Don’t be fooled. Gazpacho is not cold, raw soup. That’s a lie. Gazpacho is a vegetable slurpee.

‘Round these parts, tomatoes are in abundance right now. If you too have been looking at the slew of tomatoes on your counter thinking “what the FREAK am I going to do with all of those?!” every time you walk by them – then a tomato garlic cucumber pepper smoothie is for you.

I mean, gazpacho. Gazpacho is for you.

I’ve been meaning to make the ‘zpach for a while now, but it just seemed too complicated. And when I say complicated, I mean that I couldn’t recall exactly what went in to it. And when I say that I couldn’t recall what went into it, I mean that the mere thought of searching my own blog for the recipe was just too much to bear. It made me feel sleepy. My tomatoes started to look like little pillows and the leaves like little blankets and I just wanted to take a vegetable-that’s-really-a-fruit nap.

FINE. These tomatoes aren’t going to eat themselves after all. Let’s get to it. Next year I’m planting the Cannibalistic heirlooms. You know, the ones that start to eat each other before I have a chance to feel guilty that I didn’t get to them all in time? Guilt free vegetables. I’m going to make a killing selling the seeds of those bad boys.

So an alternate name for this post might be What the Hell am I Going to do With All These Freaking Summer Vegetables, Part Deux.

Go click that recipe if you like, but really – it’s easy. De-seed a bunch of tomatoes. Peel and de-seed a cucumber or two. De-seed a red and/or green pepper. Throw everything in the food processor with some olive oil, salt, a couple cloves of garlic and some crushed red pepper. Voila! Liquid salad.

Tomato soup has to be eaten with a sandwich. It is the law. I don’t make this stuff up.

Cold tomato soup deserves a cold sandwich. Tonight I choose my favorite open-faced, sesame ezekiel bread topped with Sabra hummus and salsa sandwich. Yes, that’s right. Salsa. As in – more tomatoes. Stop looking at me like that.

I got a spoon out with the best intentions, but I think I used it twice before I chucked it over my left shoulder, let loose a lip rattling war cry and replaced soup slurping sounds with gazpacho guzzling gulps.

I don’t know what makes gazpacho so creamy and good. Is it simply the combo of vegetables? The oil and garlic? The sweet relief I feel given the fact that I cut my tomato stash down by 75% this evening? Whatever the case, this was good. And the tomatoes didn’t even have to eat themselves! Well, not today anyway.

• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• True or False
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over

I envision the title of this post being sung to the chorus of Rock Me Amadeus, in case you were wondering.

So… Ratatouille. Yeah. I’m fairly sure “Ratatouille” is French for “what the hell am I going to do with all these freaking summer vegetables?”

My mom has been making Ratatouille a lot recently and has subsequently been raving to me about it during recent phone conversations as well. When she described what went into it and I realized that I had every single one of the ingredients in my overstocked-with-produce fridge, I considered it vegetable fate.

That would be:

2 medium eggplants
1 giant zucchini (that I used half of)
1 medium – large yellow squash
2 small – medium green peppers
1 large red pepper
1 large red onion
3 tomatoes

Plus garlic, basil, thyme and parsley and the oil of your choice. I’m using coconut oil for cooking these days, mainly because coconut oil whispers sweet nothings in my ear about “athletes” and “beautiful people” whenever I get it out of the cupboard.

I looked at a bunch of different Ratatouille recipes to get the general idea of what this dish entailed. Can I add a quick side note here that this dish is absolutely not at all what I expected it to be? I don’t know what I was expecting exactly… but I do know it wasn’t a bunch of chopped up vegetables cookin’ together in their own juices. I think I was picturing a smooth bowl of brownish vegetable mush? That sounds awesome, doesn’t it? It’s a real wonder I haven’t made this sooner.

So did I mention there will be a lot of chopping? Just in case I didn’t, let me say that now. There will be a lot of chopping.

First up, cubed eggplant. The eggplant gets bumped to the head of the class because it’s going to need time to sit while you are busy chopping all the other vegetables. You see, I like to hack into an eggplant and then pretend it’s some jerky dog-walking mortal enemy so I can throw salt on his fresh wounds. That makes me feel evil. Or maybe I salt eggplant to remove some of the bitterness and excess moisture. Either way, your reasons for salting eggplant are up to you really.

Cut the onions into rings and saute in oil over medium heat until soft. Here is where I would have added a couple cloves of minced garlic if I’d had any, but alas – I had none. The understudy Garlic Powder was very excited to take over the role of Garlic tonight.

Next up, cube zucchini and throw it in the pot. Cube yellow squash. Into the pot. Add more oil as needed to keep any vegetables from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Dice yuletide (that would be red and green) peppers and – you guessed it! Into the pot. Tomatoes? Same deal. (Cubed AND de-seeded, thankyouverymuch.) I put the lid back on the pan between each round of vegetables to help keep in heat and moisture.

The last thing to go in to the mix was the eggplant, rinsed and drained. This would also be where I was suddenly wishing I’d had a bigger pot. Either that or less vegetables.

Less vegetables? Bite your tongue! (And if you break the skin, let me know so I can throw salt on it.) I cut up all those dang vegetables! They’re all going in the pot and they’re all gonna like it!

Add fresh herbs, put the cover on the pot and let the vegetables stew in their own juices for about 20 – 30 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. And yes, thanks to the magic of condensation it was possible for me to stir them even though they were initially almost too big for their Calphalon britches.

Serve over rice or pasta if you like, or better yet – no grains at all cause that’s the way I roll.

The eggplant was absolutely the star of this dish, the texture was great and I loved the way it took on the flavor of the other vegetables too.

Despite lots of chopping, this dish was really pretty simple to make. It was impressively tasty considering the simplicity that is summer vegetables too!

And best of all – it helped me free up a bunch of space in my fridge. Amen to that.

Another great thing about Ratatouille is that it’s pretty flexible in terms of ingredients – I now understand that you can substitute a bunch of different vegetables based on whatever you have on hand. Mushrooms, carrots, various summer squashes, peppers and herbs too – villainous thoughts are optional.

In short, this really didn’t feel like any more work than making a salad. Just a cooked, lettuce-less salad – how bad could it possibly be? It could have been a bowl of brown mush after all, so let’s just be thankful for that.

• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• True or False
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over

A dear reader named Kenzie left a comment the other day asking me to do a post about how I make my salads and what I put in them. Given this is supposed to be a food blog afterall, and it seems I’ve mostly been blogging about running these days – I figure it’s high time for a food post.

And what do you know, with a 15 mile long run on the agenda for first thing tomorrow morning, I just so happen to have “Big Giant Salad” on the dinner menu tonight! Here’s how I make a salad that will knock your (and maybe even someone else’s!) socks off.

Step 1: Start with a beautiful head of lettuce. Something OTHER than iceberg for crying out loud please. Red leaf is typically my head of choice, but green leaf or romaine work nicely.  Don’t be afraid to throw in spinach, arugula, dandelion or other mixed field greens too if you’ve got ‘em.

Optional Step 1a: If you’ll be photographing your lettuce before you tear it to shreds, take it outside where natural light is abundant. This will be your best shot at getting the best shot of this gorgeous piece of red-greenery.

Step 2: Tear up lettuce to be washed in salad spinner.

Take note! Tear lettuce in large bite-ish sized pieces OFF the spine. You’ll find no spines in my salad. Spines bad! Leaves good!

You’ll know you did it right if you’re left with this:

(Don’t eat that part.)

Repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat and repeat and repeat until you get to the heart of the head.  Coo lovingly at those sweet little leaves in the middle that are so dang cute and tender.  Rinse leaves well in your salad spinner and then start the spin cycle.

It takes me about 10 minutes or so to rip through a good sized head of red leaf lettuce and it’s worth every minute.  I typically tear up a whole head at once and have a nice bowl full of greens for easy salads/sandwiches/wraps for the next couple of days.  This is also the best way to ensure any head of red leaf gets eaten before it’s forgotten and is turned into a head of slimy brown leaf at the bottom of my produce drawer.

Lettuce torn up, Step 3: would be to head out to the garden to fetch yourself a fatty cucumber. (For sensitive, self conscious cucumbers, refrain from calling it a fatty and instead consider the term big boned.)

Step 3a: Try your damnedest not to sink your teeth into that thing as you walk back into the house.

Step 3b: Slice.

I don’t peel it – the skin is where all the good stuff is, yo! I’ll cut it length wise and de-seed if I’m in the mood.  Friday night rowdiness around here = cucumbers with the seeds still in them.

Cucumber sliced, the carrot is next on the list to meet it’s maker. Enter Step 4.

Wondering how I took that pic if one hand is holding the grater and another hand is holding the carrot? I know you are!

Have someone else take the picture? Psssh – too predictable! What if your husband is at a party and your 6 year old is currently out of your hair and you want to keep it that way?

It’s called your chin and your chest and the timer on your camera.  I do all my own stunts.

Back to Step 4.  Wash carrot.  Don’t peel.  Grate.  Eat the last little nub instead of adding “shredded knuckle” to the list of salad ingredients.

Step 5: Half a red pepper, de-seed and slice.

Step 6: Fetch yourself an organically grown tomato from your CSA stash.

Step 6a: Slice and de-seed.

Cucumber seeds? Maybe. Tomato seeds? Deal breaker. Might as well throw the whole dang salad straight into the compost, eat a Big Mac and a fake shake and let out a huge belch and just go to bed if you’re not going to cut the seeds out of the tomato.

Like, gosh, what a totally grody tomato snob this chick is.  Like, really?  What-evah.

If I have an abundance of time and am feeling motivated, I will chop up a ton of vegetables at once to make throwing salads together really fast and easy.  If I’m feeling lazy I’ll just get the lettuce part done and pat myself on the back for being that much ahead of the game for next time around.

OK so where was I?  Oh right.  Step 7.  Dig around for whatever other salad-ish vegetables you have in your fridge.

Step 8: Shout “rock out!” when you realize you’ve got fresh green beans to add to the mix!   Chop up into 1″ (exactly!) pieces, cut off those weird little tail-y and stem-y things and throw them into the compost pile with those shunned lettuce spines and pepper and tomato seeds.

Step 9: Add a couple tablespoons of your salad dressing of choice. Mine might be smashed avocado with salsa if I’m feeling like bottled dressings are the devil (like sometimes you do). If you are feeling less resentful of bottled dressings, a few of my current favs are Organicville Miso Ginger, Annie’s Goddess Dressing or like I used tonight – Good Seasons Italian Dressing made with apple cider vinegar and canola oil.

Step 10: Put the lid on that bowl good and tight cause otherwise it’s gonna get ugly in Step 11.

Step 11: (Stock photo) I like my salads shaken, not stirred.

Step 12: Dump dressing covered salad into a large salad bowl.  Take said bowl outside.  See Step 1 for explanation if you’ve already forgotten why this important.  If you will not be photographing your salad, just eat it straight out of the first bowl you used to toss it in like a complete heathen.

Step 13: Bring salad back inside and eat at computer while you write up this post.

Step 14: Hurry and click Publish and go check on your kids cause it’s awfully quiet up there.

• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• Recalibration
• Polenta Pizza: Take Two

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.

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.

Maxine, who will not eat a strawberry even if was hand picked by Barbie herself and served up on a My Little Pony platter, delighted in the task of picking red berries and hunting them down like Easter eggs.

Who’s hiding these Easter eggs anyway? They are everywhere yo!

She did this exact thing after every strawberry she picked. Pull up a chair, we’re gonna be here a while.

OK gang, do you see how many green baskets I’ve filled? It’s time to pick up the pace here girls, my one armed grandmother picks strawberries faster than you! I want those fingers stained red! With strawberry juice! And blood! No rest for the weary! Is it any wonder they don’t pay kids very much?

After 40 minutes in the field I was now $20 poorer (could’ve just gone to the library) but one flat of strawberries richer!

I fully admit that a large percentage of our hand picked berries were devoured during the prep process. When not playing one for you, one for me with the bowl, I busied myself with scalping strawberry heads and tried to figure out what I might do with these red beauties. Not wanting to go the well traveled Strawberry Shortcake route, I bypassed Strawberry Shortcake Lane and instead took the Strawberry Salsa Turnpike, picking up a couple of other tropical fruit hitch hikers along way.

Strawberry Mango Pineapple Salsa

2 c finely diced strawberries
3/4 c finely diced mango
3/4 c finely diced pinapple
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 medium onion, diced
Juice from one lime
2 Tbsp dried cilanto (fresh would have been better)
1/4 c rice vinegar
salt to taste

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.

The fruit proportions are pretty flexible here, use as much or as little you like or have on hand. I would have thrown in a diced jalapeno here too if I’d had one – but sadly, no jalapenos were to be found in my fridge on this day. After mourning the loss of a jalapeno, I rejoiced in the fact that I had a bag of Food Should Taste Good Jalapeno tortilla chips to use as the vehicle for which to travel down Strawberry Salsa Street.

That’ll work.

I read a bunch of fruit salsa recipes before concocting mine, and I’ll say that I was really skeptical about fruit with red pepper and onion but it was pretty dang good. The flavors complimented each other well and the jalapeno chips pitched in nicely with a little gas money for our strawberry road trip.

Those spicy little buggers even did their part in keeping small strawberry blood stained hands from returning to the bag!

In short, the moral of today’s story is: Having children does indeed pay off. Just another 2,000 or so flats of strawberries and these babies will have paid for themselves.

• It’s Not Even December
• Confessions
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over

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*

So OK yeah, you don’t become a high raw foodist overnight. Check.  After a couple weeks of attempting a largely raw diet I pretty much bailed completely and went back to eating cooked food again.  It did lead me to juicing though for which I am eternally grateful. I also came away with a new found respect for food that didn’t require quite so much damn chewing, so I appreciated that too.

With spring and summer produce raining down on us like, well – rain, I’ve been thinking about the Raw Food Detox Diet again and have been brushing up on my food combining skillz and raw recipes too.  As the case usually is with me, thoughts turn to action and suddenly I’ve found myself on a raw rampage.  The table and fridge have been filled with more raw meals than usual and for the time being, I’m treading water in the raw food deep end.

Raw Deal #1: Marinated Portobello Mushrooms

Here lies four unsuspecting portobello mushroom caps, which I promptly scalped and sliced after snapping this picture.  I made up a quick and easy marinade of an unmeasured amount of olive oil (probably half a cup), balsamic vinegar (maybe 3/4 c), 1 clove of garlic (minced) and a dash of salt.  Shrooms into the bowl of marinade and then into fridge for a few hours, stirring (and sampling) occasionally when I thought of it.

Marinated mushrooms were then delicately plopped onto a bed of mixed greens and then drizzled with remaining marinade.

And then those perfectly marinated mushrooms met their maker.

Raw Deal #2: Curried Coleslaw

I originally stole got the idea for this recipe from my mother, but it can also be found here.

My version of this recipe went a little something like this (I doubled it):

1 bag of shredded cabbage (have you ever tried to cut up a head of cabbage?  Yeah, once was enough for me too.)
1/4 c shredded, unsweetened coconut
1/3 c Braggs Amino Acid (soy sauce would work too)
1/3 c apple cider vingear
1/3 c olive oil
2 Tablespoons agave nectar
1 clove garlic, minced
2 or so inches of ginger, grated
Juice from 1 lemon
Curry powder, cumin, salt to taste

My favorite little ginger grater flounder doesn’t get nearly enough blog time. Please allow me to present you with your gratuitous porcelain nubbed flounder shot:

(Totally worth it.)

Curried Coleslaw for lunch anyone?

Raw Deal #3, a deal that can’t be beet! (har har har)

Beet and Apple Slaw

3 smallish beets, trimmed and scrubbed and grated (in that order)
2 mediumish apples, grated
1 smallish red onion, diced
Juice from 1 lemon
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp agave nectar
1 clove garlic, minced
dash of salt, pepper

Shred, mince, etc all fruits and vegetables, add other ingredients. Stir. Place on bed of greens. Eat.

I made this today and it’s already gone. No shame! Lunch and dinner, done and done. It was that good. Even the Potato Head macked on this beet slaw. Your purple lips don’t lie Monsieur P to the H! Let’s just say it’s a good thing raw potato isn’t that great, otherwise Raw Deal #4 would have been Raw Potato Salad.

• Strawberry Shortcuts
• It’s Not Even December
• Broccamoli

From my omnivorous days of yore, I think I miss meatloaf the most.  I mean seriously now – how have I been getting by without eating a loaf of meat these past three and a half-ish years? It’s a meatless mystery for sure, and it’s time to do something about it!

That’s a joke in case you couldn’t tell. Actually I miss turkey subs the most. OK that’s a joke too. Who needs turkey when you’ve got lettuce, tomato, onion, red, green and banana peppers and (gasp!) mayo and provolone cheese on a sesame seed roll from Wegmans? I rest my case.

Wait, so what was I talking about? Oh yes. Meatloaf. Meat. Loaf. What does any sensible vegetarian use to substitute meat in meat dishes? Why beans of course. (Except in subs.) Time to grab your legumes and get a loaf on.

Bean Loaf:

2 cans Cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 c ketchup
1 c rolled oats
2 eggs, beaten
1 c frozen corn
a dash of salt & pepper
a couple good shakes of dried oregano and dried basil

And don’t forget the most important ingredient:

1 sad three year old who is extremely disappointed that you are using the last two eggs to make your bean loaf instead of making her scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and get mashing those beans with a potato masher. Stir in the rest of the ingredients as desired – the order doesn’t seem to matter a whole heck of a lot here – it’s all just going into the loaf pan as a bean and vegetable mash when you’re done!

Ketchup is probably my least favorite ingredient in this recipe – BUT! I must say, if I might jump ahead and spoil the ending, it really gave the bean loaf a great taste! At least it was organic ketchup and contained no high fructose corn fun. You could probably even substitute your favorite barbecue sauce or even salsa to mix it up.

Grease a 9 inch loaf pan (I misto‘d mine with olive oil) and bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

I just so happened to make this bean loaf in the morning. (Note the Strawberry Shortcake pajamas above, although admittedly that’s really no indication as to what time of day it might have been…) It was nice to have dinner crossed off my to-do list early on.

In other exciting veggie news – this week marks the start of our CSA pick up! Earlier this year we purchased a share of vegetables from a local, organic farm. From now through mid fall we’ll head out weekly to the farm to pick up our share of vegetables.

And boy oh boy did it feel like we hit the green motherload this week! And to think this is only Week 1!

Turnips? OK, I have never prepared a turnip before, or even eaten a turnip for that matter… I smell a Turnip Loaf post in our future!

In addition to turnips we picked up radishes, garlic scapes, red and green leaf lettuce, bok choi and 1 1/2 pounds of mixed greens including arugula, mustard greens, broccoli raab, red mustard and orach (??)

With a produce drawer now positively overflowing with leafy vegetables, re-heated bean loaf was served with a side of steamed mixed greens.

Before you ask, no – sadly, my kids won’t eat one bite of this. I do have high hopes for the future though! Please let the record show that there was absolutely a time in my life – not even that long ago I might add – where I would have raised one corner of my upper lip like Elvis in his blue suede shoes at the thought of eating a big pile steamed greens like that instead of rice or potatoes.

Beans for meat, dinner for breakfast, greens for grains, that’s a wrap! Or better yet, a veggie sub.

• Two Lefts Don't Make a Right
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over
• Strawberry Shortcuts

Some where in the span of the last half year – give or take a couple weeks – life went from sickly sweet and seemingly picture perfect to oh-so-insanely soap opera-ish that even Susan Lucci would have to change the channel because she can’t keep up.

Yes, once upon a time I used to watch All My Children.  So sue me.

I had to stop blogging because when the going gets tough, the tough just makes a salad.  And the tough can only blog about green juice and breakfast cookies and crudites with hummus lunches for so long before her readers start yawning and drooling into their keyboards.  Then before I know it, I’ll have a stack of bills on my desk from bored readers invoicing me for their new typing apparatus’s (apparati?  what’s the plural of apparatus?) to replace the ones said readers ruined after they dribbled puddles of saliva while falling asleep from reading about my vegetable monotony and posts full of run on sentences.

Here’s where I stop being annoyingly cryptic and overly dramatic and get to the point of this post.

So, as the new saying goes… when the going gets tough, the tough makes a salad.  But the tough can also tie on her sneakers and go for a run if she likes as well.  A girl always has option.  And after all, what better way to take full advantage of the feel good hormones evolution afforded each of us than to rub the sleep out of your eyes, throw on some non-cotton clothes and your (still relatively new!) Garmin 405 and hit the road jack?  It’s all about figuring out how to give that pituitary gland a good hard squeeze and allow some endorphins to ooze out into your blood stream for a cheap and natural pick-me-up.  Personally, I prefer to squeeze my pituitary gland around 6am when most of the creatures in this urban jungle are still sleeping.  Or, while the creatures in my very own urban habitat are still sleeping at the very least.

Given the going is still going a bit tough these days, the first thing on today’s to do list?

Squeeze pituary gland.

Check!

Sneaks on, garmin buckled to my wrist, off I went for a few butt-crack-of-dawn miles around town on a pseudo drug run to turn any frowns at least temporarily upside down.  All I know is that it’s a good thing running feels a lot more like a habit these days rather than a chore ’cause otherwise I’d probably be watching old episodes of All My Children on Hulu whilst simultaneously shushing and barking orders at my kids to Be Quiet and Fetch Mama Some Bonbons.

Another happiness tip?  Find pleasure in the little things.  And what little things pray tell am I finding pleasure in these days?  Why a spinach bed overflowing with fresh, backyard and organically grown spinach – that’s what!

Here’s a true story:

Ready for lunch one day last week, whole wheat tortillas in one hand, tub-o-Family Size Garlic Sabra in the other, visions of veggies wraps danced in my head – until I realized I was out of spinach, or greens of any kind for that matter.

Crap.

Ummm, out of greens in the fridge maybe… “out of greens” with the exception of the very green spinach flowing from the raised bed in my back yard, ready and waiting to be harvested.  Ohhhh yeaaaaaahhhhh forgot about those greens!

Tortillas and hummus tubs quickly cast aside to be replaced with plastic bowls and purple handled scissors as I skipped and squealed gleefully down my back steps and into my back yard.  It’s time to snip snip snip until her Daddy takes the scissors away.

Enter more skipping and squealing back up the steps, into the kitchen to get to work on a hummus wrap masterpiece magnificent enough to belong in a museum.

The Museum of My Mouth, that is.  MoMM?  How quaint.  And oh yes, there is a layer of hummus under Mount St. Veggie, I promise.

So, the moral of today’s true stories?  Implement some healthy habits into your life NOW, before the shit hits the fan, so that when the fecal matter does inevitably fly into some speedily rotating blades one day, you can more easily avoid being completely splattered from head to toes covered by running sneakers.  Who needs daytime drama and chocolate covered ice cream balls to escape your own personal soap opera?  Instead, you’ll be all set up to get up and get out and feel good after a few easy miles on a muggy Thursday morning at 6:36 AM.  You too can be making chirping noises as you bound down your back steps into your yard to load up on fresh spinach for a museum worthy hummus and veggie wrap instead of watering your garden with tears.

And if the shit never hits the fan?  No harm, no foul. Consider those healthy habits the Real Life insurance policy that you never had to file a claim on.

• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Stay At Home Turkey Trot
• Stay at Home

We were almost forced to write a strongly worded email to the Tooth Fairy this morning. Apparently the Tooth Fairy slept like a rock last night and did not wake up in the middle of the night like she expected to. Fortunately, the toothless child in question decided to use the bathroom before she remembered about the visit from the Winged Dental Nymph and our crisis was averted.

We’ve got an outdoor homeschool adventure on tap first this morning which will suffice for a workout today. I spent my usual workout time prepping food and packing lunches.

Pineapple is SO cheap right now I need to start buying them every time we hit the produce section. For $2.99 a pop it’s totally worth the time and mess involved in cutting them up.

Can you spot the bean pot in the background? That would be dried black beans soaking to be used for dinner tonight. While emptying cupboards in preparation for the move I’ve discovered an abundance of dried beans. Hello, my name is Alison and I am a bean hoarder. It’s time to stop worrying about famine and start feasting on these beans. The fewer bags of beans we have to move the less complaining there will be from the men folk hauling boxes. I’m thinking black bean soup is on the dinner menu for tonight unless something more spectacular sounding comes to mind before then.

I need to keep our packed meal light today given I’ll be carrying our lunch (and our toddler) on my back through the woods. For the kiddos I made tortilla and cheese roll ups, pickles, raisins and raw cashews. For myself, sliced red pepper and some baby carrots, an orange plus a small dish of walnuts, raisins, pumpkin seeds and dried apples.

Yesterday’s breakfast cookie made with hemp seeds held me over for SO long I had to pinch my stomach to make sure it was still working 4 hours later! Now I understand the appeal to adding protein powder to oats. I’m not really a fan of protein powder but protein packed hemp seeds? That I will do.

Knowing we’ll be out all morning and on our feet until lunch time, on top of the fact that I’ve got to keep lunch on the lighter side today, I wanted another protein packed breakfast that will hopefully perform like it did yesterday.

Instead of breakfast cookie form this morning, I went overnight oats style.

1/3 c rolled oats, 1/2 smashed banana, 1 Tbsp almond butter, 1/4 c hemp seeds, 1/4 ground flax seed, 1/4 c chocolate almond milk and 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder. Soaked overnight in the fridge and topped with banana slices this morning.

See those cute little hemp seeds in there?

Between the oats, hemp seeds, flax and almond butter I’ve got to believe this breakfast will do it’s thing! Here’s hoping this breakfast won’t disappoint like the Tooth Fairy almost did!

• A Day of Calorie Counting
• Strawberry Shortcuts
• Stay at Home

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!

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.

But as luck would have it, we’ll most likely be moving into our new house the day after Christmas – which means our Christmas decorations will be coming down Christmas evening instead of New Years Day. Yes, you read that right. The day after Christmas, as in – December 26th. Merry Moving Day to us!

So, in short, we spent the afternoon getting the house decorated and pretending to be kitties knocking ornaments off the tree.

I mistakenly told them a story about the cats and that when they were kittens, they would bat at ornaments on the tree and chase them all over the house like maniac cats. Now I’ve got maniac kids pretending to be maniac cats who play baseball with our ornaments. Me and my big mouth.

Once I got the cats kids in their cages out of my hair, I got dinner started. It all began with a big ol’ spaghetti squash and a post from Zesty Cook that got me thinking about different ways to use Sun Dried Tomatoes.

Cut in half length wise and de-seeded.

Baked face down at 375 for about 40 minutes.

While my squash was baking, I got started on a sun-dried tomato sauce.

Sun Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce

3/4 c sun dried tomatoes, packed in oil – separated
1 14 oz can of artichoke hearts – separated
1/3 cup pistachios

Place about a 1/2 cup of the sundried tomatoes into the food processor and puree until fairly smooth.

Add half the can of artichoke hearts and pulse until chunky.

Chop the remaining artichokes by hand.

Combine processed tomatoes and artichokes with chopped artichokes in a separate bowl and set aside.

Remove pistachios from their shells until you have about 1/3 of a cup.

Add to food processor and pulse until you have your desired consistency. I left mine fairly chunky. Add chopped pistachios to tomato and artichoke mix and stir until well combined. Add remaining 1/4 cup of whole sundried tomatoes and set aside.

When your squash is ready, scrape out with a large spoon to get your “spaghetti”.

The sauce will be at room temperature but will warm up quickly as you add and stir in hot spaghetti squash.

Time to eat!

Dinner for two – Sun Dried Tomato and Artichoke Spaghetti Squash with a side spinach salad with tomatoes and cucumbers.

I have to admit, I’m totally in the holiday groove after decorating today. Although I think I’ve been feeling at least slightly Christmas-y since my encounter with the wall of holiday teas back in October. Maybe my neighbor saw that tea wall back in October too and it hit them a little harder than it hit me? Must be.

• Strawberry Shortcuts
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over
• Raw Deals

After a roasted red pepper hummus sandwich and a side of carrot sticks with salsa for lunch this afternoon,

we were off with some friends to the local garden center for some holiday fun.

Lots of decorations to check out -

and painted plywood to stick our heads through.

We enjoyed a gigantic train display.

The adults appreciated the finer details of the model, like dirty old men and their posters.

Bums being picked up by the cops.

Guys drinking on the job.

After train spotting, it was time to move on.

There were rides to ride after all! And rides to just watch too, apparently.

Maxine chose to watch, Ava chose to ride.

One likes to bounce.

One likes to hold still.

But we finally found a ride that was Maxine approved. Mama approved too thanks to the lack of sketchy characters standing around the train scene. Although a reindeer decorating a Christmas tree seems a little sketchy, but we’ll let it slide this time.

A fun day out, but I’m afraid the day after Thanksgiving is not complete without a meal full of leftovers.

Leftovers of vegetarian stuffing and sweet potato casserole were freshened up with some steamed broccoli and cauliflower and a little sage seasoned, sauteed tofu.

Plus a small piece of apple pie!

The leftovers are gone, the last piece of pie has been eaten. Thanksgiving is officially over. Who wants a sexy lady poster for Christmas? I’m making my list and checking it twice! I already know you’re naughty, but I’m nice – Mama Claus is shopping around!

• Whensday?
• The Reasons I Had Kids
• Strawberry Shortcuts