When my first child, who is now four, was born - I had lofty visions of making all of my own baby food from scratch. Hand picking organic fruit from my garden that I would cook and puree and store myself, you know, along with all of the sleep I would be getting and time for pruning a garden. 

Ah, first time mom Mandi was so cute.

​Fast forward four years and another baby later, and I know a few things about motherhood. I also know you don't have to sacrifice quality when it's done for you if you know where to look.

Lucky for us busy moms, Smart & Final has launched their own Sun Harvest baby food brand this month that is organic, clean, GMO-free and made simply from fruits and vegetables. That's it!

Available in an array of delicious flavors and only $0.99 per ounce serving, the packaging is also BPA-free, which you know is a huge must for us and most mamas. ​

You can choose from Mixed Vegetables, Pear, Apple Mango, Pear & Banana, Carrot, Apple, Banana and Strawberry and Sweet Potato, giving your little one a diverse selection of fruits and vegetables to please their budding palate. Which you know I am a huge fan of. Diversity in a child's diet, from a very early age, helps them to like an array of vegetables and fruits as they grow. 

For store locations and information on Sun Harvest, as well as other products offered at Smart & Final, you can visit their website here. 

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #gardeinmeatlessmeats #lovesprouts #CollectiveBias

As the school year begins, and we prepare to move into our newly renovated modern farmhouse, #PimentalRanch, I am setting up all the easy solutions for our days to run smoothly. I call these solutions my daily rhythms. 

One of them, even though we home school, or maybe especially because we home school, is having our meals prepped and ready to grab at mealtime. Having them prepped for the day or week ahead, helps me keep the meals on our school table nutritious and balanced. 

As a nutritionist mama to a kiddo that loves veggies, (praise! Hoping all my littles share this love, haha), I love having vegan mealtime options. Your family needn't sacrifice taste or texture when opting for vegan entrees in a school lunch. You can parent young ones while leading a plant based life. Gardein offers a large selection of products to choose from for variety throughout the week.

Our favorites this week have been the Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites and the Seven-Grain Crispy Tenders that we picked up at Sprouts. I'm sharing a list of options below to accompany each entree for a well-rounded meal for your kids or yourself. 

Good for the body and the planet, it's choices we can feel good about. With a wide-variety of the products on a path to Non-GMO verified, Gardein doesn't use any artificial colors or flavors. This is HUGE on my mama radar - artificial coloring and flavor can cause so many problems in our bodies, that we want to protect our kids bodies from being exposed to things we can prevent. 

For those of you with soy or gluten sensitive kiddos, the ones shown wouldn't be an option but they do offer gluten-free varieties!. For those who can enjoy these ingredients, these are a great option - good for little growing bodies. 

To make well-rounded meals every day of the week, bookmark this list to check out some of our favorite sides to accompany the Gardein entrees. Easy to pack into lunch boxes, these are healthful hits with kids and adults alike.

To accompany the Gardein Seven-Grain Crispy Tenders

• Fresh Berries
• Vegan Macaroni
• Corn Chips
• Grapes (cut in half for safe eating)
• Avocado Slices
• Apple
• Salad
• Pasta Salad

To accompany the Gardein Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites

• Edamame
• Rice
• Quinoa
• Carrot Sticks
• Celery
• Pineapple 
• Snap Peas 
• Orange Slices

​To make it easy to implement plant-based lunches and go meatless at mealtime, you can find a "Buy 2 Get One Free" coupon below you can use at Sprouts. Click on the Sprouts Digital Coupon link to be taken to the coupon.  ​

Coupon offer good 8/13/2019-11/09/2019.  Buy 2 Gardein Meatless Meat products and Get 1 Free at any Sprouts Farmer’s Market Store. 

What are some of your favorite plant based back-to-school lunch options? Share them in the comments below! 

#gardeinmeatlessmeats #lovesprouts

This month has brought on  A LOT of new tastes to little man's palette and many more opportunities for him to sample foods outside of the house. This has made going out, and bringing him along on our date nights, much more fun and easy. 

Not having to bring so much external food from home makes it easier to be spontaneous and I'm thankful he is eating so many fruits, vegetables, healthy oils and meats now because we can order something for him at almost any restaurant I can eat at. 

He's moved to having lunches and dinners that are unique to what we are having, so moving forward you will see separate breakfast, lunch and dinner sections for even more meal ideas. 

We also introduced, GLUTEN. (insert shocked gasps here), for many reasons, that I will talk about in next months post, but you will see some bread included in the meals below. 
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​*Note that these are the meals he's served from breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also gets two-three snacks a day. Snacks include apple slices, pear slices, organic teething cookies, organic puffs and vegetable based baby food purees

As we dive deeper into Baby Led Weaning, I thought it would be fun to share the meals that little man enjoys. He's got SUCH an appetite and it's no surprise he's our child, since he's a foodie through and through. We stick to organic, healthy choices for him, and as of yet he's still dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free and pretty much Top 8 Free. We are going slow with introductions and now that he's almost 1, we will be introducing more and more for variety and nutrition. 

I've posted some photos of the meals I put together for him, and I plan to share along the way, leading up to toddler meals. These are the meals he's currently enjoying at 10 months of age. 

I would love your ideas too! If you have some great infant or toddler food or meal ideas, feel free to share. Any recipes of a specific dish I make for him, I will link to the recipe here on NoshandNurture.com! 

*Note that these are the meals he's served from breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also gets two-three snacks a day. Snacks include apple slices, pear slices, organic teething cookies, organic puffs and vegetable based baby food purees. 

The beauty of eating clean, whole foods, is that Grey can usually eat some of what I order. 

When traveling in Long Beach, we stayed at the Westin and for breakfast I ordered scrambled eggs, gluten free toast and avocado. 

I shared my avocado with Grey, ordered him a side of bananas and brought a puree pouch of baby food to round out his meal. 

Mama + baby were satisfied. Done and done! 

Keep an eye out for What Grey Ate, every month on Nosh and Nurture! And as always I'd love to hear your feedback and what you're feeding your littles.

I also share a lot of our mealtimes, and more, on my Instagram Stories, so if you're over there, follow along! Find me @noshandnurture.