After school snack, dinner, and gardening:

Oh afternoon snack....  What a dilemma.   I know the girls are starving.  I know the girls want sweets (I always wants sweets at about 3pm - well more specifically - I want chocolate).  How do I give them what they want but also something healthy?  I decided to experiment.  Yesterday, I was cutting up a lot of veggies for our dinner and decided to put some out on a plate with dip.  The day before I received my first order of Dr. Sweet's Emporium dairy free, gluten free chocolate chip cookies (more on those later).  So, I put out the cookies and the veggies.  Just put them on the table, didn't make a big deal about the snack.  I watched.  The girls devoured the cookies.  Then, they started eating the veggies!  The finished half of that plate of raw veggies.  Awesome.  Again, I didn't say anything too them, but was thankful they enjoyed their veggies too.  (The dips were an organic ranch from wholefoods, and a chickpea tahini dip I made (no one liked this one).

Cookies - Have you heard of Dr. Sweets?  OMG -
http://drsweetscakes.com/

Half of a cookie!

Wow.  I discovered them at an Atlanta Underground Market and have been following them on twitter.  I did not have an occasion to order a cake from them, and felt kind of silly ordering just cookies BUT they had no problem with my small order.  AND, I could pick them up about 5 minutes from my house, so no delivery fee.  They can make treats with almost any specification, everything is gluten free, but they can also make it without dairy, nuts, sugar, etc.  AMAZING.  I ordered a dozen GF / DF chocolate chip cookies.  They were pricey - but have you seen the prices of boxed gluten free cookies from Wholefoods?  Expensive and not good.  I made the plunge and wow did these cookies exceed my wildest expectations.  First, you get your monies worth - they are delicious and huge.  Mine were still warm when I picked them up.  They melted in my mouth, so rich, so fresh, so perfect.  The girls and I both LOVE them. And, I put some of them in the freezer - I hope this will work.  I had too, or I would have eaten the entire dozen.

Dinner - still trying to find meals to suit everyone.  Last nights was an adaptation of the girl's creation - salad pasta.

 I chopped up fresh spinach, tomatoes, vidala onions, cauliflower and broccoli.  Simmered all of this in a big pot with veggie broth, salt and pepper.  I toasted pumpkin seeds (again) to sprinkle on top.  I used Quinoa spaghetti.  I loved the dinner.  No one else did.  Chad had a grilled chicken breast to add to his. He felt it needed more seasoning, tomato sauce or something.  I loved the fresh taste without too much seasoning - so what do you do?  Ry (who created the salad pasta - but note she did not help fix it this time) would not try it and S had some objection to it.  So all in all - disaster dinner that I enjoyed!

Lastly - so, I am having some luck cooking these days, but still no luck growing anything.  In my head, I imagine a small little garden out back with all my fresh herbs and veggies.  But reality - I really do not like anything about gardening.  And, apparently I have no talent either.  I took a risk and bought a basil plant.  Start with one thing - how hard could it be.  I followed the directions diligently.  The outcome - in 2 weeks, I managed to do this: