Restaurant Review ~ Palm Greens Cafe

I was lucky to have a wonderful birthday lunch with my Dad and my son yesterday! We ate at Palm Greens Cafe in Palm Springs. This restaurant is not completely vegetarian, but it's has mostly vegan/vegetarian options, and lots of fresh and organic ingredients. Friendly service, good atmosphere with nice art. I wished I would've gotten a freshly made juice of some sort.... well next time!

I ordered the Vegan Haystack. It's a tempeh patty, tempeh bacon, vegan pepper jack cheese, BBQ sauce, pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, red onion on whole wheat sunflower bun. I'm quite a pro on veggie burgers, nationwide, and this one is one of the tops! If you enjoy BBQ sauce, this is for you! The avocado wasn't on this burger, it's just that my son didn't want so much avo, so I was lucky to get some extra (LOVE the AVO!!)

Son got the Vegan Black Bean burger. This was a plus because it's soy free. It had an ample amount of avo, and that's A+ for me! Both of us ordered the vegan potato salad as our side dish. There was a choice of that, cole slaw or chips, in vegan or non vegan varieties.

Dad got the Breakfast Bowl. It was a generous helping of eggs or tofu, potatoes or brown rice, swiss chard, kale, and spinach sautéed in sunflower oil with mushroom, zuccini, onion, carrot, ginger, and garlic, black beans, salsa, with a whole wheat tortilla. Dad's was all vegan, and he mentioned that the cheese was exceptionally good vegan cheese. I think it's a filling meal for sure!

Their drinks and juices are wonderful! Our neighbors got the fresh coconut, served straight out of the nut, and I was envious for sure. Coconut water is a new obsession of mine. I wanted to first order a Thai Iced Tea, or a Lavender Lemonade but was instead persuaded by the mystery of these Dry Sodas. My first choice of the dry Lavender Soda was not available, so I went with the Vanilla Soda, my son got the Lime. They both were so delightful and refreshing with not a lot of sugar. Wesley thought his was like incense, and I did agree.

For moderately priced vegan/vegetarian food I highly recommend Palm Greens Cafe, and am hoping I will return very soon!

Art Lesson - Fall Trees Painting - 1st Grade

This is a lesson well suited for First Graders. I first discussed the Fall/Autumn Season with the children. I showed different pictures of trees. Since I live in the forest I talked about the difference of the pine trees and the other types of trees that loose their leaves. We compared the shape and the colors of the Fall Season.

I gave them a palette of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. I also gave them a pre mixed brown for the center of their palette, just like a color wheel. The first part of the lesson we painted the trunk and branches of the tree. I had them paint large to fit the paper, and tried to achieve a more curvy trunk, unlike the straight pine tree trunk.

A first grade art standard for First Grade is mixing a secondary color with 2 primary colors. I had them first mix an orange. Each of the students had a small sponge in an almond or leaf shape. I had them paint different shades of yellow, orange and red onto their sponge and print the leaves around the tree. I also had them mix green.

Most of the kids were finished in about a half hour, including the pre-lesson discussion, so most were able to do another painting, sponge painting and had an opportunity to mix their paint up even more, which is what most kids want to do it seems.