* – but I could be wrong.

August 27th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (15 Comments)

Let’s start this post by tackling a very important question you surely have:*

What is the difference between a scallion and a leek?

Well, I’m glad you asked because until today I didn’t know either.  When getting ready to write up this recipe I couldn’t remember if the green onion-y things I picked up in our CSA share yesterday were scallions or leeks.  Google tells me that scallions are young onions. Leeks are, well – leeks. I’m fairly confident that what I have here are leeks*, and because I don’t think your pot will explode* or your fabulous dinner party will be ruined* if you use scallions in place of leeks in this Vegan Potato Leek* Soup recipe, I’m going with leeks.

I Heart Cereal

August 11th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (9 Comments)

I love cereal, but I rarely buy it. Because if I bought it, I would eat it. And the kids would eat it too. Now of course I don’t think cereal is inherently bad or purposefully tries to be evil, but it’s just too damn easy to sit down and eat 600 calories worth of Heart to Heart in a single sitting before you finally stop going back to the box for another bowl.

What? Is that only me?

Strawberry Shortcuts

June 13th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (14 Comments)

In my continual quest to show my brood that food doesn’t grow on grocery store shelves, in conjunction with my desire to save money on produce whilst flying under the child labor law radar, we went strawberry picking this week.

Strawberry Sign

I’m trying to get you to believe that I’m this do-awesome-stuff-feed-my-kids-right-awesomely-incredible homeschooling mom, but really it was about getting the hell out of the house for a few hours and finding something different to do that wasn’t going to end with me paying a bunch of late fees to the library.

Child Labor

Raw Deals

June 8th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (10 Comments)

Last year right around this time I found The Raw Foods Detox Diet by Natalia Rose.  I was so excited and convinced by all the rawesome stuff in her book that I did a bunch of things she said to do, as well as the one big thing she said not to do; that is, “don’t dive head first into the raw food deep end.”  Bah!  I’ve been eating raw food since I was a baby!  How hard can it be?

*jump*

*SPLASH*

*smash head*

*drown*

Let’s Learn Spanish

January 4th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (25 Comments)

Well, I have no pictures of our woodland adventures today because we were not there long enough to take any pictures. Within about 10 minutes I had two very cold, cranky girls on my hands that not even a backpack full of refined carbohydrates (pretzels, granola bars, kashi crackers) could turn around. It WAS cold though, the thermostat in the car read 18 on the way home. Oh well. We tried.

Interestingly enough though, Ava said she “couldn’t wait” to go cross country skiing when we got home. Zak brought his childhood cross country skis to the house yesterday and Ava’s been in love with the idea of cross country skiing ever since.

Fun With Carrot Juice Pulp

December 4th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Short or Sweet - (15 Comments)

Today I was on a mission: Bake Healthy Cookies.

There’s a fundraiser going on this weekend for one of the homeschooling organizations we’re a part of – and there’s going to be a bake sale. The group requested the donation of healthy, homemade treats to sell. Given the population of attendees; organic, gluten free or vegan treats are big sellers.

Just one thing: absolutely no nuts due to allergy concerns.

Not Chili

November 30th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (9 Comments)

Where’s the place to be on a cold, dreary day?

Dreary Day

The beach of course!

Cold Splash

We met up with our “Get These Kids Outside Or Bust” homeschooling group and today was a true test of our pledge to get outside even in the crummiest of weather.

It was cold. It was rainy. There was whining.

Walk in the Park

Ava happily played with her friends but Maxine clung to me like a marsupial and said “I want to go home” about 100x in my ear, throwing in the occassional “I’m hungry” despite having just eaten breakfast 30 minutes earlier.

It’s Not Even December

November 28th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (16 Comments)

I’d like to give special thanks tonight to my neighbors, who put up their Christmas tree the day after Halloween. This has been cause for being repeatedly peppered with the “When are we going to put our tree up?” screech question every time we come home in the dark.

Uncle! Uncle! I’m crying uncle! OK! Let’s put the tree up already!

Tree Up

This is the earliest I’ve EVER put up a Christmas tree. I know a lot of people put them up the day after Thanksgiving, I’ve just never been one of those people. I’m afraid I’ll turn into the Incredible Hulk and start ripping down lights and tinsel around December 23rd if I put decorations up too early.

A Healthier Moose

November 17th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (27 Comments)

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was at Wegmans, minding my own business, looking through the nice display of huge heads of cauliflower and searching for the perfect head that was destined to come home with me.

I noticed a woman checking out my head (talking about the cauliflower head here) as I approached the produce scale to get my bar code sticker. She commented on how beautiful it looked (I was hopeful she was talking about the head attached to my neck now…) She then told me how much she loves cauliflower. I agreed and we went on to discuss the various ways we like to eat cauliflower… steamed, raw, roasted or standing on our heads (cauliflower or otherwise), we’ll happily eat it.

Make Your Own MamaBars

November 2nd, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Short or Sweet - (19 Comments)

When I made Averie’s RAWking chocolate donut holes last week, I got to thinking that these were basically homemade Larabars. They were really good – and they were chocolate! I don’t know about you, but the chocolate Larabars leave much to be desired. I think I can do a little better. Wait, I DID do a little better! (Thank you Averie.)

Are you smelling what I’m smelling?

I’m gonna make me some MamaBars.

The only thing is, I’m kind of curious to know how many calories might be in a MamaBar versus a Larabar. I was in the mood for a little project tonight so I got to work.