Category: toddler meals

Celebrating National Honey Month with an Easy Toddler Snack!

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September in Las Vegas means drinking pumpkin spice lattes in shorts and flipflops and girls wishing they could wear fall fashion of chunky sweaters and boots even though it’s still over 100 degrees out.  The Fall struggle is real out in the desert.   I have great news to get you through the transition month of September-it’s national honey month! National Pizza Day, National Donut Day, National Pet Day, basically we are all obsessed with these unofficial yet social media official holidays.   The month of September is a countdown to the holidays-school has started but the dreaded wait for Halloween (my favorite), Thanksgiving, and Christmas still seems like ages away!  So lets celebrate with a food everyone can agree to love-honey!

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We celebrated national honey month making more golden memories with our family.   I love making the simplest meal feel special for my toddlers-that way odds are they will actually eat it! I decided to throw together a quick little honey party to ‘celebrate.’  If you’ve been following me for awhile you know I LOVE being festive!  I threw the kiddos a simple flag party during Independence Day.

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I’m not the greatest cook, (simply bc I’m lazy-I’m working on it now that I’m a SAHM) so this snack recipe can’t get ANY easier.   Whole wheat toast, peanut butter, apples slices, and topped with you guessed it—honey!  

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Click this link to find even more HONEY inspired recipes for snacks, side dishes, and even main dishes!

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Have the best time counting down my favorite holidays and celebrating life’s golden moments with National Honey Month!

XOXO 

Your Redlocks and Shamrocks Girl,

Lisa Doyle 

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Easy One Pan Christmas Bars: MeMaw’s Mystery Bars

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Easy One Pan Christmas Bars: MeMaw’s Mystery Bars

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Growing up in my house around the holidays Christmas music was always blaring, my brothers had I were running amok around our 15 foot tall tree, and my mom was always baking & making fun foods to celebrate.   She seriously was the cutesy-crafty-amazing-mom wayyy before Pinterest was a thing.   Now as a mother myself, I still don’t know how my mother did it all!  One of my favorite cookies she makes are called Mystery Bars!  Today on the blog my mom made them with my daughter and we are sharing one of our favorite {and easy} recipes with you!  

I am doing one of the things I HATE when finding a recipe on Pinterest….telling you some long winded story before getting to the recipe.   Feel free to keep scrolling, or check out these photographs of my mom’s recipe book.   Pre-internet when you could save all your favorite recipes organized in Pinterest boards recipe books were all the rage.   This thing is from the 70’s or 80’s and has hand written recipes from my mother and my grandmother, clippings from magazines, printings from the internet, and even has cooking stains on it.   Its a very cherished item in our family-since if you’ve ever been around the O’Rourke’s when food is on the table you know food = life.

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This recipe is so easy you can whip it up quickly for a last minute holiday party or cookie exchange.   It took us no time to make even with a toddler’s help! The bars can be cut as small or as large as your holiday diet can handle.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 stick of unsalted butter or margarine
  • 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1 small bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 small bag of butterscotch chips (or you could use peanut butter chips)
  • 1 cup coconut
  • 1 can condensed sweetened milk

Steps:

Melt butter and pour into a 9×13 inch pan and sprinkle graham crackers on top.

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Press down firmly with a fork into the baking pan.

Layer on the chocolate chips as little or as many as you like!

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Now add the butterscotch chips.

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Next, sprinkle on the coconut!  My toddler LOVED this part! *Note my mother’s “measuring” this is why I must document her recipes-she never really follows them which makes it impossible to copy!

Lastly drizzle the milk on top evenly.

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Place in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes at 325 degrees.  Once in the oven, do a dance party!!

When the cookies are completely cool cut into bars of any size and viola!  Easy ONE PAN cookies with little clean up!  I hope you enjoy them!

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These are my favorite cookies my mom makes!  I personally like these bars when then are a few days only and not completely fresh so they are somewhat hard.

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What are your favorite family Christmas cookie traditions?  Comment below with your favorite Christmas cookie!

Have a Happy Holiday!

XOXO

Your Redlocks and Shamrocks Girl,

Lisa Doyle

Redlocks Recipe: Hidden Veggie Pizza Rolls

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My two year old is currently obsessed with Pizza!  Not going to lie sometimes we told her some meals are pizza when they are totally not just so she will eat them…Sorry Logie!   After a long day’s work the LAST thing I want to do is to spend time in the kitchen and not playing with my children.  😦  I am trying to find more and more recipes that are easy and Logan can help me make! That way dinner is being made and we are spending quality time in the kitchen.   (Hook a girl up if you have some of those meals!)  I have also found that Logan is more likely to eat something if she is helping with the process-even if it may slow me down.   For this Redlocks Recipe I will share my Hidden Veggie Pizza Rolls- this is not a cute “Pinterest perfect” recipe in looks but it is SUPER easy, tastes good, and can hide vegetables inside.  🙂  It took us about 15 minutes to throw together because we were on TODDLER TIME and 20mins to cook! 

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Ingredients:

  • Crescent Dough
  •  A can of Pizza Sauce
  • Turkey Pepperoni
  • Mozzarella Cheese
  • Organic Chopped Spinach (or any veggies of your choice to sneak in)
  • Other pizza toppings of your choice.

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Roll out dough with rolling pin, make sure to use flour!   I like to lay out some parchment paper for easy clean up.  While doing this step, I cooked the spinach. 

Mix the spinach and pizza sauce together and spread on the dough.   I didn’t let Logie help on this part to keep the veggies HIDDEN!  Shhhhhhh

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Sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese!  Logan LOVED this job!

Lay on the turkey pepperoni and other pizza toppings of your choice.  We keep it simple in the Doyle house. 

Carefully roll up the dough tight (note my not perfect roll…it still tasted yummy…remember I am only a supermom in disguise.)  Cut into slices…again not perfect.. spray your baking tray with Pam, place accordingly, and top with MORE cheese!

Then pop it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes and have a DANCE PARTY in the kitchen while you wait!  P.S.  If anyone wants to sponsor me in renovating my kitchen I would be all about that…just kidding…no but really, a girl can dream right? 

When the dough is cooked through and cheese is melted voila! A toddler made meal with hidden veggies!   We severed ours with some boneless BBQ chicken nuggets on our Nuby Sure Grip Miracle Mat!   This plate suctions to the table and is easy to clean!   Available on Amazon and at Babies R’ Us.

That’s all to it!   This was my first time toying with this recipe, next time I might go a “healthier” route and swap somethings out but all is all it was quick and easy!  If you didn’t already read about my quick and easy toddler lunch idea check it out here.

What are some dinner ideas you love??? Comment below with your favorite recipe!

XOXO

Your Redlocks and Shamrocks Girl,

Lisa Doyle

Easy and Quick Toddler Lunch- Sushi Sandwiches!

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Easy and Quick Toddler Lunch- Sushi Sandwiches! Wait…I mean “circle sandwiches”

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So if your toddler is like mine, they become obsessed with one type of food and want only that.  Then all of a sudden, BAM, they hate it!   I don’t know what it is with their picky pallets that make them change their mind all the time but it drives me nuts!   Logan sometimes is a great eater, then the next week she is not.   I made these Sushi Sandwiches (renamed Circle Sandwiches by Logan) for lunch to sneak in some protein.   They literally took MAYBE FIVE MINUTES to whip up.   I even made them while my crying 5 month old was in my arms.   This is so easy to make you look like a supermom in disguise!  Steps are below!

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Logan holding up a Circle Sandwich

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All I did to whip these up were:

  1. Flatted out a slice of bread with a rolling pan and cut off crust

  2. Lay on a slice of cheese

  3. Lay on 2-3 slices of lunch meat

  4. Roll tight like a sushi master

  5. Slice into individual circles

BAM done!   You could add veggies or maybe mayo or mustard but I didn’t want to press my luck! Bite size sandwiches easy for those toddler fingers to pick up!

Comment below with your favorite quick and easy meal!

XOXO

Your Redlocks and Shamrocks girl,

Lisa Doyle