Rice to Meet You!

This weekend I did one of those things I've always been meaning to get around to.  I just knew that if I could follow this helpful tip I've read about in umpteen magazines and helpful blogs, my life would become so much more manageable.  And I believe it has.

What the heck did I do that makes me feel THIS accomplished?  I cooked a bunch of brown rice, wild rice, and barley and froze them in packets using my food sealer.

You expected something more monumental, right?  Sorry.  However, I am planning to go home tonight and make a healthy dinner of beans & rice (probably with an egg on it) and it will take mere minutes to put together.  The fact that it takes upwards of 45 minutes to cook brown rice usually means that it rarely makes an appearance on our dinner table on a weeknight.  Now, thanks to our handy-dandy food sealer I've got many little packs in there that I can boil in the bag or steam in the microwave.  How awesome is that?

Pretty freaking awesome.

(P.S.  Does anyone else even eat barley?)

Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIA!

Yes, they are the very same chia seeds that you soak and smear on a clay head.  Since I have just finished reading 'Born to Run' about the Tarahumara tribe and some great ultra-marathoners I felt I had to try their secret weapon for energy and magnificent endurance.  

Chia seeds have been used for centuries and are SUPER healthy, albeit a little bit gross-looking, and extremely gelatinous when mixed with liquid.  The less liquid, the more gel-like it becomes.

I like to make a sluice by adding about 3/4 c. water to about a tablespoon of seeds.   Looks good, eh?

Mmmm, drink it down!

It tastes pretty much like it looks--crunchy and goobery, so I add a little squeeze of lime.  What does that do?  Well, it makes it slightly lime-y.  I don't like a lot of sweetness in my beverages, but if you wanted, you could add some simple syrup or honey to yours. 

Really the seeds by themselves (dry) do taste a little bit like walnuts.

Health benefits of Chia:

• ENERGY
• AIDS DIGESTION
• HELPS YOU STAY HYDRATED
• PROTEIN
• ANTI-OXIDANTS
• OMEGA 3 AND OMEGA 6 ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS
• CALCIUM
• MAGNESIUM, BORON
• FIBER
• PHOSPHORUS
• MANGANESE
• COPPER
• IRON
• ZINC
• NIACIN

I'm not going to pretend that I know what the purpose of all of those trace minerals and such are for, but I probably need them.  Sometimes I have this drink in the morning, sometimes before or after a workout.  I try to get some in at least once a day.  I don't think I can go wrong here.  

The benefits have been compared to flax seeds, but flax is so demanding--you have to grind it fresh each time you want to use it, you can't cook with it, and it can spoil/go rancid really quickly.  Annoying.  The chia seeds last forever and don't require any special treatment.   Besides that, they have MORE essential fatty acids than flax seeds.  I don't know why flax gets all the attention.   

You can eat the chia seeds raw or add to ANYTHING.  They absorb the flavors of whatever they are mixed with, so you could add them to soups, desserts, yogurt.  Literally whatever you want.   

nom nom.  crunch crunch. slurp.

Homemade Facial Mask

I have kind of terrible skin.  

I'm in my 40s and my skin acts like a hormonal teenager's sometimes.  

Along with my desire to limit the chemicals in my life, I thought I'd check into homemade skin care.

I googled 'recipes for face masks' and got a lot of great ideas,  

and noticed several recurring ingredients such as:

Anything milky.

Lemon juice.

Honey.

Oatmeal.

Sugar.

Many other things I can't remember.  

You get the gist--"tasty things" are good on your face.

For my concoction tonight, 

I mixed a spoonful each of greek yogurt (plain of course), 

lemon juice and honey.

No need to take a photo.  It didn't look like much.

I smeared it on my face and waited for the magic.  

Hmmm.  Nothing happened except the dogs thought I was delicious.

After a few minutes I scrubbed it off with a palmful of sugar and warm water.  

Once I rinsed everything off my face, it felt really really soft!

And I'm totally prettier. 

Grilled Lettuce!

Everyone should try this at least once.  

I have a feeling I'm going to repeat this many times this summer.  

All you do is take some romaine hearts and slice them lengthwise.  

Brush with a little olive oil or butter and season with salt, pepper, or whatever you like.  

Lay them on the grill flat side first until they're a little charred.  

Flip them over and sprinkle a little Parmesan on top while you grill the other side.  

The cheese is not necessary, just an added bonus, especially if you're going the Caesar Salad route with it. 

I also might try some feta or blue cheese the next time.  Yum.

Done!  

I drizzled mine with a little vinaigrette, but my husband ate his plain.  

Really, really good.

The Garden's a-Poppin'!

Well, I know it's only April 11th, but my garden has been in for over a month now.  Well, the cool weather hardy crops anyway.  Here are some of my babies:

Broccoli and Cauliflower!

Lettuce!

Peas!

Potato Tower!

Radishes!

Strawberry blossom!

Garlic!

I am loving my spring crops!  I can hardly wait until it's time to get the tomatoes, peppers, okra, zucchini, delicata squash, carnival squash, beans, sweet corn, eggplant, and anything else I can think of!

Must. Be. Patient.  

Stay tuned!

Sweet Potato Fries!

I find myself making these often.  I used to literally HATE sweet potatoes.  I am still not 100% sure whether I could eat the mashed mush variety but these are really EASY and SUPER GOOD!

One reason I wanted to post this was because this very evening my friend texted me to ask where I buy my sweet potato fries.  I texted back "I make them, silly girl."  Of course.  It's really not that hard or time-consuming.  Here's how I go about it--->

1.  Peel the potato.  I usually only need one if it's a biggun', but tonight I'm ravenous, so I'm peeling two.

2.  Cut them up into whatever fry shape you like.  They're appealing to cut into.  Crisp and probably my favorite color ever.  Nice.  

3.  I throw the fries into a big bowl and drizzle a little oil on to them.  I change up the oils that I use.  Olive oil is my least favorite to use (you would know this if you read the post 'Bathing in Olive Oil is Gross') but at the moment I'm out of grapeseed oil. 

4.  Sprinkle whatever seasoning you like.  It could be just salt & pepper, or your favorite blend.  My favorite happens to be this Cookie's Flavor Enhancer.  First, I love the vagueness of the name.  Second, it says all over it that it contains 'NO MSG!'  I didn't know it was that big of a threat!  I just think it tastes good.  So much so that we bought a gigantic jug-tub of it at the State Fair.  It should last a little while.

5.  Oven to around 450.  I bake them for at least 30 minutes.  They do take awhile, but the great difference between these and regular white potato fries is that you don't have to par-cook the sweet potatoes first.  Have you ever tried baking a raw white potato?  It does not work.  These are brilliant in that you just peel and bake.  You never have to try to handle them when they're piping hot, etc.    

6.  I go in there and stir them around once or twice until they're done.  

In other words, until they look done and then I eat one to make sure.  

These are delicious and much cheaper than the bag version.  

They aren't "crispy" but they could be if you fried them.  

The point being I guess is that the sweet potato fry is not too far removed from the sweet potato itself.   

Easy.

Homemade Veggie Burgers!

Thanks to Missy and her hoity toity big city newspapers on the interwebs, I've got some great new ideas for making homemade veggie burgers.  Here's my take on one of the recipes for Mushroom-Grain burgers.  I'm altering the recipe basically because I'm not grocery shopping until tomorrow, and these are the most similar items I have to the recipe in the article.

Here are the ingredients I'm using:

• Mushrooms
• onion
• garlic
• Brown Rice (instead of Barley--I would have preferred barley, but I used it all up...as I said--grocery shopping isn't until tomorrow.  I love cooking with barley.  It adds a nice meat-ish texture to things like chili.)
• egg
• Beans!  The recipe calls for chickpeas (which I really don't like) but I'm using navy beans (because I have them on hand.)
• Edamame (this is not in the recipe, but I'm adding them in for some extra protein and greenth.  I invented that word.  It means more greenness.  :)
• Parsley (fresh from my Aerogarden)
• Sage -- I have zero sage in this house.  Not sure why, or really what you use it for.  Chicken is my first guess or stuffing type thing.  I guess it hasn't come up for awhile...
• Shredded Sweet Potato (not pictured.)  this was an afterthought.

Cook the onions, add the mushrooms.  I'm throwing in the sweet potato shreds and the edamame at this point just to cook them a little bit.

 

Take 1/2 the mushrooms and put in a bowl with the rice/barley and the parsley.  Take the other 1/2 and throw in your food processor along with the beans and egg.  Smoosh it up.  Mix everything together.

This looks.  interesting.  The green bits are nice.  Once everything is mixed together it's pretty.  I guess I had my doubts just looking at the food processor mush.  This will be fine.

I am frying them in little balls rather than huge patties.  They do have a hard time sticking together, but the beans and the egg are the glue.  Just smoosh them back together if they fall apart.

Then it says I have to oven it.  I don't have fancy cookware, so I'm going to transfer the browned dealies to a baking sheet and finish them in 375 for about 10 min.  Well, 5 minutes, then put some cheese on top, bake 5 minutes more.  

That's the gist anyway.  Ok, so I just took mine out of the pan and they're nice and brown, but still really mushy/wet in the centers.  The baking must dry that out a bit.  I hope.  I had to re-shape some of them.  They're downright gooey.  Waitin to see where this goes...

Anyway, I do like the idea of using the beans in a burger.  Maybe chickpeas will end up in my pantry.  Maybe.

Here's an update.  I pulled them out of the oven, and they're a little bit more set, but still didn't seem done.  I am going to end up baking them for about 30 minutes total.  When they're done I'm going to let them sit on the pan for another few.  I hope that's not a huge mistake, but sometimes, you know--recipes are bullshit.  They just didn't seem done.

Ahhhh.....check it out!

Delish!  I'm eating mine with all the condiments of an actual burger and it's really really good.  Thanks again Miss Missy and her You Nork Times.

You Neek.

Niece Hats!

I made these hats for my nieces after Xmas this year.  I had done a few baby hats for my sister who is a baby nurse and brought them to our gathering.  When the nieces saw the teensy versions, they all put in their orders.  I do think that these larger versions turned out better than the small ones, partially because I decided to use felt for the owl eyes in bright colors.  I really like the way they turned out!

Austyn's

Allison's Monkey Hat.

Jenna's

Paige's

Addy's

I ate that.

Why blog about the foods we eat?
Well, people ARE always asking me what "vegetarians" eat,
and because I  feel like I've abandoned my blog.
Also, because I think (I know) I'm a great cook, and in my opinion I think we eat pretty healthy!

So, after deciding I would document our daily diet for a month, I realized that I am just too busy to get all of these pictures and such up on the blog in a timely fashion.  So, here I am almost a month later trying to post this.  Bloggery is hard!

I pack a lunch for work every day for both me and my husband, and that has saved us a TON of money, not to mention the time & energy spent trying to figure out what's for lunch when I used to come to work unprepared.
There aren't really a lot of HEALTHY vegetarian choices available in local restaurants, and please don't tell me that I can 'just get a salad'.
Oh, if I had a nickel...
(Really, are there many HEALTHY non-vegetarian choices out there either?)

**one thing I should point out here is that I now use the term vegetarian fairly loosely since we started adding fish to our diet about 2 years ago.
I have doubts that I'll ever use the word 'pescatarian' to describe my diet.
It's too annoying sounding.
Let's just leave it at 'we eat fish.'

Besides avoiding restaurants we also make almost every meal from scratch, and NO it doesn't take that long!  Very few items in our pantry are pre-packaged meals.  The canned goods you see in my cupboards are mostly just beans or tomatoes.  Hardly ever will you see a 'condensed soup' or any canned soup for that matter.  Partly because they are super salty, there are very few vegetarian canned soups available, but mostly because my homemade soups taste SO much better than anything sitting on the shelf at the grocery store.

Packing the lunches is now a part of my daily routine and takes place at the same time I'm making dinner most nights.  I don't feel like I can really relax in the evenings until things are ready for the next day.  

Here's a taste of dinnertime at the Kearney's...

Veggie burger w sauteed baby portabello mushrooms, muenster cheese, tomatoes & BBQ sauce.  Sweet potato fries on the side.

Can I just say that this meal was freaking delicious.  This sandwich made use of the very last of the loaf of bread.  There were only 2 pieces left, so I cut them in half to make 4 pieces/2 sandwiches.  One unusual thing about this meal is the sweet potato fries.  For most of my life I have HATED sweet potatoes and completely avoided them.  A few months ago I decided that since I'm now a grown-up I'll give them another try and lo and behold I actually like them.  Wait--I actually LOVE and CRAVE them.  That, my friends, is bizarre. Wait until I tell my mother!

Lunch

Tuna Macaroni Salad, alfalfa sprouts (that I grew myself), tomato, roasted sunflower seeds.  Side of 1/2 orange.  YUM!

I had eaten half of it before I remembered that I was going to take a picture of it.  Oops!  It was so good.  I mixed in a little bit of this cranberry/horseradish dip mix with the mayonnaise and the results were delicious!

Tacos!

Tacos are relatively new for us, and a meal that my husband LOVES.
We use Morningstar farms "beefalike" crumbles and regular taco seasonings.
A dollop of plain Greek yogurt takes the place of sour cream.

Of course, tacos for lunch!

Spaghetti Squash, homemade sauce.

I used a can of tomatoes, spices, a little brown sugar, onion, garlic and mushrooms to make this sauce.
Prep time was about 7 minutes, then I just let it simmer while the squash baked.

Breakfast Saturday Morning

Veggie "sausage" and eggs

Not as pretty as I usually like, but definitely yummy.
Eggs are from our own chickies, of course.
That makes them even better!

Homemade noodle soup

I made a soup like this the other day when my husband was trying to get over the flu.  He finally had an appetite and agreed to eat some soup.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way back from his doctor's appointment and he waited in the car while I ran in.  I looked over the canned soups--he said he wanted "noodle" soup--to try to find one that didn't have chicken or chicken fat or whatnot, and there just wasn't anything that looked good!

This soup took me 11 minutes to put together using garlic, onion, carrot, celery, cabbage, mushrooms, peas (a handful of frozen) and some skinny noodles.  He was so appreciative and said several times throughout the rest of the day that it was the best soup he's ever had.
I say, of course it is.
It was made with LOVE and real ingredients.

I ended up with enough left over to put 2 containers of soup in the freezer to use later in the month.
I'm not the type of person who wants to eat the same thing every day,
so leftovers usually go to waste unless I freeze them.
 It's great to have something we can just heat up on those days when we don't have as much time to cook.


Sunday Breakfast

Oh yes I did.  Blueberry Crepes

OK--I had a craving for pancakes.  I don't buy pancake mix anymore because it's too simple to make from scratch (and BETTER).  One problem though--I used up almost all of the flour when I made the sourdough bread.  Crepes use much less flour than pancakes and are pretty easy to make.  For the blueberry topping I just threw a handful of frozen blueberries in a saucepan and added a couple spoonfuls of sugar, cooking until it thickened up.  It isn't unheard of for me to put the filling on the inside with maybe some cream cheese deliciousness, but this time it's on the side with a little dollop of the Greek yogurt and a drizzle of maple syrup.

That was so good.

Egg Salad sandwich w/sprouts, carrot/celery sticks, Greek yogurt w/blueberries, orange slices

I know a lot of people like them or think they're 'convenient' but I never buy baby carrots.
They're overly processed and often seem dried out.  Plus, how are you going to cook with a baby carrot?  Are you going to shred those little buggers one at a time or slice them?  Annoying.

OK,  I am done with this post.  I left out some pictures, etc.  but my god, it's long enough as it is.  If you're still reading this, you're my new best friend (or my current best friend!)

Peas Out!

Crazy Yarn Store Lady

Can I just go off for a moment on the awkward, unprofessional, nosy-ass clerk at the yarn store?  Although she shall remain nameless (because I don't know her name), there IS only one yarn store in my area.

The last time I was there she asked about the photo on the front of my checkbook cover.  (I would tell you right now what the picture is, but honestly who the hell cares what's on my checkbook cover!  It's a rooster!  There--are you happy now?)  The only reason to write a check there is because they don't accept credit/debit cards.  In fact I rarely write checks any more.  The other place I have to use checks is the tiny grocery store in Slater because they also don't take cards.  I pretty much never have actual cash.  So dirrrty.

Anyhoo--I rushed there yesterday to get to the store before it closed.  Yes, it was a yarn emergency!  Don't act like you've never heard of such a thing.  I wrote out my check and she was apparently reading my checkbook ledger and actually asked me about the multiple entries to the little Slater store.  I write in my register "T&C" which obviously stands for Town & Country.  What part of any of that information is HER business?  She asked, "What's T&C?"  I, of course, am a "nice" person so I answered the crazy lady and left the store.

On my walk back to the car I was just flabbergasted.  What?  Who does that?  Besides just being nosy, who would go ahead and comment on that sort of thing?  I'm thinking about writing a letter to the owner of the store to complain.  Ranting and complaining in writing often make me feel better, and in some cases (I doubt this is one) it can result in coupons for free stuff such as the time I found a giant flying insect in my Dole lettuce, and the time that the Hy-Vee manager was an idiot.