Last year around this time, we went on a big road trip. We traveled in an RV to South Dakota, where we saw all the sites.

It was a great trip, but we had a lot of food restrictions in place at the time which made dining out challenging.

I was thinking about your trip recently and the foods we brought because so many families take a vacation this time of year before school starts.

The following were some foods we brought that made eating a little easier, healthier and cheaper. We were lucky enough to have a refrigerator/freezer and even an oven on board, but lots of these foods travel well in a cooler or even in a backpack!

• Homemade muffins, cookies or scones can be made and frozen ahead of time, and thawed on the road to extend their “shelf life”
• Fruit leather (sure, fresh fruit is better, but is also goes bad eventually)
• Trail mix — fried fruit, nuts, cereal, pretzels, etc. But be careful with young kids snacking in the car
• Good ol’ PB and J. Not only are the sandwiches portable (for short trips), but the ingredients travel well too. Justin’s Nut Butter has a little more packaging, but is really nice while on the road.
• Larabars, Bumblebars, Kind bars and Odwalla Bars are all big favorites here
• Odwalla and Naked Juices also make good smoothies, which can keep in a cooler for a quick breakfast or snack
• We always bring chamomile and mint tea bags for upset tummies and to help us relax when we are in a new place and feeling a little antsy around bedtime
• If you have access to a stove, you can’t beat the convenience of tortillas, refried or canned beans (Eden brand cans are BPA-free) and cheese for a quick lunch or dinner.
• Apples and grapes usually travel well (again, watch grapes in the car), but when fresh fruit isn’t an option, unsweetened applesauce cups are a nice travel convenience.
• Oatmeal packets are handy for breakfast. You can bring healthier, lower-sugar versions from home and make them at most hotel continental breakfast stations.
• A big bowl of pasta salad or rice and bean salad can be stretched for several meals.
• We also like to bring our own empty water bottles and travel drink mugs to keep refilling

What healthy foods and snacks do you like to bring when you travel?

This is such a small thing — but the smallest things can make a big difference sometimes, right?

I read somewhere recently a tip about remembering your reusable grocery bags for every shopping trip. The tip was to take your bags out to the car as soon as you finish unpacking your groceries.

So the past few weeks, I’ve been doing that (Owen helps me remember), and I always have a bag ready when I stop at a store. I’ve even started using reusable bags at places I never thought to bring a bag into before.

Do you have a trick you use so you don’t forget your bags when you go shopping?

What we made, could by no stretch of the imagination be considered an actual lasagna.

I know this, because my great-grandmother was an actual lasagna-maker.

She brought dozens of authentic recipes with her over from Sicily, the kind of recipes that meant sometimes, my father would walk into her kitchen and find snails crawling out of a pot and up her walls.

So I’m sure that somewhere, she is twisting her ever-present apron in a knot wondering how I could have gotten so far from my roots as to actually even refer to the pan of pasta we made last week as lasagna.

The truth is,  most of what I cook comes out either accidentally or on purpose Italian, but all in varying degrees which is how I can confidently say that the lasagna was not really a lasagna at all.

“It was slop!” I can hear her saying, which is creepy, because I don’t actually remember her voice, which means my subconscious has an accent.

But ”the lasagna“ was fast, and reasonably easy to make with two children. In fact, the children mostly made the whole thing while I sat back and wondered where they come up with these ideas and why I find it so impossible to turn down their wackiest requests.

Owen had decided at the grocery store that we really must have lasagna for dinner. I am not sure why, because I make lasagna roughly twice a year and it literally takes all day.

It is as time-consuming as making a year’s supply of strawberry jam (including picking), except the leftovers only make it to lunchtime the next day, meaning that if you do an effort-to-result (someone good at math make me a chart) analysis it really would be a giant waste of time if it didn’t taste so darn good.

So when he decided (and Ellery heartily agreed) that lasagna was imperative, I decided to finally cut some corners.

“We need to pick out some vegetables,” I told the kids, because I was thinking that with as many vegetarian lasagnas as I have sampled over my many vegetarian years that I could probably fake something.

And so they decided on spinach and portabella mushrooms, which is funny, because can you think of two things more universally despised by children than spinach and mushrooms?

Maybe toothbrushing and puppy-kicking.

And so, we came home with our bag of non-great grandmother approved pseudo-Italian items — pasta in a box; organic sauce in a jar, mushrooms, spinach, and some Parmesan cheese that no doubt came from a cow about as Italian as seven-eights of those Jersey Shore kids.

And then they did everything. They did the chopping, the grating … they did the sauteing (with close supervision). They did the layering and sprinkling and really liked that part.

I handled the hot noodles, because if I picked up anything from my Italian relatives it is that publicly throwing yourself on hot noodles, glass shards, swords, grenades, moving buses, tarantulas, hot candles, water pistols and rabid dogs is every good mother’s responsibility.

So what we made wasn’t really a lasagna. It was kind of a hybrid — lasagna-meets-baked pasta thing.

It was good. Two kids ate a bunch of it for dinner and were excited to revisit it the next day at lunch.

Our home was happy. It was filled with love. The great lasagna adventure brought us all closer together. It afforded me an opportunity to tell my kids the snail story, and I consider that one of the “great family stories,” so that was a bonus.

Your great-great grandmother came all the way here from Sicily, I told them. She brought recipes with her and opened a restaurant and store. She loved to cook. She loved her kitchen.

She loved her family, and she knew that good food wasn’t always about the most expensive or fanciest … but it was made from fresh ingredients (some that aren’t even dead yet), prepared lovingly and perhaps messily (remembering the snails again here).

It is about making something that just tastes good, and is a bit of a hug in a dish, really.

And that’s what we made last week.

But for clarification purposes, I guess you could call it a lasagna.

What my world looks like this Monday morning …

• We finally have peppers and tomatoes in the garden. I’m so excited that our little plot has already given us enough organic vegetables to pay for itself! How is your garden growing this season?
• We did a clean-up and furniture repurpose this weekend to prepare for the start of our homeschool year. The old art table is a sewing space; and the kids have a new bookshelf and game shelf!
• Speaking of games, Wildcraft, Harvest Time and Professor Noggin games are getting a lot of play lately … Do you have a favorite educational or nature-based game in your family?

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. ~ Samuel Pepys

An assortment of recipes, books, blog posts, or other things that inspired me this week.

Present Moment Parenting

Check out Organic’s Geeks Visual Pictorals of Michael Pollan’s Simple Food Rules like: It is not food if it arrived through the window of your car

Avocado Pesto from Clean Eating Magazine

Why cast iron is cool

 The Big Latch On is today! Are you taking part?

What is inspiring you this week? Please tell us about it in the comments below!

Some days you just need a cookie.

I had a day like that this week. And so I made a batch.

But I tried to make them a slightly healthier version of an old favorite.

Note to store manager: That’s what I was doing in the baking aisle Wednesday …. Trying to figure out how to health-up a Nestle recipe, NOT trying to shoplift cans of pumpkin puree.

Here is what I came up with:

Peanut Butter Chip Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter (that bright yellow pastured stuff from a company that likes cows), softened

3/4 evaporated cane juice

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 fresh eggs from a farmer you know or a company you like

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3 cups whole rolled oats

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 cup of Sunspire Peanut Butter Chips

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter with sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix until just combined. Add chips and carefully mix by hand. Spoon rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment-lined sheet and bake 7 to 9 minutes.

Then eat a happy healthier cookie!

Whew. That was a close one.

The other day, we got a box in the mail.

It was unexpected, and when my kids saw it was from their aunt, uncle and cousins who live out of state, they couldn’t get it open fast enough.

Because their aunt and uncle are GREAT gift-givers. They give the gifts that always get played with the most … open-ended and often from nature.

We opened our suprise package to find two smaller boxes inside. One, contained the bird’s nest above, filled with three tiny stone eggs. Perfect for my bird-loving boy.

Ellery got a small vintage treasure chest filled with three beautiful gems. It is really what every princess needs.

These gifts were wonderful and generous, but they were also so thoughtful — they showed a true connection to my kiddos that made me feel incredibly grateful.

They also reminded me how difficult it can be sometimes to find gifts for kids at an actual toy store!

Sometimes, we will hit the area’s big toy emporium and wander around looking for something that fits. But often, the best gifts for nature-loving kids aren’t available at the toy store anyway. Things like:

• A small plant and watering can
• A magnifying glass, compass or binoculars
• A “grown-up” style sketch kit or a nature journal
• A handmade certificate to learn a new outdoor skill or do a nature activity together
• Seeds to plant
• Original outdoor treasure hunts with a small prize at the end
• A birdfeeder
• Cool rocks, stones or shells
• A bag or basket for nature collecting
• A child size vest with many pockets
• Specimen jars
• Baskets of acorns or pinecones
• A lantern
• A tent
• A backpack and cool nature- and adventure-themed patches

These kinds of gifts are so much fun to give and receive. And I can promise you that at least here, they get played with the very most!

What are your favorite nature-themed gifts to give?

This is my sewing bucket.

Every Tuesday for the past 5 weeks, I have packed it full of supplies, and dragged it and my sewing machine across town to sewing class, where I get yelled at for two and a half hours.

I LOVE IT. 

I don’t love ripping out seams 4 times, and I’m not even sure I love garment making … at least not big-people garment making.

But I love doing something that is me. I love the drive alone, listening to music my kids would probably enjoy but be entirely confused by. I love stoping at the coffee shop for a huge $1.50 tea.

I love getting there, seeing new friends and recharging.

I think recharging as a mama is so important.

I didn’t realize that for the first few years. I really thought that being a mom was like running a marathon — if you stopped for more than a quick drink of water, you were out of the race.

It has taken me 7 years (and frequent reminders from good friends) to learn that I am a better mom, a more patient mom — I daresay even a better wife — when I get a little break.

Those breaks help me to remember for just a minute, that person I used to be before kids.

She was fine — doing yoga all the time, not fretting over the price of lipgloss, eating a lot more take-out …

But I am so lucky for the life I have now. And it usually only takes a few hours away to remember that.

What do you to to recharge your mama batteries?

We love our library.

Every week, we pack up the books to return in our bags, and bring our (long) list of new things to look for.

We have friends at the library –  people we see each week who know all of my kids’ interests and favorite authors and topics.

It is one of the happiest and easiest places to go for us; I don’t have to say no much, and there is just so much to discover.

But what we discovered last really put a smile on my face. Our library has opened a coffee shop, and that coffee shop is doing some really great things (please forgive the blurry-ish phone photos!).

They are buying local!

They are cutting down on waste!

They are providing treats for people with food allergies and intolerances (and are the only place I can think of in town to do so!!).

Man, I love a day at the library! And I love how places that buy local, bake gluten-free and recycle are slowly becoming not so hard to find!!

Do you have a shop or restaurant that you frequent that is making green changes and updates?