Food for Thought #10: August.

1.// Our library has such fun activities! We went to a preschool math and science event that was all about exploring water. I keep meaning to recreate this station at home – fun little objects frozen in big blocks of ice, with lots of scoops and spoons and pipettes for excavating!

2.// I’ve been wanting a play table for the girls, and scored this super cute one from Craig’s List! We might not exactly have a perfect spot for it, so it’s migrated from the living room to the kitchen to our bedroom to upstairs in my oldest’s room. But it’s so perfect for tea partying! (Pssst – if you’re local, check out Milky and Midget’s Macarons for beautiful homemade macaron cookies – the lemon is my fave! You’ll be supporting two awesome and entrepreneurial ballerinas, too!)

3.// I have a new muffin recipe I’m all excited to share with you…so excited, in fact, that as I was making them this weekend in order to take pictures, I managed to leave out a headliner ingredient. Waaah! So just hang on a sec while I wait for a new batch of bananas to turn brown….

4.// I’ve also been experimenting with the chocolate chip granola bar recipe, trying to perfect an oatmeal raisin cookie version. I thought they were good, but Jay was visibly disappointed when he said around a mouthful –  “Do these have…raisins…in them?!” And even though I said they were oatmeal raisin granola bars, my almost-five-year-old burst into tears when she realized there really weren’t any chocolate chips in there. #lessonlearned #givethepeoplewhattheywant #moreforme

5.// A friend and reader recommended this recipe for One Pot Spaghetti recently and I made it for the second time last week! It’s quick & easy, and the one-potness is so wonderful. I had always been skeptical of one pot meals and felt like the pasta would end up mushy or it would soak up too much of the sauce, but the ratios in this recipe are really good and I like how much flavor the pasta absorbs. I used whole wheat noodles, and Better than Bouillon chicken base as always for the chicken broth (I used 2 cups, since my jar of marinara sauce wasn’t totally full). Thanks, Linda! I love trying new recipes, and a personal recommendation is the best – if you’ve got one, leave it in the comments! :o)