Books to Belly; Dragons Love Tacos & Shrimp Tacos

Forget dinner and a movie- dinner and a book is way better! 

It wasn't hard getting inspiration to create a meal based on the children's book Dragons Love Tacos!  Much like my family, the way to a dragons heart is always through his stomach! 

Chloe and Max chose Dragons Love Tacos at our local library and I immediately knew we had to have tacos to accompany the story! 

Creating a meal based around a children's book is a great way to promote a love of reading over the summer. Part of being a good reader is making connections to what you are reading. What better way to connect to a story than through food! Its also an excellent way to introduce new foods to your children and get picky eaters to try new ones. 

I read the story before preparing our shrimp tacos. Chloe and Max loved hearing why dragons love eating tacos so much. They especially enjoyed checking off the ingredients dragons love in their tacos because we were including most of the same in ours. We were very careful not to include the one ingredient dragons should never have in their tacos (anything spicy) because we do not like spicy either!

I truly enjoyed this time with my children. I cannot wait to select the next book with Chloe and Max and cook a meal together. Chloe loves to help in the kitchen and I hope through this, she will love reading just as much.

I look forward to sharing more "Books to Belly" posts with you and your families! 

                                                                                 

Shrimp Tacos

• 2 pounds of shrimp (feeds 4)
• taco shells (hard or soft- or both if you want to get crazy!!!)
• lettuce
• tomato
• avocado (optional)
• shredded Mexican cheese (I use Sargento Mexican blend)
• reduced fat sour cream (optional)
• Margie's all natural mango herb & garlic marinade for the shrimp.

Cook shrimp until pink throughout. I did ours in a pan on the stove. You can grill them on the BBQ as well. 


Involve the kids by having them assemble the ingredients in a platter. Before heating the pan, I had Chloe scoop the shrimp into the pan and clean the celery in the sink.

Breakfast S'mores

We kicked off the first day of summer in our house with S'mores for breakfast- no flame required! I mixed the summertime staple with classic French Toast and created a tiny miracle! If you think this looks good, wait until you taste it! 

First step is making your French Toast. You can even prepare it the night before and warm before serving. I use quinoa bread (pronounced keen-wah) from Trader Joe's. Known for its amazing nutritional value, quinoa is high in protein and iron and low in fat. Max and I love this bread. Chloe needs some convincing at times but had no trouble getting down her breakfast S'mores and actually asked for more! 

Ingredients:

• Sliced bread of your choice ( I use the quinoa to boost the nutritional value)
• Eggs
• Milk
• Cinnamon
• Nutella
• Fluff
• Graham Crackers

For my French Toast, I mix a little milk in eggs and sprinkle cinnamon directly into the mixture. After the French Toast is cooked, let it cool a bit and cut a circle out of each piece using a glass. My kids don't eat the crust so making everything crustless here has become second nature! If your kids eat the crust- you can leave the bread whole.

While the French Toast cools, take 2-3 graham crackers and grind them in your food processor. I use a magic bullet. 

Take your circle and spread on the Nutella. If the French Toast is too hot, it will melt off- same for the Fluff. 

Fluff is hard to work with. I took a snack sized Ziploc bag, cut off the tip, and spooned in the Fluff. I then squeezed it on top of the Nutella in a circular motion.

Finally, sprinkle the graham crackers on top of the Fluff!

I hope your family loves this breakfast as much as mine! It is something simple that your kids will love so much. 

Enjoy you summer...and your Breakfast S'mores!

Fourth of July Shrimp Skewers

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned....it's been over 2 months since my last blog post! My kitchen remodel has kept me from cooking! With Fourth of July around the corner, I wanted to make these fun Fourth of July star spangled shrimp skewers for Chloe (my little shrimp lover)! You can't get any more patriotic than star shaped food! I wanted an alternative to meat which Chloe hardly eats. I will be bringing these to many a BBQ over the holiday weekend! 

I used my Pampered Chef cookie cutters to cut the red bell peppers into stars. Perfect Fourth of July food...and easy too!

I saved the remaining pepper to cut up in a salad. You can also save them to make fajitas, sausage and peppers or an add in for your morning omelet.

Fourth of July Shrimp Skewers

1 1/2 pounds of extra large jumbo shrimp

1 tablespoon of olive oil

salt & pepper (to taste)

1/2 teaspoon of Adobo (found in Spanish aisle)

Add shrimp to a bowl and mix in the olive oil. Add salt, pepper and Adobo. Mix 

well. I let them marinade for at least an hour. 

While shrimp marinades, soak your wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes to prevent burning. 

I grilled them on my indoor grill on 350 until they were pink throughout. If you are cooking them on the BBQ, you can lay foil down to prevent burning. Chloe will not eat anything from the grill if it has char marks or "black" as she refers to it! Watch them carefully- they cook quickly. 

Try these with chicken or steak, whichever your children prefer! They will definitely love the pepper stars!

        Happy Fourth of July from my little star to yours!