Author Archives: mlwilkie

About mlwilkie

Software Developer, Mother, Wife with keen interest in art, design and crafts of all kinds.

G is for Giraffe

Sean, my son, is tracked out (vacation) from school (kindergarden) for the next 3 weeks; and his teacher gave him a journal for him to keep track of his activities. To fill that book we are doing lots of different activities.

Our first track out art project was creating a giraffe from the Eco Crafts Kit by Alex.

It turned out great. We made some changes to the directions, mostly since the glue stick does not do a great job sticking the pieces together. The changes we made included my son coloring the legs instead of using paper to decorate, and also we used 2 pipe cleaners to hold the leg pieces and attach to the main body.

Sean enjoys taking his own photos, here is the one he took of his Giraffe.

In his track out journal he captured a drawing of his giraffe, and labelled it “Giraf” (with a post correction)…he did great sounding out all the letters.

He told me the cutest story about what he knows about Giraffes, we captured it also in his journal:

“Giraffes eat grass, trees and leaves. They use their necks to reach the high leaves.”

What can I say – very proud of my son, and love doing the crafty activities with him.

Meatloaf: Success!!!

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My son is not a bad eater but he has foods he loves and food he hates – there seems to be no in between. Our biggest problem is vegetables. I can easily list the vegetables he will eat:

raw baby carrots with ranch dressing
corn on the cob
fresh tomatoes diced on pizza
pasta sauce
potatoes, sliced or as wedges homemade baked fries and also white mashed potatoes (god forbid if we use yukon gold potatoes)

and that is about it. One thing he is good about is trying the new food – he will at least take one bite but, that one bite will determine his love-hate relationship with that food.

As an attempt to broaden his favorite meals, help me stop cooking two meals and provide healthy meals, I tried out a new meal. The meal was Meatloaf with a ketchup sauce, homemade mashed potatoes ( I say homemade, as my husband was a box mash potato person before I came along) and frozen peas and corn (to keep it simple).

The recipe for the meatloaf includes carrots and zucchini. This was not an attempt to hide vegetables in his food, I want him to know how to make good choices later on. So, after the first bite I showed him what was in it.

The meal was a huge success for all of us….my son for the first time turned to me and said “Mummy can you make this again, soon”. I was beaming when I replied “of course”.

Recipe (modified from Weight Watchers Magazine September/October 2006 edition)

3/4 cup uncooked oatmeal
1/2 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup organic chicken broth
1/2 cup carrot, grated
1/2 cup zucchini, grated (1 small zucchini)
1/2 onion, grated
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tsp whole seed Dijon mustard
Pinch of salt
Pinch of coarse ground pepper
1-1/2 tsp fresh parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1-1.5 pound ground beef (5% fat or less)
1/4 cup ketchup

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. I use a silicon loaf pan (5 x 9 in.), you can line this with foil if you wish.
In a kitchen whizz, I grate the carrot, zucchini, onion and cloves.
In a bowl, combine oatmeal, milk, broth, grated vegetables, egg, mustard, salt, pepper, parsley and oregano.
Gently mix in the ground beef to this mixture until just combined. I use my fingers to mix in the ingredients.
Spoon mixture into the loaf pan and level out.
During baking at the 45 min mark, I pour of some of the excess liquid and spread the 1/4 cup ketchup over the top.
Bake for 1 hour or until the internal temperature of the meatloaf is 165 degrees F. Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes.
Slice and plate with the mashed potatoes and cooked peas and corn.

As there are only 3 of us, I made one left over meal for my husband’s lunch and the rest I wrapped and placed into the freezer (once it cooled) for a future meal.