Real Food: Day 7

I'm playing with fire today.

Spending the afternoon out on a hike and I haven't planned what we are having for dinner. I like to live on the edge.

Planning and organization are not my strong suits, which is one reason this Challenge has been good for me. I can't just order a pizza at 5:30 when I realize I haven't thought about dinner, so I've had to plan ahead.

Except for today.

Today we are explorers.

"I think we go this way..."

We've been wanting to take the smallies on a hike, and today's weather was perfect for a walk (which is good since we were going to do this today even if it was hailing grapefruit).

"See that bear, kids?"

But before explorers go looking for monsters in the woods, they need to eat.

BREAKFAST: I mentioned earlier this week that my kids had never eaten eggs before this Challenge. If this was the only victory won from this Challenge, I would be satisfied. It drove me CRAZY that they wouldn't eat eggs for breakfast. So now that they will, I'm jumping on it. Oatmeal and eggs for breakfast.

I threw in some leftover salsa from last night's dinner for Kyle and I. Add some OJ and a cappuccino and it was a tasty meal.

I had seconds.

LUNCH: Threw together a quick lunch since we were heading out. Almond butter and jam on homemade whole wheat bread, lots o' grapes and popcorn.

SNACK: Packed some grapes, mini banana muffins, and water for a snack on our hike. Sophie called it "explorer food." But to her disappointment, it didn't help us catch any monsters.

Such an outdoorsman.

DINNER: I figured we could scrape together a dinner out of leftovers, but we were all STARVING from hiking all afternoon (note: we were only supposed to be hiking for an hour...but a few wrong turns nearly tripled our route...). I decided to throw together some salmon patties and roast some potatoes we had in our Visser Farms CSA box this week. Cut up a cantaloupe and steamed some beans from our CSA box and dinner was served.

My usual salmon patties recipe goes like this: can of wild Alaskan salmon, Progresso Italian bread crumbs, egg, pepper, maybe a little Parmesan cheese, so everything worked except the breadcrumbs. Replaced the Progresso breadcrumbs with some I had made and froze. Added some garlic powder, onion powder, and parsley flakes for seasoning. Tasted just like my old salmon patties. Except they were 100%  real! Nothing else in the dinner needed substitutions. I always roast potatoes in EVOO, salt, and pepper. Always steam beans and finish them with EVOO, salt, and pepper.

The kids needed a little coaxing to finish the beans and potatoes tonight, so I decided to provide some incentive.

Mmmmm....

It worked.

Just sliced a mini banana muffin in thirds horizontally. layered muffin, banana slices, and honey, and no one could resist the leaning tower of deliciousness.

After dinner I needed a little pick-me-up, so I made another batch of the chocolate torte bombs.

Ate them right off the tray.

Hit. The. Spot.

OBSERVATIONS: I am tired. Not just from hiking way longer than I intended. Evenings when I would normally dial up dinner instead of making it are tough. First world problem, I know.

Part of the trick to making this Real Food thing work long-term is developing a repertoire of go-to dishes. I'm not there yet. Still just trying to keep my head above water.