Cooking Club serves up "Luscious Lunches" for dinner

This month our Cooking Club decided to focus on "Luscious Lunches" in an effort to discover some more creative options to serve up for our families for lunch. Truth be told, these picks can be served up any time of the day.

Lavosh sandwiches were the star of the evening. Cori piles these with loads of colorful ingredients. Healthy, vegetarian and fun to make!

Susan, Christine and Micah help prepare the items for the sandwiches. We even made some peanut butter and jelly ones for the kids. The lavosh bread was a big hit with everyone.

I taught everyone how to make my Chicken Salad Wonton cups with Maple Pecans on top. These are a great appetizer for a fancy meal or fun to serve up to kids for lunch because they each get their own personal wonton cup.

This recipe won an award at the Big Fresno Fair in 2009. Very fun!

Meilani and Caleb pose with their "luscious lunches," which we ate for dinner. Meilani girl loved the Sweet Potato Fries we made with Spicy Avocado Dip.

Jackie and Aeniah also dug into our fabulous lunch fare. Our menu also included Asparagus Soup, Veggie Sticks and Oatmeal-Banana-Power Cookies, and Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler. All the recipes are found here.

This Cooking Club was definitely focused on letting the kids play and have fun. The kitchen was a *little* chaotic but it was still fun and we all learned some new tricks.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Mamas included!

This weekend we enjoyed one of our much-anticipated Girls Getaway Weekends with our friends the Vander Meulens. My college roomie, Jen, and drove down to Fresno from Escalon with her Delia and Ella. While the daddies were busy working, we spent time finding adventures together in town and at the Gilmore Casa.

Our first stop was this new little boutique in Fresno called Twee. They feature all handmade items created by local artisans and crafters. They set up a play date for us and had the kids painting picture frames while the mamas peeked in at all the cute hair clips, jewelry and homemade cards. As Jen put it, think Etsy in a store. After a pizza parlor lunch in the Tower District, we headed back home.

The girls spent the rest of the afternoon playing dress-up, dancing to Christian kids music, reading books and "taking trips" all over the world. Meanwhile, the mamas got some quality talking time over some hot drinks. How I treasure these minutes to share my heart with a friend who knows me so well and has walked through so many seasons of life alongside our family. We shed a few tears together, laughed a lot, and as always, indulged in great food.

Jen and the girls often come for a day trip or we meet somewhere in the Bay Area for romping through the city but this time we scheduled a real Girls' Sleepover - complete with jammies, stories and tents! Ella and Meilani started out sleeping in their tents in the play room. They giggled beneath the sleeping bags and read stories but both ended up in bed with their mamas after several hours of fun. Giada was delighted to just spend a few minutes crawling around after the "big girls" before bed. Perhaps the most unique part of this weekend was watching our girls enjoy each other's company without much adult intervention. Makes a mama's heart smile. (Maybe they'll be college roomies too!)