Pantry Panic

Yesterday, I experienced one of the strangest phenomenons ever: Pantry Panic! You see, I've always enjoyed baking and doing my own from scratch cooking, but generally in my life as a mom, I've stocked a few "emergency" items in case I needed to grab something quick and easy to take to a party, give as a snack for school, etc.

Something hopefully slightly healthy, or so I thought, like granola bars.

In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and our crazy week of medical drama, I had forgotten about the most important day of the month for our 5-year old, her special day at school where she gets to bring show and tell, be the line leader, and bring snack. But as my cutie pie Kindergartener looked up at me with her big blue eyes, and asked, "Mommy, isn't today my snack day?" 15 minutes before we had to leave for school, I had to come up with something!

I rushed to the pantry to see what I could scrounge up, and discovered, how shockingly my life and eating habits had changed over the last two years. There was nothing in there but raw ingredients like Organic Chicken broth, Organic Biscuit Cereal, and some specialty flour, along with lots of nuts. There were no Keebler Elves to save this mommy, so what was I to do???

I ran to the fridge and looked inside, and it was then it struck me: I had enough fresh fruit in my house for two Kindergarten classes. So I peeled and chopped like a crazy woman and brought in a fresh fruit tray! The teacher was very happy and my daughter got to have her special day.

I had a valuable lesson reinforced: You don't have to keep or serve processed foods to keep kids happy!