Flavor Packed Pasta and dealing with negative opinions...

Hope you all had a great weekend, mine was filled with lots of work and hanging with the Boo. He just moved into his first house, so lots of painting and decorating have been taking place. I love every single minute of it! 

If you all recall on Friday I posted a recipe for whole wheat donuts and a short story of Liam and his love for them. Shortly after that was posted I received my first negative comment as a blogger. In short I said that Liam would do anything for a donut, and as a reward for being good during my hair and dentist appointments, he will get a donut. I deleted the comment immediately cause I don't want anything negative on here ever, but after talking to a few people about it they said that I should have left it to see what others have to say. So here is what this person had to say... "this boy has sit through numerous dentist visits" I'm not surprised! If you are feeding him balls of dough smothered in regular sugar - then you are setting yourself up to be your dentists best friend. There has got to be a healthier way to bribe a kid that rot his teeth out of his head. 

My child is given sweets, only during special occasions or times when he deserves it for being good. He doesn't even drink juice, soda, or chocolate milk, mostly regular milk or water. He will choose broccoli over potatoes. So to the person that was so concerned with what I give my child, you should know the whole story before you give your opinion. My child is one of the healthiest kids I know or ever have known, and that's all my doing. 

OK now onto something tasty...

I'm eating really light lately since summer weather is here. I wanted a pasta that had a lot of flavor and some protein. So I came up with a whole wheat pasta tossed in some sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, garlic, lemon, and Parmesan cheese. There's also a little cayenne pepper for a nice kick! Its a perfect summer pasta dish. 

A Breakfast Smoothie and Saving a Buck...

Mornings around here are pretty relaxed, Liam usually sneaks into bed with me and we cuddle, talk about the dreams we had, he plays a game on my iPhone, and I try to sneak in a couple more minutes of sleep. But some mornings are very rushed, especially school days. We both aren't big on breakfast and eating early, but I always try to get him to eat something. And one of the best and most convenient is a smoothie, just throw it into a cup with a lid and straw and your off.

I try pack as much healthy stuff in these as possible. We all know kids can be picky about veggies, Liam's actually pretty good about them. He loves broccoli, carrots, green beans; I'm actually pretty blessed and amazed at this kid. 

Here's one of our regular smoothies its the Banana, Spinach, Blueberry, and Greek Yogurt. The banana to fill him up, spinach for all the vitamins and nutrients, yogurt for calcium, and blueberries because they are a super food. I know what your thinking, "spinach in a smoothie?" yeah, its awesome, you cannot taste the spinach and it takes it from healthy to super-healthy!

I get most of these ingredients at Costco, saves me a lot of money shopping there every two weeks. I never imagined that I would ever shop at a wholesale store until I started realizing how much money I was saving. And the samples are always a plus! 

I used to be a person that would choose convenience over doing it myself, until I noticed how much money I was throwing away or making other people rich. And one of those areas was the smoothie store, you know which ones I'm talking about..the ones with the long lines and overpriced blended fruit drinks. Well no more my friends, its all about saving a buck or $10. 

What do you do at home that saves you a lot of money?

Banana, Spinach, Blueberry, Yogurt Smoothie

makes 2

1 Cup Frozen Organic Blueberries

Handful of Fresh Organic Spinach

1 Banana

1/3 Cup Greek Yogurt

1 Teaspoon Agave Nectar

1/3 Cup Milk

Place all ingredients in blender and blend up!