Meals

I think we're in a pretty good place right now with our meals and overall nutrition.  We have a rotating list of dinner menus, a bunch of standard breakfasts, and each of us has a few preferred lunches.  I'm sure it'll continue to change slowly as time goes on, but I thought I'd record it.

Breakfasts:
1.  Oatmeal made with almond milk, peanut butter and raisins, half a grapefruit or clementine
2.  Whole wheat English muffins with butter, an egg for me, half a grapefruit or clementine, soy milk.  We probably eat this breakfast more than half the time.
3.  Cereals:  BOLA granola with almonds, Heritage O's (oat and other whole grain flours) or raisin bran, either with cow's milk or almond milk, some kind of fruit.
4.  Greek yogurt with a teaspoon of maple syrup, frozen or freeze-dried raspberries, some kind of fruit, orange juice.

Silas loves grapefruits, buttered whole wheat English muffins, Greek yogurt with maple syrup and raspberries, and he CLAIMS to love cereals and granola but he almost never finishes!  He also gets gummy vitamins with fish oil sometimes.

Lunches:
1.  Hilary's Best veggie patties or mock chicken patties with whole wheat burger buns, bell peppers, apple or clementine
2.  High-fiber ramen noodles (GreeNoodles) in broth or peanut sauce with freeze dried veggies (it sounds like the worst kind of health food but I swear it tastes great)
3.  Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat, banana or apple or clementine, whole grain crackers

Silas gets dinner leftovers (complete with veggies) for all his school lunches, and on the weekends he often requests a burger bun with ketchup.

Snacks:
1.  Peanut butter on brown rice cakes
2.  Peanut butter and raisins on banana slices
3.  Whole grain crackers and string cheese
4.  Apples or applesauce
5.  Clementines
6.  Hummus, baby carrots
7.  Avocado slices on crackers
8.  Fruit juice
9.  Nuts and raisins

Silas also gets pouches of pureed fruits and vegetables and sometimes extra stuff like chia seeds.  He also gets energy bars when we're out and about.  They have some sugar which isn't ideal, but overall the nutrition is pretty good and he loves them.  He also gets juice boxes in the car, but at home we usually have cider and orange juice and tart cherry.

Dinners:
1.  Whole wheat pasta with parmesan (or pesto if we're lucky), steamed green beans, mashed sweet potato with lemon
2.  Braised collard greens with onions, brown rice with butter, steamed edamame
3.  Steamed broccoli with lemon and olive oil, mock chicken (it's made from gluten, pea protein and soy, sometimes we add a yogurt based sauce or Indian spices), mashed potato
4.  Red lentil dal with coconut, whole wheat naan, sauteed cabbage
5.  Annie's mac and cheese, fried tempeh, sauteed zucchini

Silas eats most of the stuff on this list.  No luck with cabbage or collard greens though he dutifully tastes it every time.  His favorite thing of all is probably buttered rice and edamame.

We rarely have dessert, maybe once every 2 weeks.  We tend to eat out once a week - often pizza at Pinocchios, or Basta Pasta, or Giggling Rice Thai food.  We also visit a cafe every week (almost always Petsi Pies) for a croissant, and sometimes we find something exciting to eat at the farmer's market.

Treats:
1.  Home-made hot chocolate
2.  Weekend cafe trips for pastries
3.  Cooking projects of all kinds - muffins, breads, cookies, candies
4.  Occasional gelato
5.  People give us chocolates surprisingly frequently and then we have to dose them out over days

So I'm feeling pretty good about it overall.  We have only a couple regular sources of added sugar - there's brown sugar in the granola and a little bit in the cereals, 6g per serving, and another 6g in a serving of jelly, plus we sometimes use maple syrup.  The only refined grain is the Annie's mac and cheese.  We don't have chips/candy/soda/other refined-carb temptations in the house.  Because of that, I feel pretty free to indulge Silas in hot chocolate or home-made candies or pastries or whatever whenever we get a baking urge.  To my surprise, he usually won't even eat a single cookie and asks for more fruit.  On a few bizarre occasions I have even found myself trying to cajole him into eating more of a cookie rather than just carrying it around.