Hi everyone! Kelly here, from Eat the Rainbow - Kids again. As back-to-school approaches (or might already be in full swing for some of you!) I thought I’d share some of our routine that we plan on continuing this fall (and some things I know we will do differently).  For us, this year is going to look a lot different because my daughter is going back to in-person school for the first time since May 2019. We actually started homeschooling before COVID-19 hit. 

1) We will continue to take our SmartyPants vitamins every morning!

• Me: SmartyPants Women’s Multi Capsule with Omegas (1 capsule a day)
• My daughter: SmartyPants Kids Formula (4 gummies a day)

Photos by: Rebecca Durigan and Kelly Pfeiffer

2) We will continue to start the day with a satisfying breakfast. Shown here: sweet potato muffins (recipe below), cheddar cheese, clementines, and super OJ.

3) We will continue to eat the rainbow and focus on a variety of nutrients throughout the day. On the left: rainbow plate with crispy tofu, freeze-dried bell peppers, grape tomatoes, roasted bell pepper, avocado, purple cabbage, and pears. On the right: Bento boxes with sandwiches, root veggie chips, fruits, and veggies.

I give you many tips and tricks and recipe ideas for how to incorporate more color into your meals on my feed. But at the end of the day, it's not the most important thing.

Did you show your child love, kindness, patience, and joy? How can we do more of THAT? (And believe me, I struggle with this just like the rest of you. I had a super hard day yesterday... And had to apologize more than once. But hopefully she learns from that too.)

5) We will go to bed earlier, so we can be cheerful and ready to rock the day! Anyone else stay up waaaaaaay too late over the past year (just so you could get some alone time?!)?

6) We will work on keeping life balanced and not over-schedule ourselves now that we’re adding sports practices, more homework, lunch packing, etc. to the mix. That means saying, “No” to some things, and saying “Yes” to easy meal shortcuts. 

Want more color inspiration and easy kid food ideas? Be sure to follow me over on Instagram: @eattherainbow_kids.

For the muffins:

• ½ cup cooked, mashed sweet potato
• ¾ cup unsweetened vanilla almondmilk
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 egg (or egg substitute)
• ½ cup granulated monkfruit (or sweetener of choice)
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp ground ginger

For the streusel topping:

• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• 2 Tbsp granulated monkfruit (or sweetener of choice)
• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine mashed sweet potato, almondmilk, and olive oil. Puree with immersion blender if your sweet potato isn’t already uniformly mashed. Then, add in egg and sweetener.
3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and spices. Then, slowly mix the dry mixture into the larger mixing bowl with the sweet potato mixture. Set aside.
4. Combine streusel topping ingredients in a small bowl.
5. Use non-stick spray to prepare a muffin tin (or use paper baking cups), then pour in batter evenly, filling each cup to about 3/4s full.  Then, add some of the streusel topping onto each muffin.
6. Bake 25-30 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Serve warm and/or store leftovers in the fridge.