Mood Lifters (Project 358: Days 142 and 143)

Welcome back into my life, Caffeine!

Day 142: That Fantastic Cup of Coffee I Just Consumed, That's What!

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Hands down, one of my favorite things about leaving town with Stephen is coming home to this (immediately followed by the biggest, tightest, squeeziest, lovey-est hug EVER):

Day 143: The Best

I wish I had a similar pic to post of Evan but, alas, he no longer runs to me when I walk in the door. *sigh*

Stay tuned for a post about our overnighter in Mill Valley...

Project 358: Days 135 - 141

Day 135: On My Mind

Tomorrow morning, Stephen and I are heading out of town for an overnighter in Mill Valley, the third time we've spent a night away together since our first child was born four and a half years ago. We're staying at a nice hotel, riding bikes through the abundant beauty that is Marin County, and trying out some new restaurants. I am looking forward to this. Very much.

Day 136: See this post. 

Day 137: Strings

Day 138: Thai For Two

Yellow onion, red bell pepper, and tofu simmered in coconut milk and green curry paste. Served over brown rice and topped with fresh cilantro (from the garden!). On the side, cucumber salad: cucumber sliced very thinly (a mandoline works great for this purpose) and marinated in seasoned rice vinegar for at least one hour. Upon serving, sprinkle the salad with Nori Komi Furikake (pictured below). It's a mixture of sesame seeds, salt, sugar, and seaweed and is labeled as rice seasoning, but works well atop this salad too.

Nori Komi Furikake Rice Seasoning

Day 139: Sweet Smile No. 1

Day 140: Sweet Smile No. 2

Day 141: Awaiting Grandma Kim's Arrival

Thank you, Kim, for watching the kiddos while Stephen and I get away for a bit. It really means so very much to us. We know you guys will have fun, but we hope that you will also be able to get some sleep. :)

Happy 3-Day Weekend, Everyone!!!

Evan: The Perfect Date (Project 358: Day 136)

I took my little boy on a date last Monday. Our once "thick as thieves" relationship has become slightly strained of late due to a number of factors, including that his sister is two years old and thus sucks up an inordinate amount of my time and energy, leaving Evan to feel a little...under-appreciated. I figured a little Mommy/Evan one-on-one fun time was exactly what we both needed. Boy was I right!

Instead of planning our date for the weekend, I decided it would be fun to do it on a weekday, requiring that we skip preschool. As I anticipated, Evan was super excited by the idea of "playing hooky." He kept giggling and saying, "We're being bad, Mom." He loved the fact that we were in on it together and I loved taking advantage of this freedom, before school becomes more serious and skipping it for lunch and a movie is not so much of an option.

We started our date off with lunch at Dos Coyotes. We sat at the bar, at Evan's request, took silly photos with our food, and talked about a number of things including, but not limited to: the restaurant decor, how excited we were about going to the movies, and armadillos.

My cutie patootie posing with his lunch: bean burrito (no cheese), chips, strawberries.

Super attractive photo of me posing with my GIANT burrito (beans, rice, grilled onions & peppers, salsa, guacamole).

Evan ate every speck of his meal, minus a bean or two.

Day 136: Clean Plate Club!

Then it was off to the movies to see Rio in 3D!

Sportin' our 3D specs, waiting for Rio to start.

We snacked on popcorn, which we purchased at the theater, and Junior Mints, Red Vines, and water, which we snuck into the theater in my purse ("We're so bad!"). The movie was really, really good, with a sweet story line, and visually stunning in 3D. We laughed and whispered to each other throughout, and shared numerous smiles and hand hugs (that's where you hold hands and sqeeeeze real tight). At times, I forgot there was even a movie playing; I couldn't take my eyes off my son. He has grown so much in the past year. Every once in a while, it hits me like a ton of bricks: he is a kid now, no trace of baby left in those arms and legs, so long and lanky. It hit me in that movie theater, as he sat there mesmerized by the movie and oblivious to my musings, so close to me, and yet so far away. I began to resent the arm of the chair that separated us and whispered to him, "You can sit on my lap if you want to, Sweetie."

"No. That's okay, Mom," was his reply and I instantly felt a combination of happiness and sadness. He is becoming his own person, smart, sensitive, creative, curious, and more independent every day, and I am so proud of him. But, of course, it is bittersweet. The more sure he becomes of himself, the less he needs me. Or, rather, he needs me in different ways. Occasionally, he still wants my lap, but there are other times that smiles and hand hugs are the best I'm gonna get. Someday, even those may be hard to come by, as he grows into adolescence and I am no longer his favorite person in the whole wide world. And so, I will cherish those smiles and those hand hugs and occasional lap cuddles, store them in my memory bank for future withdrawals.

I could just gobble him up.

Oh, Evan. You were the perfect date, my love. Let's do this again, very soon.

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While Evan and I were out and about, Stephen and Elinor had a little date of their own. They picked up lunch at the Sunflower Drive-in, then headed to the nearby park (affectionately referred to as the Chicken Park in our house) to eat and play. Here are a few pics from their day:

Lunch: grilled cheese and juice box.

Serving Daddy food at her "restaurant."

Tackling Daddy

Two peas in a pod.

Small Pleasures (Project 358: Day 134)

Day 134: Small Pleasures

The kids and I had a busy day yesterday, starting off with a stop at Aunt Maggie's yard sale, followed by a picnic in Land Park (the menu: peanut butter and apple jam sandwiches on whole wheat, tamari almonds, strawberries, and mandarin oranges), and some quality time at the playground. We finished the day off with some fro yo and a quick jaunt to Target. The following are some pics from our day...

Project 358: Days 123 - 133

Oh, how I adore the long, drawn-out evenings of Spring and Summer...

Day 123: Suspension

Day 124: Please see this post. Easy as pie.

Day 125: Why, Kathy Freston, WHY??

For the past twelve days, Stephen and I have been doing the Quantum Wellness Cleanse, which involves eliminating caffeine, alcohol, sugar, gluten, and animal products from your diet for a course of 21 days. It's based on a book by the same name written by Kathy Freston. We've done the cleanse once before, back in January of 2010, and had a great experience with it. After a few rough days, we started to feel better than we had in years. My energy increased, as did my patience. I felt less bloated, my skin looked clearer and brighter, and I was sleeping really, really well. The book opened my eyes to a world that I had previously tried to pretend didn't exist: the sick, sad world of animal agriculture; reading it was the turning point in my decision to stop eating meat. If you're really, really bored some night, you can read about my first cleanse in more detail, starting here.

This time around, we haven't been quite so disciplined. I have "cheated" on several occasions with gluten (oh, bread, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...), caffeine (daily cup, or two, of decaf coffee, which still contains caffeine), and sugar (can't resist the dark chocolate, which, coincidentally, also contains caffeine). However, I haven't touched animal products, which is easy, or alcohol, which is not always so easy. I'm not feeling quite as magical as I did the first time we did the cleanse, but my energy is up, I'm feeling good, and I'm sleeping great, so I'm not going to waste any time beating myself up about the aforementioned infractions.

The day I took the photo above was our third day of the cleanse. Both times doing the cleanse, Day 3 has been the worst and hardest day. Normally, I'm not a huge coffee drinker. I mean I like it a lot and I drink it everyday, but not in crazy amounts. Maybe one or two cups a day. Even so, caffeine withdrawals are no joke. On Day 3, I had the worst headache, dull and all-consuming. I was cranky and irritable and so very tired. That evening, I picked up Kathy's book and read the chapter on caffeine. Reading her words, I instantly felt better and knew that I could make it through.

Day 126: Our Little Sugar Plum

After dropping Evan at school recently, Stephen and I took Elinor to lunch at Sugar Plum Vegan, a local cafe that serves incredible vegan comfort food and baked goods. A little Mommy/Daddy/Ellie date. Here (above) she is observing another child as we wait for our food on the front patio. (Looks like she might have inherited her mother's staring problem...)

Below is a picture of my lunch, the Midtown Bacon Cheeseburger. I think my favorite part of this meal was the fries, but the sandwich was pretty darn tasty too. After all of the salads and sauteed veggies I was eating at home, I started to crave something "heavy." This meal delivered.

Midtown Bacon Cheeseburger from Sugar Plum Vegan

Speaking of veggie burgers, I recently discovered a line of frozen veggie patties that completely knocked my socks off:

Day 127: Sunshine!!!

They're a bit pricey at 2 boxes for $7 at Whole Foods (on sale; only three burgers per box), but they are sooo good and the closest you're gonna get to a natural veggie burger at home without making your own. There are only five ingredients listed for the Original Style Sunshine Burger: Cooked brown rice, Ground raw sunflower seeds, Carrots, Herbs and sea salt. The Garden Herb version, pictured above, has a couple extra herbs and spices, as do the BBQ and Sante Fe flavors. They are all soy-free, gluten-free, all natural, and vegan. They're great on a bun or in a pita, topped with loads of veggies and your favorite sauce, or crumbled on top of a big ol' salad, as pictured in the photo above. As I mentioned before, I bought these from Whole Foods, which carries a wide selection of flavors. I have also seen Sunshine Burgers in the Natural Foods department of Raley's, but the selection is limited to just two flavors.

And now some photos of my kids:

Day 128: Get Some, Elinor!

Day 129: The Sweetest Thing

Day 130: Fail. No photo.

Day 131: Big Girl Bed

Day 132: Field Trip To Fairytale Town

And, finally, a gardening question: the leaves of my pepper plants are damaged (see below)...any idea who/what the culprit could be?

Day 133: Owie

Goodnight!

Mmmm...Pie (Project 358: Day 124)

I recently hosted a long overdue girl's night at my house. It was so wonderful to see some of my favorite women (missed you muchly, Mel!), chat about our lives, drink wine (or hot tea), and enjoy a slice of this decadent chocolate ganache pie with mixed berry sauce:

Day 124: Mmmmm.....pie

I have to say, this photo does not do the pie justice. I think I was focusing on the conversation more than the photo I was taking and, apparently, my camera was doing the same. The texture was smooth and creamy, the flavor rich and not too sweet. It was sinfully delicious. And yet, because it contains no eggs or dairy, it is low in fat and cholesterol. Best of all, it is super easy to make.

Here is the recipe, which I got from one of my favorite cookbooks in the whole wide world, The 30 Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups vegan dark chocolate chips

(preferably grain-sweetened) (see Tips and Tricks, below)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 (12.3-ounce) package Mori-nu firm silken tofu

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

1 premade pie shell

1. Melt the chocolate chips by heating them in a double boiler over medium heat (see Tips and Tricks, below) until the consistency is smooth, lump-free, and creamy, stirring only once or twice.
2. Meanwhile puree the maple syrup, tofu, vanilla, and sea salt in a food processor until smooth. When the chocolate is thoroughly melted (about 20 minutes), add it to the food processor and blend well.
3. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and chill until firm all the way through, about 1 hour.

Tips and Tricks

This dish will come out sweeter if you use the more common semisweet chocolate chips, which contain cane sugar. Sunspire sells a variety that we prefer, which is grain-sweetened (I found them in the Natural Foods department at Raley's), but either one will work -- sweeten to your heart's content.

Also, when melting chocolate in a double boiler (which can also be any glass or stainless-steel bowl set on top of a pot with 1 to 2 inches of boiling water in it), be absolutely sure that both the bowl and anything you use to stir the chocolate are completely dry. A good way to make sure the melting pot or bowl is dry is to start heating it before you put the chips in; this will dry out any moisture. The slightest droplet of water will "seize" the chocolate, leaving it lumpy and devastatingly imperfect looking. But surely do not cry over broken chocolate; everyone still loves to lick it up and your lumpy little pie will still taste divine.

......

The authors of the cookbook suggest topping the pie with their Strawberry-Rhubarb Sauce. I didn't have any rhubarbs on hand, so I adapted the recipe a bit:

Ingredients

2 cups frozen mixed berries, thawed

1/4 cup agave nectar

Pinch of sea salt

1. Blend the berries, agave, and salt until smooth.

(If you have leftovers, as I did, the sauce is fantastic as a topping for waffles or as a mix-in for your morning bowl of oatmeal. Throw some chopped walnuts into the mix. Delicious!)

......

If you have a little more time on your hands, the book provides a recipe for a Live Piecrust that sounds absolutely divine. Next time I make this pie, I am definitely going to budget in the time for this one, and leave the premade crust on the store shelves. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups almonds

1 1/4 pitted Medjool dates

2 tablespoons shredded coconut

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of cardamom, nutmeg, or allspice

1. Place the almonds in a food processor and process until just ground. Add the dates, coconut, cinnamon, and cardamom, and process until the dates are broken up and the mixture begins to run up the sides of the processor. You may need to add more dates if you are using a variety that is not as moist as the Medjool.
2. Use your hands to press the crust into a 9-inch pie plate and refrigerate. The crust should be about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

Variations

• Try using only 3/4 cup of almonds, plus 3/4 cup of either pecans, walnuts, or macadamia nuts.
• Replace the dates with other dried fruits, such as apricots.
• Replace 1/2 cup of the crust's dates with raisins. These dried fruits will not stick together with the nuts as well as dates, so add agave nectar -- start with 2 tablespoons, and add more as needed to hold things together.
• For a low-fat version, replace the almonds with raw buckwheat groats.

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My final word of advice on this pie: make sure you've got enough people to share it with. Otherwise, it may become breakfast. Or a late-night snack, smeared with peanut butter. Gross! Who would do such a thing? Certainly not me....(psst! it was delicious!)

Summer Veggies (Project 358: Days 112 and 113)

We planted our Spring/Summer veggie garden a few weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to blogging about it. It's late, I'm hungry, I should go to bed, but I want to get this damn post out of the way so I can stop thinking about it. Oh, and for those of you who read this post and were expecting Days 112 and 113 to be all exciting and shit, umm...yeah. Sorry.

Anywho, this is what our garden looked like prior to planting:

Day 112: Before

And this is what it looked like immediately after:

Day 113: After!

Okay, I admit, the plants are so small in the "after" pic, it doesn't really look that different than the "before." Here's a breakdown of what we're growing this year (items marked with an asterisk are plants that we grew last year; the rest are new to us):

Our Tomatoes (L to R): Goliath, Sun Gold, Red Grape Heirloom*, Heirloom Goldie

I really wanted to practice crop rotation to ensure that our soil doesn't get too depleted, but in such a small garden space, I found it to be a challenge. On Dictionary.com, 'crop rotation' is defined as, "the system of varying successive crops in a definite order on the same ground, especially to avoid depleting the soil and to control weeds, diseases, and pests." For example, tomatoes eat up loads of nitrogen and, over the course of a season, will deplete the soil of it. Therefore, it is best not to plant them in the same spot year after year, but rather rotate their location, preferably to a spot previously inhabited by a nitrogen fixing plant, such as legumes. This can also help to control pests that over-winter in the soil. Unfortunately, our garden is almost entirely made up of tomatoes and peppers, both of which are from the nitrogen-sapping "nightshade" family. So, we moved things around as much as we could (which wasn't much), worked some nutrient-rich compost into the soil and hoped for the best. I have to admit, though, I'm ever so slightly worried that our garden will fail this year because I failed to rotate the crops properly. Stephen says I read too much, but I once read somewhere that it's impossible to read too much. So there.

Our Strawberries

These strawberries are transplants from my parents' garden. I was a little worried that transplanting them while they were bearing fruit would be too much stress for the little guys, but they seem to be doing pretty well so far. We'd like to buy another one of these redwood barrels and fill it with another batch of strawberry plants. That way, maybe Stephen and I will actually be able to eat a few! So far, the shorties in the house seem to be reaping all the rewards.

Soon To Be A Strawberry!

Our Peppers (L to R): Red Beauty*, Canary Yellow*, Blue Jay*, Anaheim Chili, Jalapeno*

On the left, Zucchini Squash*. On the right, 'Burpless' Cucumber*

One thing we learned from our garden last year is that zucchini and cucumber plants will take over the whole damn joint. We gave 'em a little more room to breathe this year.

Our Herbs

This sweet herb table that my husband built is a new addition to our garden this year. Can't beat cooking with herbs fresh from the garden!

We also have a small raised bed kit that we'll be putting together soon. That will be the kids' garden bed, allowing them to get in on the green thumb action without making my OCD go into overdrive. They've decided that they'd like to try growing pumpkins, cantaloupe, and sunflowers. I'll post pics once that project is complete.

That's all for tonight, folks! How have your gardens been growing?