Orange and Green

 More pumpkin products, y'all! Will it ever end? No, because I am a pumpkin buying fool this year.  First at HEB I found pumpkin harvest soup, pumpkin spice sandwich cookies, and pumpkin spice muffin bars. I thought the cookies would be soft, but they are crunchy. Hard to stop at eating just one! The muffin bars are dry, I wouldn't recommend them.

Next, at Sprouts, pumpkin pasta sauce and pumpkin gelato. The gelato is so good, with a really strong pumpkin flavor. I also bought a pomegranate for Olivia. There's a pomegranate tree at the library that she always notices, but the pomegranates are still very small. I wanted to show her how they look when they are ripe.

She ate almost this whole bowl of seeds (not in one sitting, thankfully for her digestive system.) They are a fun snack to eat with little fingers.

"Let's get more pomegranates!"

To counterbalance all the sugary pumpkin goodies, I made us some green juice this morning. I used a recipe I've seen in several places online: 2 apples, 4 celery stalks, 6 pieces of kale, 1 cucumber, 1 inch knob of ginger, and 1 lemon.  

I also made some apple butter balls for an after-school snack.

Vegan MoFo Day 12: Day to Day

6:30 wake-up = bedhead and sleepy Mr. Potato Head play before school. Also, artwork. I think Jackson finds making art calming. Some mornings he will ask for a pen and paper as soon as he gets out of bed. And after a long day at kindergarten, he will come home and tell me he just wants to relax and do some drawing, or build his Legos.

I had some apple butter in the fridge, so I made this Maple Walnut Apple Butter Oatmeal. More of a suggestion than a recipe, a very easy and tasty breakfast.

Olivia and I did our weekly grocery shopping. We picked up a few extra goodies, too. Kombucha, served hot? I haven't tried it yet, but I'm very curious how it will taste. I forgot to bring a snack for Olivia, so we shared a pack of Vega savi seeds in the car. Kind of like peanut M&M's but the savi seeds have an earthier flavor than peanuts, similar to hempseeds.

I had heard about these cotton candy grapes, so I picked up a package. I wouldn't say they taste exactly like cotton candy, but definitely sweeter and less tart than a regular green grape.

I thought I might start sharing some of Olivia's lunches. With just one kid at home, I actually have time to photograph them! Whole wheat bread with peanut butter, cotton candy grapes, cucumber, and grilled corn.

Sauerkraut gazpacho for dinner -- the Pinterest find of the day, in keeping with my somewhat neglected Vegan MoFo theme. Homemade sauerkraut from Tony's coworker added a nice zip to the tomato soup.

Later I sipped on some Cocozia coconut water, which the company very kindly sent me for review. I think it's one of the better coconut waters out of there as it's organic, not from concentrate (some are!) and has no added sugar, resulting in a light, mild flavor. I'm eager to try using it in smoothies, too!