In Twenty-Three Days

Is it too cliche to say that time is flying this fall?!  Growing up, my dad used to say, "Today is the 4th of July. Tomorrow is Christmas."   I am seriously in denial that Thanksgiving is a little more than three weeks away.  That means you have twenty-three days to get your hands on this book and read it to your kids, your grandkids, your friend's kids...yourself!  I'm being very honest when I say that I often check out books from the library for my kids because I want to read them myself!

throwback to Thanksgiving 2009

We have a tradition in our family on Thanksgiving morning.  Though I cook most of my Thanksgiving dinner contributions-- the cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato biscuits-- on Thanksgiving Eve, I intentionally save the corn pudding for Thanksgiving morning. It only takes a few minutes to assemble, but it goes into the oven for 45 minutes and the aroma fills the house for much longer.  It is the smell of Thanksgiving for us.  When I bake corn pudding other times throughout the year, someone often remarks, "It smells like Thanksgiving in here."

While the pudding is baking, we watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV.  Sure, the televised version includes things besides the actual parade-- Broadway dancers, corny commentary, street interviews, and pre-recorded musical performances-- but we love it anyway because it says Thanksgiving to us and it is tradition.  My kids have never believed in Santa, but they still stick around until the end of the parade to see Santa come into town on his sleigh.

For my kids, the highlight of the parade is the balloons. They try to spot Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Greg from  Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Red from Angry Birds. They look for classics, too, like Snoopy and Sonic the Hedgehog and Buzz Lightyear.

We discovered Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet this year.  Sweet is also the author of Some Writer which I read and recommended in October.  Both books have mixed-media  collage-style illustrations which I find fascinating and draw me in almost as much as the story {no pun intended!}.

Balloons Over Broadway is the biographical story of Tony Sarg, the puppeteer who designed the first large helium balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The balloons debuted at the 1928 Parade and were not "characters" like many of the balloons are today.  These first balloons, controlled by men holding long ropes, were shaped like zoo animals. Sarg called them "upside-down marionettes."  Sarg continued working with the Parade and did eventually collaborate with Walt Disney to design character balloons, including a Mickey Mouse balloon which made its first appearance in 1934.

The book also details Sarg's background as a child who "loved to figure out how things moved."  This aspect resonated with me, the mom of just such a child. Sarg used his curiosity and ingenuity to shape his career.

This is not a new book.  It was published back in 2011 which ironically is when I published a list of Thanksgiving-themed books that we loved at our house that year...and still love five years later. 

Click the square below for more Thanksgiving books!

What are your Thanksgiving Day traditions?
Do you watch the parade?

Hospitality and Community, pt. 2

I mused about imperfect hospitality about a week ago and shared how it is so easy for me to come up with a list of excuses why it would be easier or better to avoid having people into our home.  I talked about why I've decided it is important despite my shortcomings and how our family fits guests into an already full schedule.

Today I want to take a few paragraphs to address one of my biggest hang-ups:
  How am I going to feed these people? 

The food

The food itself can be a big concern when you are pinching pennies (me!) or when you don't feel like a good cook (me, again!). I've found in most instances, guests want to help contribute to the meal so no one person is responsible for the cost or the planning. We hosted lunch guests this summer and ate simple dripped beef sandwiches with potatoes and a bowl of watermelon.  One family brought tomatoes from their garden to slice and another brought a pan of brownies. 

We had friends for dinner the day my water broke with Macie, too.  (What an adventure! You can read more about that here!)  That day I made ham and poppy seed sandwiches and our friends brought a fruit salad, and we ate before I headed to the hospital!

Another time we invited over friends with small kids so each family made two pizzas with a variety of toppings.  (I have a trick or two for baking pizza at home.) We baked all the pizzas in our oven and paired pizza slices with a big salad.

At the beginning of this month, friends came for dinner on a school night so I simmered a pot of  chicken and rice soup in the afternoon and made a pan of garlic and herb flat bread (a non-dairy variation of this recipe, using olive oil). One guest brought a salad and another assembled dessert and baked it in our oven after she arrived.  

We've also hosted people and served only snack foods.  I had a ladies' game party and offered desserts.  Ben invited friends over on his birthday morning and had donuts.

I served a walking taco bar to a group of hungry kids and teenagers. 

Feeding a crowd does not have to be expensive.  I employ a few go-to recipes that I am confident taste good and I use them over and over. (There are lots of food ideas on my blog if you dig into the recipe archives.)

Setting the table

Our dining room table holds eight and there are eight of us.  Macie uses a high chair so that only leaves one extra seat at the table.  Our solution is to serve the meal buffet style from the counter.  Usually the kids claim the seats at the table (often squishing in more than eight!), and the adults eat at the living room coffee table or on their laps.  Other times we switch it up and let the adults enjoy the table.  Once we borrowed a folding table and a few chairs so all sixteen people could score a spot at the table. 

And you know what?  If none of those ideas appeal, inviting just one person to fill that one empty spot at the table is still hospitality! 

What about the plates and glasses and silverware for extra people?  I bought an inexpensive set of white plates to supplement the dishes I already have. I use mix-and-match bowls and glasses, too. Nothing is a perfect match, but it all coordinates. Sometimes it is easier to use paper plates and plastic utensils. That is more than okay. Plus it eliminates the need to wash dishes when my guests go home

It doesn't have to be about food!

I always assume that hospitality equals feeding people, but if my goal is relationship, being together is more important than what we put in our mouths.  One spring we invited three other families over to dye Easter eggs with us.

Other times we've had people over just to talk and visit, or to take a walk.

...which leads to the next topic...

Who should I invite and what do we talk about?

Dairy-free Mom

I've been {almost} dairy-free for over a month now.  (More on the almost later in this post.) I went dairy-free in an effort to reduce the symptoms of Macie's silent reflux. You can read the details of our story here, but the short version is that she rarely spit up so she went un-diagnosed for weeks, but we finally put all the pieces together (inconsolable crying for hours every day, nasal congestion when waking, frequent hiccups) and realized she was suffering from reflux.  Initially medication helped, but I found that eliminating dairy was even more effective.  We weaned her off the medication before determining that a combination of my dairy-free diet and her medication gave her the best relief.  She is essentially weaning herself off of the medication again, though, since her dosage is not changing even as she goes through a rapid growth spurt.

I have received a handful of questions about going dairy-free, both personally and online, and I thought it may be helpful to address them here.

What exactly does it mean to be dairy-free?
It means not eating dairy products like milk, yogurt, sour cream, cheese, ice cream, and butter.  It also means avoiding whey and casein.  I've found, though, that Macie can tolerate if I eat small amounts of butter. Chocolate is usually okay, too.  To be safe, I buy Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips which are dairy-free.  (They do contain soy which I would prefer to avoid for other reasons, but I'm choosing to pick my battles!)

Do you think it is helping? I do. At first I was convinced it was the sole answer to our problem.  Then Macie had another week of increased irritability, not as severe as in the beginning but not "normal."  We decided to begin her medication again and the combination of the altered diet and the meds seems to be the answer.  Before going dairy-free, we could barely make it until the next dose, but now there are times when I  miss giving her a dose and she is fine.  Reflux typically peaks at four months so she may be beginning to outgrow it anyway, but there was such a dramatic change when I stopped eating dairy, that we have no doubt it is playing a part in her recovery.

How long will you avoid dairy products? 

Dairy sensitivity in babies is usually short-term.  Often by the time their immune systems are mature enough to tolerate solid foods (around six months), their tummies are capable of digesting milk protein again. I plan to avoid dairy through the summer.  By September, Macie will be eight months old and I will try adding dairy back into my diet.  I've read that a gentle way to do that is to eat a small portion of dairy one day, wait two days before eating a bit more, and then gradually increase the amount and the frequency.  In other words, no matter how much I may crave pizza, it would not be the way to begin!

Does your family eat dairy-free also?

When I plan dinner, I only choose to prepare dairy-free dishes or ones that allow the cheese, sour cream, etc. to be added by the individual. I do not keep a dairy-free house so everyone is welcome to prepare and eat what they want for breakfast and lunch.

Every Sunday, I'm sharing our menu for the coming week on my blog Facebook page.  It's dairy-free and can be done without turning on the oven!  For more details, click here, and then go on over to Facebook Sunday evening to see the menu for the week.  (This week's menu is already there.)

Do you find it hard to eat this way?

Telling myself this is temporary helps. I think it would be harder if I thought I needed to make a permanent change.  Finding things to eat has not been difficult.  I read labels and have to avoid some packaged foods, but sticking primarily to whole foods-- veggies, fruit, meat-- takes the guess work out of the process.

What do you miss?

I have never been a milk drinker, but I do love ice cream and butter.  I also ate a fair amount of Greek yogurt for snacks before I made the change.  The thing I miss most, though, is pizza.  I have one child who prefers pizza without cheese so one night in April when we needed to order out at the last minute, he and I shared a cheese-less pizza, his half plain, my half with chicken and spinach.  It was good, but I greatly missed the cheese!

So what do you eat for breakfast and lunch?

I'm eating a lot of steel-cut oatmeal, because I love it and because it is good for nursing moms.  I use this method which can be prepared one-handed.  Plus it only takes a minute of hands-on (or hand-on) work and the grains are soaked to perfection. Scrambled eggs or hard-boiled eggs are good, seasoned with salt and pepper.  I am also eating copious amounts of natural peanut butter.  For lunch, my favorite thing to prepare when there are no leftovers is a skillet dish of chicken, diced red potato, and broccoli.  I cook it with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and it is delicious.  I also make a similar dish with chicken, sweet potato, and quinoa. 

Can you eat lactose-free treats?
In our case, lactose isn't the problem.  Babies with milk sensitives are usually bothered by the milk protein.

Are there dairy substitutes you can eat?

I keep a container of almond milk in the refrigerator for cereal, baking, or the occasional cup of hot chocolate. I also discovered that Ben and Jerry's makes several vegan "ice cream" flavors with almond milk.  I was skeptical, but the one I tried was a great treat. 

Wouldn't it be easier to switch Macie to formula?  

Actually, no.  Even if eating dairy-free was difficult for me, giving her infant formula would not be a simple option.  Because of her milk sensitivity, she would need to be on a more-expensive hypoallergenic formula.

A Month of Meals

When I shared my plan for meals during the summer, someone mentioned that they would like to see my menu to get inspiration for their own household. I've decided to share one week at a time on the blog Facebook page.  A few things you should know:

1) I'll post a weekly list on Sunday evenings for the next four weeks.  

2) Links to specific recipes will be in the comments. 

3) I'm only planning five dinners per week.  One night we eat out and on Sundays we eat a shared meal with family.

4) The meals we are eating are dairy-free because of my temporary dietary restrictions, but you can incorporate milk, butter, cheese, sour cream, etc. if you wish!  

5)  Some meals are very similar.  For example, we are doing Mexican every Tuesday night.  My family agreed to sacrifice variety for simplicity during the summer. 

Next week, I want to do a separate post here on some of the questions I've been asked about going dairy-free.  If there is anything you would like to know, I'll include your question, too!

Happy weekend to you all!

Meal Planning For the Summer

We finished school today and it feels good.  There are moments of sadness, too, when I think of how Gavin will be in high school next year.  (How did he get to be so old?!)  But all of us are more than a little excited to have finished the school year well and to take a break from the formal stuff.  We always sneak a little academics into the summer, but we don't call it school and everyone is happy.

the oldest and the youngest

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster.  We all passed around a cold.  Brian ended up with a sinus infection and pink eye on top of that...so now we're taking turns with his pink eye germs.  At first I had visions of being stuck in the house with goopy-eyed people all summer while it slowly took us out one. by. one.  But I've calmed down from that now. Aside from having to randomly quarantine a new person from the rest of the world for 24 hours every few days, it's not a big deal.  No one feels sick and no one is uncomfortable.

Macie is finally settling into a happy routine.  She is not your stereotypical "easy" baby, but she is a napping rock star and her reflux is under control.  Most days she is pleasant and smiling. She has started giggling and can hold her back and neck straight to practice sitting alone.  We're praying the out-of-control fussy days are behind us. 

We finished our school year today and now I'm experimenting with a new way to meal plan.  We tried a  super-easy system  after Macie was born and that is still working, but I wanted something even simpler for summer.  We have several restrictions. First, our house gets sticky, hot when I turn the oven  on, and secondly, I need to eat a dairy- free diet to manage Macie's reflux. 

I decided to make a 1-month meal plan.  I plugged in all the things we eat that use the griddle, slow cooker, or stove top, and I chose only items that don't contain dairy products (milk, butter, cheese) or that can have those ingredients added at the table by the individual. We'll simply repeat the same menu each month until the weather cools down.  

Most of the menu consists of old favorites like tacos, blackberry chicken, and tangy meatballs.  I sprinkled in easy meals like BLTs and salads.  I added one or two new recipes like root beer pulled pork.  I even included some side dishes my kids love but I never serve, like baked beans and Jello (separately, not together!). 

I'm hoping this plan will serve us well through the busy... and sunny... days ahead. 

Weekend Thoughts on Food and Meal Planning

(Click here for other posts in this series.)

I'm shifting into a new way of menu planning.  Until recently, I planned ahead in two-week blocks, plugging meals onto my calendar according to what was on the schedule.  Was I going to be gone all afternoon?  That day needed a quick meal or a slow cooker meal.  Did I anticipate a quiet day at home?  Maybe I could plan to make bread to go with dinner.  A simple check of the calendar each morning told me whether I needed to take ground beef or chicken out of the freezer.

Since Macie's birth, even that simple system seems too complicated.  I can't predict my days far in advance so I'm settling on a meal list.  I still grocery shop every two weeks so before I leave for the store, I compile a a list of ten or twelve meals and buy the ingredients for those meals.  A few days ahead, I might plot out a plan, or I may not choose what to cook until the morning of.  Either way, I know something will work for my day and I know I have all the ingredients. 

I like to cook mostly from scratch, but some days "convenience" foods are saving my life.  I prefer to have variety in our menu, but eating a few family favorites is better than not eating at all.  I'm settling on the idea that perfect isn't attainable but good enough is alright. 

Here a few links I've read or used lately:

Overnight Steel Cut Oats  I'm a nursing mom and my appetite is crazy in the morning.  This method ensures a hearty, filling, and healthy breakfast with very little work.  (My favorite toppings are sliced bananas or a spoonful of natural peanut butter with a sprinkling of dark chocolate chips for sweetener.)

Seven Ways to Use Frozen Meatballs  I love the idea of pizza grilled cheese-- especially if I can incorporate veggies and still enjoy the melty goodness of warm cheese. 

57 Things You Can Do To Be A Better Cook Right Now From mixing bowls to toasting spices to softening butter to setting off the smoke alarm (??!), this list has ideas to get your brain whirring and your mouth watering.

Granola Energy Balls   I've shared this link multiple times in the past.  These were my go-to snack before a morning run while I was pregnant.  Right now I'm finding these handy to keep on hand for when I'm nursing in the middle of the night.

An Index of Helpful Pregnancy Links

Throughout pregnancy, I shared a plethora of links.  Now they are all in one convenient place!

Food and Drink:
Why pregnant women should drink red raspberry tea
Where I bought red raspberry tea in bulk
The health benefits of blackstrap molasses
A recipe for the granola energy balls I ate before morning runs

Exercise:
Running While Pregnant (my experience)
Running and Exercising in the 3rd Trimester (my experience)
The maternity support band I wore while running
An exercise plan for pregnant women I found helpful in the 3rd trimester
An exercise DVD series I used from month 7 until I delivered
Taking epsom salt baths for muscle pain

Health: 
The Truth About Gestational Diabetes {And Why It's Not Your Fault}

• The best low glycemic breads
• Sourdough bread and blood sugar

Fashion:What I Wore in the 2nd Trimester

Birth stories:
The Birth Hour podcast 
Natural Birth Stories
Birth Stories @Mama Natural
Share Your Birth Story @Intentional by Grace
My own birth stories-- (here, here, and here)

Preparing For Birth:
Back strengthening exercises
Customizable visual birth plan
Why you should eat dates at the end of pregnancy

How I Prepared to Feed My Family After the Baby Arrived

When I am a postpartum mom, I can overlook the vacuuming.  I can take five minutes to clean the bathroom or ask one of my kids to do it.  I can let the (clean) laundry pile up or attempt to fold it one-handed. All of those things can be accomplished as I have time and I choose to not guilt myself about what gets neglected.

Feeding my family can't be compromised.  They (and I) need to eat three meals a day whether a new baby is in the house or not! 

food from friends

This is how I prepared to feed my family once Baby #6 made her arrival:

• I taught each of the three oldest kids how to made a main dish on their own.  My kids, especially Maddie (11) and Owen (9) know kitchen basics, but I wanted them be able to cook an entire meal without assistance.  Gavin (13) learned to make a 1-pan skillet pasta.  Maddie perfected a dish of sausages, potatoes, and onion drizzled with olive oil and flavored with seasonings.  Owen learned to cook taco soup.  They also know how to assemble a salad, put ingredients in the bread machine, make grilled cheese, and bake muffins.
  

• I browned several pounds of ground beef and flavored it with taco seasoning.  I froze the meat in meal-sized portions for tacos or salads.  Both are easy choices that my husband or kids can pull together in less than a half hour. I also had Maddie replenish the container of homemade taco seasoning by mixing up a  double batch.
  

• After cooking a ham around Christmas, I cubed and froze some of the leftovers to mix into scrambled eggs or to top salads or pizza.
  

• I assembled  three soup kits-- bags of veggies, pre-chopped for our favorite soups.
  

• I  diced and froze quite a few onions so they can be easily added to casseroles or soups.
  

• On a grocery trip in January, Brian and I stocked up on a few convenience foods like cereal, crackers, and canned vegetables.  We also bought a jumbo sized pack of Styrofoam plates.  

• I pulled a small stack of simple slow cooker recipes out of my recipe binder for easy reference-- for me or for my family.

There were a few things I didn't get around to doing since Macie arrived more than two weeks before her due date.

I had intended to cook and dice 4-5 pounds of chicken and freeze it in portions for soups or casseroles.  I had also planned to make a double recipe of The Pioneer Woman's chili and pop that in the freezer, too. Since I bought the meat the evening before my water broke and I needed to use it before it spoiled, when I returned home from the hospital, I recruited Maddie and Ben (7) to help me assemble the chili.  

chili chef

We have been blessed with a steady stream of meal delivery from our family and friends from church.  That is a tremendous blessing to any new mom!  It is reassuring to know my family is being fed well now... and with my preparation, will continue to eat nourishing foods for weeks to come.

Candy Cane Pizza

We are a pizza family.  It's not unusual for us to make and eat homemade pizza on the weekends.  It's part of our family culture. Last December we began an easy tradition: make-your-own candy cane pizzas. 

Apparently Ben didn't remember because when we talked about what we were having for dinner on Saturday evening, he asked, "What's that?  A pizza with candy canes on it?!"

Um, no.  But here is a quick run-down of a what we really mean by candy cane pizza: 

After lunch, I make a large batch of pizza dough and let it rise on the counter under a towel all afternoon.  When we're ready to assemble, I divide the dough in 7 portions and blend up a batch of our favorite (and incredibly easy!) pizza sauce.

I roll each dough portion into the proper shape and put everything on the table. Then each individual assembles their own pizza with sauce, sliced mozzarella, parmesan, and pepperoni.  A little pizazz on the crust never hurt either. Some people prefer to leave out the pepperoni and use only sauce for the red stripe.  (Some people also prefer to leave off the cheese but that's a topic for another day.)

A Photo-Filled Pregnancy Update {33 Weeks}

I reached a mothering milestone this week.  I became the mother of a teenager.  Let that sink in for a moment.  The one who made me a mother is now 13!  And in a few short weeks we'll have a newborn in the house, too.

How far along? 

I'm about 33 weeks.  At 32 weeks, I started drinking a daily cup of red raspberry leaf tea, sweetened with honey or blackstrap molasses.  I bought my tea in bulk here.  It takes a lot of tea bags to drink a cup every day for 8+ weeks!  

(To read about the benefits of red raspberry leaf to pregnant women, click here.  To read about the benefits of blackstrap molasses to anyone, click here.)

 

 

Feeling:

I can feel my energy waning.  After breezing through the second trimester, I am needing to slow down.  It is difficult to be unable to maintain the pace I'm used to keeping, especially at this time of year.  My body is demanding it, though, and I'm having to rest between even the smallest of tasks.  Ironically I do better when I'm moving (walking, running, pushing a grocery cart, etc.) than when I am standing still in one place (washing dishes, singing in church, etc.).

I am such a morning person and it is only magnified now.  I wake early every morning to exercise or go for a run and I feel like I can conquer the world.  By evening,  I am exhausted, my back aches, and I wonder how soon I can get some sleep. 

Tests/Procedures: 

There was a bit of concern that I had lost weight at my two prenatal appointments last month.  (Surprising after this post, huh?)  My fundal height is still increasing, but I have lost weight instead of gaining for too long, so after my midwife ruled out the obvious causes (vomiting and fluid leakage), she suggested drinking protein shakes to give my body all the good stuff-- protein, vitamins, fat, and calories-- in one glass.  Since I am uncomfortable with protein powders or artificial ingredients, I am making my own natural protein shakes. 

As a precaution, I had a growth scan today. My amniotic fluid level was normal and Baby is appropriate size for her gestational age so no worries.  I had gained a couple of pounds, too.

Exercise:
One of my unofficial goals for the year was to run 1000 cumulative miles.  At the beginning of the year, it was an abstract idea and I had no idea if it was reasonable to achieve.  Then I got pregnant and didn't know how long I could continue to run.  By fall, though, I knew I would meet my goal.  On Saturday, I did it!

Running is more cumbersome now than it was a few months ago, but I'm hopeful that I can continue in some capacity until the baby is born.  The most challenging part is that my legs and lower abdomen start to ache by mile 3 or so, due to the extra weight I'm carrying in my belly.  My support bandhelps immensely. I kind of wonder what the neighbors think when they see me slog by.

Celebrations:
The girls and I attended a Christmas luncheon at my cousin's house last week.  Everyone brought gifts for our new baby girl.  Alaine already feels a little territorial about her new sister so she delighted in helping unwrap the packages and discovering what was inside.

And as always...

Sugar High

There is never a shortage of treats in our house around Christmas (see this post from 2013), but I had a plan to keep it simple this year.  I'm pregnant and trying to conserve my energy, plus I knew we'd have access to sugar from many sources during the month even if we refrained from the baking ourselves.

I asked Brian and the kids their must-haves during the season and the one thing that came up multiple times was the  holiday pretzel treats we make as a family every year.   I suspect that the tradition and the memories are a bigger factor than the treat itself, though we do love to eat them, too.  (You should click on the holiday pretzel treats link if only to see how much my kids have grown!) 

Other than these special treats, the plan was to bake only as we got the urge and to keep. it. simple. 

Yesterday we attended a cookie exchange at church.  Maddie and Owen made and decorated our standard shortbread cookies recipe with no help from me.  My contribution was a double batch of molasses cookies. After bagging up what we needed for the exchange, we had a few to squirrel away in cookie tins for our own Christmas guests.  Mission accomplished.  No more Christmas baking necessary.

But we got into trouble at the cookie exchange.  The table was overflowing with cookies to sample and all of us tried different things which inspired us to want to make a few more things at home.  That's not a bad thing necessarily, but there are only so many cookies or pieces of candy one family can eat, even a family of seven. 

Brian, who is usually more level-headed and reasonable than I am and can talk me down from my overzealous plans, encouraged me to go for it anyway.  I'm not craving or indulging in much sugar this pregnancy, but I love the challenge and adventure of baking something new. We reasoned that there are many things we can do with excess treats:

• give away as gifts
• share with our Christmas guests
• take to Christmas parties
• freeze in gallon bags (and perhaps serve when people come to visit the new baby next month)
  

We made a dream list of things we'd like to try in December.  Note that the majority of our list includes nuts or peanut butter and chocolate!

• Buckeyes
• No-Bake Cheesecake Truffles  
• Owen's Winning Fudge (no link)
• Two-Ingredient Peanut Butter Fudge
• Chocolate Covered Peanut Clusters
• Spiced Nuts
• Muddy Buddies

Will it all get made?  Probably not!  But we'll enjoy what we can...and save the rest of the list for another year.

What are your family's must-have Christmas treats?

Pickles and Ice Cream and Pancakes

I've never been a fan of pickles, and ice cream is only mildly tempting right now, but I have had another pregnancy craving this week: pancakes. I've resisted for two reasons.  The first is that even though it turned out I do not have gestationsl diabetes, I still try to limit my simple carbs.  The second is that I wake up hungry so protein or complex carbs best keep me satiated through the morning.

My go-to breakfasts consist of things like overnight oats with whole milk Greek yogurt, crockpot steel cut oatmeal with chia seeds, hard boiled eggs, or these delicious sweet potato banana muffins that my friend, Allyson, gave me over the weekend.   So white flour with butter and maple syrup don't often make the cut.

Lest you think I deprive myself, Maddie and I made a s'mores cheesecake yesterday, complete with white sugar, butter, hot fudge sauce, and marshmallows.  We took it to share at our fellowship dinner at church this evening because the two of us are the only ones at our house who eat cheesecake, and we couldn't eat that much cheesecake alone if we tried!  It was divine (and that is not too strong a word).

Back to my pancake craving...when I saw a recipe for these cottage pancakes that were high in protein and low in carbs, I knew I had my answer.  The ingredient list was short and simple and things I often have on hand.

Except I didn't.

I was out of cottage cheese.

Enter Brian.  Yesterday he had a rain day from work and when he decided to head out to run a few errands, I asked if he would mind going to the grocery store to pick up only one thing.  Understanding my pregnant cravings (as well as a man can!), he obliged. 

While the cheesecake was cooling on the counter, I made a full batch of these.  I did all of my mixing in the blender. 

One batch of batter made 16 pancakes.  Some went into the refrigerator for my breakfasts today and tomorrow.  The rest I put in the freezer in individual portions.

This morning I enjoyed a delicious...and protein-packed...pancake breakfast!

So help a pregnant woman out: do you have a breakfast recipe that is high on protein or complex carbs? Share in the comments!