So today… there was a little of this.

A little of that.

We broke for lunch and I made a little hummus sandwich. And took a giant picture of it.

Toasted Ezekiel bread with mustard, garlic hummus, red leaf and tomato.

And pretended I was a little dinosaur eating giant steamed trees.

And steamed clouds.

Sometime between lunch and dinner came cookie time. We busted out the Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chip Cookies.

Observe.

I think they were acceptable.

Product placement at it’s finest.

One thumb up from Ava. I think it would have been two thumbs up, but the other hand had a cookie in it.

And if you couldn’t tell from these pictures, no, not a whole lot of cleaning got done today. Let’s just call my house “lived in”, shall we?

Mama had something else in mind for her snack.

Green lemonade rulez. Same concoction as yesterday’s. Minus the compost rummaging.

[Insert funny, interesting, witty, clever segue here]

Dinner!

Now I’ll give a little disclaimer here that my eyes usually glaze over when I see a recipe with a lot of ingredients, but this one is worth it. Many items in the list are just spices so don’t glaze over like a doughnut just yet.

Chana Masala

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
16 oz crushed tomatoes
15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup of water or vegetable broth
4 cups cooked chick peas (or 2 15 oz cans, rinsed and drained)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice (or half a squeezed lemon)
1 fresh, hot chili pepper, minced (any kind of pepper will do actually)
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

Saute garlic and onion in EVOO until soft. Add curry powder and cumin and stir until garlic and onion are nicely coated in spices. Add tomato sauce and tomatos and cook for 5 minutes. Add chick peas and water (or broth). Add paprika and garam masala, salt and lemon juice, grated ginger and minsed pepper, stir and simmer for an additional 30 – 40 minutes.

Served with brown rice.

If you aren’t a fan of spicy food, leave out the cayenne and the hot pepper. It’s also worth noting that I only estimated with the spices here. In real life I’m pretty generous with the spices and I think I’m more reserved in the recipe here, so spice it up to your own taste. How many more times can I use the word spice in this paragraph? Spice. I guess I’m pretty generous with the word spice too.

What do you think? Is that picture over the top? I’d like to have you believe we are very cultured but truth be told I ran down to the basement to snag that picture off a shelf and wiped off the dust and cobwebs with the same dish towel I wiped up who knows what else with today.