When I bought my bag of flax seed over the weekend, I snagged a bag of another now-infamous pseudo-grain/seed –>
oh, Quinoa – it’s been a while!
And with quinoa in my cupboard, suddenly I had quinoa stuffed peppers on the brain. That meant digging through the blog archives to remind myself how I made Quinoa Stuffed Red Peppers in the past.
Ummm, that was like my second post. Ever.
Nostalgia rules. Stuffed peppers make me drool.
An amusement park excursion was on the docket for today. And like most day trips, a packed lunch was the first order of business on the agenda.
It is at this juncture that I would like to present our midday meal + snacks for inspection:
Exhibit A: Carrot sticks
Exhibit B: Homegrown grape tomatoes and green pepper slices
Exhibit C: Standard kid packed-lunch fare = two sunbutter and jelly sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, cut into quarters
Exhibit D: Bare bean butt hummus (2 cans, 22 minutes! I’m improving!)
A great way beat the leftover blues is to create something new and different with your uneaten foodstuffs from a previous meal.
Thanks to a big scoop of rolled oats, lentil tacos from Sunday were turned into lentil burgers last night.
With oats stirred in to the last of the lentil taco filling and then given a few minutes to sit, they’ll very generously soak up the sauce and thicken up. It’s then easy to form the mixture into patties with your hands.
Cooked in a lightly oiled pan for about 15 – 18 minutes, flipped a couple of times.
One day last week I read a post by blog friend Erin who shared a simple recipe for a white bean dip. Seriously simple, seriously fast and seriously delicious-looking, thus totally qualifing as the perfect unplanned dinner.
Beans, herbs, salt, oil, into the food processor, contents scraped into a bowl, veggies prepped, Ezekiel bread into the toaster oven. On the table for a fast summer meal for the man before running out the door to my favorite yoga class mere moments after he got home from work. I didn’t even have a chance to sample a single bite.
Have you ever run your finger along the side of the near empty Sabra container and wondered:
“how the heck do they make hummus so dang smooth?”
Have you then stuck that hummus covered finger in your mouth and wondered:
“how the heck do they make it so dang creamy?”
Well wonder no more. I’ve busted two of Sabra’s smooth and creamy secrets and I’m here to spill the beans.
The naked beans, that is.
As a family of four living on one income, part of my role as our Domestic Engineer is to be frugal and cut corners whenever I can.
Given that we love to read, I get the majority of the books we devour from the library. It saves us money, clutter – and saves me time too. One less book on the shelf is one less thing I have to dust.
Who am I kidding. I never dust. And I pay enough late fees to the library they could open a new branch in my name.
Asparagus is not yet in season here in upstate NY, but we’ve been eating it recently despite this small fact because I think I’ve been brainwashed into doing so.
The stores always seem to jump the gun with the holiday decorations and seasonal merchandise – shelves currently loaded with pastel candy and green beaded necklaces well in advance of any bunnies needing supplies to make up baskets or a dude named Patrick getting ready to chase some snakes out of Ireland. It’s no wonder I’ve had a hankering for spring produce! I blame consumerism.
I love that Phyllis Diller quote:
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
I feel like this quote gives me permission to not clean up because, meh – why bother? The toys just keep raining down anyway! Might as well just shuffle through the piles until the mom toy plow comes through to box it all up to donate, right? Right.
So thanks for that one Phyllis – mega time saver and guilt reliever to boot.
OK, I promise to stop starting all my posts with a picture of my left hand.
Right after this one.
Now, I won’t show you what’s under that bandage, but let’s just say this carrot sorta reminds me of something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
You know, if I had some raw hamburger to stuff into that crack there I bet then I could finger figure it out.
So how on earth a little finger infection and minor surgery can throw life into such upheaval for a couple of days is beyond me. But then I look at that carrot again and think about all the nerve endings in my finger suddenly I’m reminded why.
I really enjoy playing around with different ways of eating – figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t. It’s like a science experiment really, and I like experimenting on myself. Wait, I mean, I like playing with myself. Ummm, no, that’s not what I meant either.
I read The Zone like 100 years ago, and while the eating plan described there is rather complex and a lot to keep track of, it was still my introduction to the importance of getting fat, carbs and protein at each meal.
More Mama’s Weeds
