq sauce. I know there isn't much veggies, but he had lots of veggies on his homemade pizza last night.

I love easylunchboxes but their coolers are not great. Two of them broke on me. Hubby buys me better quality lunch coolers that fit the containers.