The Creative Salad

More Gluten-Free Pasta Options

I recently discovered several new tasty gluten-free pastas that I’m excited to share with you.

My new favorite, go-to pasta, Andean Dream Quinoa Pasta, contains a combination of rice and quinoa, making it more nutritious and tasty than plain rice pasta. The taste and texture reminds me of the Ancient Harvest Quinoa Organic Pasta that used to be my favorite gluten-free pasta back when I couldn’t eat gluten but could still eat corn. (Yeah, the food sensitivity saga continues over here.)

On the right is the Trader Joe’s gluten-free boxed macaroni and cheese, which my family prefers to the pricier (albeit locally owned) Annie’s variety. I do feel some guilt about not supporting a local company, but the $1-2 per box price different is a deal breaker for me when they taste nearly identical and our toddler requests mac and cheese pretty much every day. (Ah, to have a three year olds metabolism…)

Next up, this beautiful pasta by il Macchialiolo. I adore the shape of this gigli shaped pasta, made of rice and imported from Italy. I bought this particular variety on our road trip in a specialty shop in Oregon, but it’s also available online. While this pasta may be pricey, I personally think it’s perfect for a special meal.

That being said, I haven’t tasted this pretty one yet, so it might taste like crap. If that’s the case, whoops! Sorry about that. Hey, at least it looks good.

I personally would rather eat special pasta like this one on occasion than eat the bland, chewy, ordinary shaped rice pasta more widely available in the grocery store (I’m thinking about you, Tinkyada).

Writing Caddy

We’ve been working on organizing our arts and craft supplies.

I planned on making a writing caddy for our daughter, but we instead found this blue wire caddy at Joann’s on clearance and the little miss insisted we bring it home. Luckily it’s my style too, so I was thrilled to set it up at her play table in the living room. Inside it we keep:

– Letters and Numbers For Me activity book (published by Handwriting Without Tears)
– The complete set of Jan Brett’s free traditional coloring alphabet tracers stapled together with a this free downloadable Handwriting Without Tears Capital Letters Formation Chart
– Lined and blank paper

– Soft pencils and erasers
– Shape and alphabet stencils
– Protractor
– Maria the Scientist Paper Dolls
– Calculator (used primarily as a pretend cell phone)
– A set of butterfly play bank checks that you can download for free!

We keep the writing caddy on the child sized table by the window overlooking our garden. Adjacent to our birding materials (in the baskets/bags on the floor), we’re all set for everyday learning!

A Photographic Periodic Table of the Elements

Last week at the California Academy of Sciences we picked up these fantastic ~~posters~~ placements (evidently!) that we’re planning on hanging (one will go in our homeschool area and one will head into work with David for his cubicle).

The whole family has been pouring over the posters. I love how these pictures (and interesting factoids written up on the reverse side) have been jump starting family conversations about chemistry and physics.

What a great use of photography to illustrate the composition of our elements. The sample items are almost as interesting as the elements themselves!

The authors website, The Photographic Periodic Table of the Elements, contains a wealth of information and many more photos for each of the elements. There are two companion books, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe and Theo Gray’s Mad Science: Experiments You Can do At Home – But Probably Shouldn’t, also available. I’m looking forward to checking them out from the library.

Toddler Approved Healthier Smoothies

This is our go-to smoothie for that point in the afternoon when I know our daughter needs to eat and drink something, but she just won’t hear of it. (Can you tell we have a three year old in the house?!) In times such as these I need to break out something special. My secret weapon is this delicious smoothie fortified with yogurt and ground flax seeds.

The toddler gets to choose the flavor. I’ll like whatever we make, but she feels empowered being able to make the decision. Today she picked peach.

Load up the blender with a banana, tablespoon of ground flax seed, half a cup of plain whole milk yogurt, equal parts apple juice and water, and then that fruit of your child’s choice (peach, mixed berry, strawberry, or blueberry). Blend until smooth. Taste. Add more apple juice if the fruit isn’t quite sweet enough. Water down if the smoothie is too thick (a big no-no for our toddler audience). Pour into a sturdy cup and serve with a bpa-free straw (we love these stainless steel babies).

Simple and delicious!

Growing Things Greatly in Need of a Haircut

“Chard, smile for the camera! Smile, chard!” encourages our three year old as I try to stage a shot exhibiting the ridiculous height of the chard in our garden, while showing off her new haircut (more on that, below).

Our daughter’s hair and the chard stems in the garden were becoming too long and unmanageable.

Her hair brushing in the morning would take ten minutes as I untangled each and every curl. The chard was shading our tomatoes, a big no-no since I really want lots of tomatoes this summer.

Time to break out the scissors.

Much better.

Thank you to Sesame Street for helping occupy my daughter while I tried to evenly trim her hair and cut bangs, and for keeping her distracted each morning while we comb through her hair. (Toddler hair styling has become SO much easier since we discovered the trick of briefly plugging her into a tv show while we battle the tangles.) I am thankful for the short Sesame Street clips available on their website. My personal favorite? Madeline Kahn and Grover singing a duet, shown above and featured here.