I have been a life-long squash hater. Butternut, acorn, spaghetti, you name it… I don’t like it. My parents fought the good fight to teach their children the beauty of squash, but it never quite broke through to me.

That’s why I have been thrilled to find some ways to serve my family nutritious (and affordable!) squash in ways that even I can appreciate. This is our version of the “grilled cheese sandwiches” from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious. I like my way better. ;)

Mix equal parts butternut squash puree (which I already have in my freezer from making baby food) and shredded cheese – today I used half cheddar and half mozzerella; use whatever you have/ like! I also like to add 1/4-1/2 tsp Brady’s Street Cheese Sprinkle from Penzey’s – SO good! If you don’t have that, you will want some kind of seasoning; garlic powder and salt would work well.

Spread this filling on whole wheat bread and make your sandwiches. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a nonstick skillet until hot; add the sandwiches and brown like you normally would do for grilled cheese.

We followed up our lunch with some blueberry bars (with lots of spinach!) that we made from Deceptively Delicious, also – you can find the recipe here. Her recipe calls for 1 cup of blueberry preserves, but I didn’t have that. I just blended the spinach together with 1 cu washed frozen blueberries and about 1/4 cu sugar. It worked just fine. You honestly cannot taste the spinach!

I love the fact that our lunch didn’t just taste better than weekday-at-home lunches usually do, but it was also full of wholesome fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats. And my kids just thought they were having grilled cheese and dessert. ;)

One note about Deceptively Delicious – I have enjoyed having this book as inspiration more than for actual recipes. I tweak them a LOT. She always calls for “trans-fat-free soft tub margarine spread” instead of butter, but I prefer using “real” foods instead of factory altered ones, so I opt for butter. Many of the recipes turn out with a funky texture – the macaroni and cheese is rather thick and gluey, so I add quite a bit of milk and omit the cream cheese; the sweet potato pancakes end up too thin and almost crunchy, so I up the flour and omit the extra oil added to the previously greased pan. You get the picture – just plan to experiment before settling on your own way to make these things if you get the book!

What healthy lunch ideas work for you? I always like to get new ideas!

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We’ve been busy ’round these parts. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I mean, I’ve been sewing and working on our master bedroom re-do (pictures coming on Things I Love Thursday!!), organizing and cleaning and gathering a mountain o’ stuff for a summer garage sale (this is very pressing as it is only 4 months away), and yesterday I intended to iron but made this pretty spring display on my mantel instead. There must be some reason beyond my control that the ironing pile continues to grow and threatens to eat me alive – CLEARLY I have been trying my best to get to it! ;) Funny how anything sounds better than the tasks you hate to do!

I am posting this picture sheepishly, so that my peeps in the blogosphere know the truth and I am accountable. To iron. Like a madwoman. TODAY. Poor NP is running out of shirts to wear for work. Why? Certainly not because we don’t have enough – simply because all of said shirts are on the closet floor getting more wrinkled than they were before. Our master bedroom is finally so beautiful, and then I open the closet and want to scream and run for the hills! Something’s gotta happen here!

So today’s agenda is: vacuum and then iron. Give kids a snack and iron. Watch them play while I iron. Give them lunch and iron… you get the picture.

I will post the updated picture at the end of the day. Hold me to it, bloggy friends! :)

What are you tackling today?

I haven’t written anything specifically about Easter for a couple of weeks. I’ve still been hashing through everything in my mind, especially when it comes to how to incorporate true celebration of Easter into our family traditions. I’ll talk about that more later.

But, this weekend I was at Borders with a friend and was browsing through the kids’ Easter books on display. Lo and behold, I found one I love!

The First Easter by Carol Heyer grabbed me as soon as I opened it because the illustrations are beautiful. Most of the other Easter books I looked at were cartoony – Heyer’s book has gorgeous fullpage life-like illustrations. I also really appreciate that Jesus is not really depicted in any of the pictures – one has the back of his head, most are drawn from His perspective so that He’s not in the picture other than His hands or something. Why is that a good thing? As I discussed in the review of The Shack, we need to be very careful about creating an image in our minds of God – especially God the Father, obviously, but even of Jesus – we’re not given physical descriptions of Him in Scripture, and there is surely a reason for that!

As I started to read the text, I was hooked. The other Easter books (Christian books included) for young children seemed to still be 90% about bunnies and eggs and then at the end would say, “But Easter is really all about…” with some kind of cartoon illustration of a cross and some Easter lilies. I wasn’t feeling it. The first page of Heyer’s book acknowledges the bunnies and eggs, but then goes into the whole story of Jesus. Let me walk you through the pages:

1 Nod to candy and Easter baskets
2-3 Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the visits of the shepherd and the magi, and an illustration of a camel! I love that it starts here!
4-5 Jesus choosing the 12 disciples, healing the sick and teaching about God, greeting the children.
6-7 Palm Sunday
8-9 Clearing the temple (I dare you to find another kids’ picture book about Easter with the clearing of the temple in it!!)
10-11 Talking with the chief priests and elders, and that the priests were angry with Him
12-13 Temple leaders plot to have Him arrested
14-15 The Last Supper (it even talks about the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” and that they were celebrating the “traditional Passover meal.”)
16-17 Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ arrest
18-19 Jesus before Caiaphas and Pilate
20-21 Golgatha – I like that the illustration on this page is of a soldier on the ground at the foot of the cross, shielding himself from the lightening. I appreciate that although it deals with the cross realistically the picture isn’t disturbing to a young child.
22-23 The empty tomb, angel at the entrance – and the angel is actually male!
24-25 Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in the garden
26 – “This is why Christians celebrate Easter” summary

I do want to say that some of the vocabulary is a bit above my 3-year-old, but that’s ok with me! Hooray for authors and illustrators for telling the Biblical account of the cornerstone of our faith in such a beautiful and truthful way.

I did not receive compensation of any kind for this post.  I am an amazon affiliate and would receive a small percentage of any sales resulting from the links provided.

For some reason, my son’s room has been smelling… “not so fresh.” Kinda a combination of a giant wet diaper and spit up. Pleasant, eh? Makes you want to run right over and take a deep breath!

Sadly, the “not fresh” smell was permeating the upstairs… it was time to wage war.

I knew that the surfaces in his room were clean, so obviously the smell was hiding in his carpet. I had read on the back of my giant Sams-club-bag of baking soda that you can use it on carpet, but I hadn’t ever tried it. I liked the thought of using baking soda rather than a commercial carpet cleaning powder, both because it is nontoxic and doesn’t leave some kind of nasty-floral-potporri-gone-bad smell throughout our house. {this molecular structure is to remind you that I am a closet science nerd.}

I just scooped about a cup of baking soda into a bowl and then sprinkled handfuls of it all over his carpet and throw rug. Let it sit for a few minutes, and vacuumed it up. Easy peasy!

The best part is, the “not fresh” smell is GONE! It smells like I actually clean up his wet diapers and spit up (I promise I really do, even if the smell betrayed me.)

Baking soda is a good friend in our house. I use it to wash our cloth diapers, and when I’m on the ball enough, I make my homemade soft scrub with it. Want more cleaning ideas? I liked this article.

By the way, if you’re looking for other ways to freshen your house as you vacuum, a few months ago I spilled a big container of cinnamon that I bought at our local Amish bulk store ALL over the kitchen. I vacuumed it up meekly, but then found that my house was smelling lovely and cinnamony every time I vacuumed! LOL… I might start buying an extra container of cinnamon just to dump in the vacuum cleaner!

What do you love to clean with?