green rice

tonight's dinner was super yummy and maybe even deserving of the title "meal of the week". i was a little stumped today about what to make, until i remembered this green rice recipe (scroll down to the june 25th entry). i had most everything on hand, no jalapenos, but that was just fine with me. i also used vidalia onion instead of yellow onion, i think that was key. that green sauce was so super fantastic, i was eating it with a spoon! i made some grilled tofu, which i am also addicted to, and some beets from the farm. it was awesome. i want to eat it again right now! green sauce, i love you!

it's a celebration!

last night i finished up this wonderful celebration banner. it's going to be a gift for a very special almost one year old in our life. i have another one all cut and ready for the machine, that will be ours.

the idea for it is from this book. in the book she talks about having it be a special part of birthday celebrations in your family. taking it out for each birthday is a special tradition that will be a visual reminder that the celebration is on. i love the idea and hope our kids enjoy it as part of their future celebrations.

of course when i was trying to get a good picture, bee couldn't resist helping. she asked us to "get together" so she could take a few shots of us with the banner. 

here is the best, and silliest one!

weekend cooking round-up & meal of the day

this past weekend my friend traci held a bake sale to benefit barack obama's campaign. when she reached out for help, i was psyched to pitch in. i decided to make my favorite cookies and some sugar cookies. at the last minute i whipped up some lollipops because they are just so fun and so cute! plus the fact that my little partner here is always game. i ended up frosting the sugar cookies with peace signs. i was excited to have an excuse to use my all natural food coloring. what a treat!

i was pretty thrilled to see everything all bagged up. it looked pretty and felt good to be contributing to such a good cause.

as an aside, bee was curious about all this planned baking when i was discussing it. here is the conversation we had:

bee: why are we baking cookies?

me: it's for a bake sale?

bee: why is there a bake sale?

me: it's so we can get a good president.

pause

bee: mommy, do we have a bad president?

me: yes.

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another bit of culinary success over the weekend was spinach popsicles! now i know that this is the type of thing that our kids are going to be laughing about with friends when they are my age, kicking back with a beer and complaining about how crazy their respective parents were. but oh well! at least they'll have something to talk about!

my friend tipped me off to this idea. her son's only reason for living is tractors, specifically john deere's, so this was a hit with him. green! for hers she just blended up fresh spinach, pear juice and applesauce. it was the end of the week here so our selections were slim. we made due with cooking up an apple and a peach and popping them in the blender with pear juice, fresh spinach, yogurt and a bit of maple syrup.

the verdict was a unanimous thumbs up! both kiddies loved them and bee even asked for one first thing this morning. this has my mind racing about when other healthy treats we can "sneak" into a pop. beets? peas? it's a whole popsicle revolution!

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and finally, meal of the day.........
there's some cooked cole slaw there: napa cabbage, onion, carrots, snap peas and garlic scape with some sesame oil and some leftover tropical teriyaki sauce. i sauteed some shrimp and put them on top with a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. i sliced up a nice local tomato and put a little sea salt on top and gave everyone one corn tortilla to do with what they chose. 

we almost never have shrimp but bee was very convincing at the grocery store. "mommy, i love shrimp. i have to get some. i will eat them tonight." so, here is her plate:

it's about the cutest thing ever. i love those tiny portions of real food. did she eat it? some, but she ate what probably amounted to too many "appetizers" before the food was ready. we saved the rest for lunch. we'll see!

phew.

meal of the day: salsa!!

today was a good eating day. the local farms are booming and we are reaping the benefits. for lunch we had lentil cakes with a peanut sauce and sauteed snap peas. but it was sort of similar to this and therefor not eligible to be the meal of the day. it was great though, very fresh.

by a long shot the meal of the day was dinner....... chips & salsa!! (just chips & salsa... eaten on the couch... after the kids went to bed! naughty us!)

the tomatoes were fresh from our friend's farm and the cilantro was fresh from our farm. to me it doesn't get any better than that. i could happily live all summer on salsa and cucumbers. maybe that should be my new diet!

the salsa is so simple, our traditional recipe. just tomatoes, onion, cilantro, garlic, salt and olive oil. that's the basics. chive, green onion, basil, garlic scape and corn will all make an appearance throughout the summer, but it doesn't matter. we will be scraping the last bites out of the bowl no matter what.

stay tuned for some serious baking action to be posted about tomorrow........

birdies

no meal of the day today. it was an exciting day in the kitchen because we ate the first fresh cucumbers of the year for lunch. cuke slices topped with avocado slices and sea salt. yum. my favorite!  we had seconds. but that was truly the most exciting thing mostly because we had a lovely little impromptu dinner party to attend. oh well, try again tomorrow!

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tonight i whipped out a little project that i saw on here. little birdies. it was super fast and fun. i filled them with rice and old lentils. i think they came out cute and would make a sweet little gift. i'll surprise the kids with them in the morning. i know they will use them in their own unique ways. bee will make it the pet of a princess who lives on our porch and maybe it will be sick or need to eat (real food) or god knows what. henny will chew on it.

meal of the day: wrap 'n' beets

just when i start this stupid idea, the next meal i make is a sandwich. not that exciting, but a damn good sandwich.

it's a tuna wrap (we split it). the tuna is made with seasoned rice vinegar, sea salt and half a small avocado. beside tuna, the wrap is stuffed with diced tomato, vidalia onion and boston lettuce. fresh steamed beets on the side with a drizzle of goddess dressing. this meal was particularly outstanding because so much of it was from the farm (our csa) as has been the case for most of our meals lately. it is so great to be in summer mode, eating what is fresh from down the street!

new feature: meal of the day

about a month ago i implemented a new routine to our day. family dinner. before then D and i had eaten our dinner after the kids were in bed. this was really nice. it was a great time for us to chat and cook up something that we like. the reason for the switch was diet related. i started to feel like i may never get anywhere with losing this baby weight if i continue eating dinner at sometime 8, even (*gasp*) 8:30 at night. 

i knew it would be much more work to try to make a pleasant dinner at 6 and eat all together, but i need to lose this weight! it turns out that after some adjustment, i am enjoying the new dinner. we were never lacking in "family meal" time. we always have breakfast and lunch as a family every day, but it is nice to spend more time together. it feels different at the end of the day.

part of the challenge has been to prepare a meal that is satisfying to all of us, including the adults. this challenge has ended up being very fun for me. on good days i spend from 5:30 to 6 semi-alone in the kitchen doing my best rachel ray, listening to martha stewart radio and usually surprising myself with something nice. on extra good days i have done some cooking ahead and it's easy as pie. but no matter what, most days have found D and i sitting down to a nice meal.

the bonus has been all that extra time after the kids go to bed. having dinner done, we are free to do projects, mow the lawn, read or just hang out together. i know it is probably what everyone else does, but we like to learn things the hard way.

on to the new feature... with all these fun meals i've been cooking up, i've decided to keep a record here of the "meal of the day". i have been known to provide a mid-day culinary delight, so it may be lunch or dinner. whatever i deem the best, and have the foresight to take a picture of. and maybe some days it will be all sandwiches and leftovers, so we will just forget about it on those days. we'll see how this goes!

yesterday's meal of the day:

for dinner we had grilled tofu (drained, squeezed and marinated in tropical teriyaki sauce), grilled portobella mushrooms, spinach cooked in a pouch on the grill, on a bed of boston lettuce and topped with green onions, a sprinkle of gorgonzola cheese and a sweet little nasturtium from our garden. it was delicious and no dishes!!

(i know that i need to get better at photographing food... i'll work on that!)