I’m not feeling so hot. That means I am being lazy today and all I want to eat is chips and chocolate.
I admit I’ve had some chocolate, but these roasted Brussels sprouts have hit the spot. I reckon they are way better for me than potato chips.
Ina Garten´s recipe for Roasted Brussels Sprouts.
And since the oven was on, I thought I’d suck up to my kid. She loves croutons. So with some stale bread I made her some. Not sure which recipe is easier.
Ina Garten´s recipe for Croutons.
After an argument this morning, this is the email I sent my child. Today I am hoping she checks her email at school.
“I love you honey, & I do expect the world of you because you are brilliant. But brilliant isn´t enough. Brilliant is the gift God gives you. What you do with that is the gift is the gift you give yourself…and possibly the world.
I sit in anticipation of the woman you will become and the wonderful things you will do. Proud doesn´t cover what I feel for you. But that doesn´t mean that I will not continue to expect you to give your all.
And always know I love you.”
Let’s be honest here. I’d probably never dodge a bullet for you. But I will make you one kick a#! salad for lunch.
Oh my goodness. Just talking about getting a job is having me feel overwhelmed. I was this close to not making a meal plan for the week as I did not get myself organized on Sunday night. We had an insanely busy weekend full of kids, play-dates and the kids homework too. But I know, just in my few weeks of doing a meal plan, that it helps keep me on track.
Last week Lana came home and was shocked at what I was serving for dinner. It seems that the kid checks kiwigalo and noticed when I swapped the days in which I served two meals. Oh dear…
Another tool that I actually started to use last year when I knew that the kids needed a greater voice in picking the meals was a meal wall (door, actually). I stuck up the days of the week and then we started to write our staple meals on sticky notes. When I ask the kids what they want for dinner that week they each get a say. I have in some places noted the page in the cookbook just so….well, because I am lazy and this way it´s there for me to find the recipe both when looking up the ingredients for my shopping list, as well as when I am going to prepare the meal.  I like having our tried and true recipes written out because it gives one less thing to think about. Also, then after the kids have picked their meals I can swap them around based on the time I have to prepare meals.
This week:
Monday – Chana Masala – I could eat this every day. Period.
Tuesday – Chickpea Rice & Cabbage Soup – My hubby´s favorite. I cook the brown rice ahead of time.This makes it a quick meal to whip up.
Wednesday- Chickpea and Broccoli Curry aka Down-Home Curry – I will be honest one kid picks out the tofu. I can´t find a link, but it´s yet another gem from Isa Does It.
Thursday – Red Lentil Soup with Spinach and Coconut Milk – FAILED last week, so I need to see what I did wrong.
Have a great week!
Our house is not the fanciest. It’s actually probably the smallest of all their friends’. But I hope they have lasting memories of the good times we had and that their lovely mates were always welcome here.
I asked the Universe (aka GOD) for a teaching job. The response was get your resumé sorted. All right already. I´m on it.
We weren’t even at the village and I received a call inviting us to a ‘festa’ in a nearby village. Of course we jumped on it. Our friends always create a good time. This was no exception.
To liven things up they brought a kettle to boil the wine (we bought that at the festa) and after adding sugar we had ourselves a darn good treat.
See what I mean? These people truly ROCK!
I have not been up to my village in ages. If it were up to me I would leave the city every Friday and head up for the weekend. I love it there. But between play-dates, birthday parties, swim and tutoring sessions (yep, now they have that to look forward to on Saturdays;), we just don´t get up as often as I would like.
But Saturday I am driving by the airport, slowing down just enough for my hubby to jump in the car & we are heading up for the night. I want to stay as long as we possibly can on Sunday which means I have to be completely ready for the week ahead. It´s going to be a busy one. The kids will not only have to have all their work done, but I want bags packed and left at the door ready for swim & school on Monday morning.
I am getting my meal plan together so that by the time we leave I have everything here at home that we need. The plan for next week is:
Monday – Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Beans and Greens I do not add gnocchi. For one, it´s hard to get here and it doesn´t add any nutritional value, so why bother. My kid hates vegetables and requests this meal. It is THAT good. And SO good for you.
Tuesday – Red Lentil Soup with Spinach and Coconut Milk – We are all excited to prepare this for Stephen since he wasn´t around when we first made it last week. Lana has suggested I make it with less water and to accompany it with basmati rice. Can you see why I call her a food critic? I think she´s dead on with her suggestion.
Wednesday- Sushi. We make both vegetarian and California roles. If you can cook sushi rice, you can make sushi. I will show you how easy it is one day.
Thursday – Homemade Tortillas Mexican restaurants stink here in Portugal. A Portuguese friend lived in Arizona and he misses good Mexican. So IÂ am making it for him and his family. This will be my dry run of our family dinner.
Have a great weekend!
Week 2 of the year and I am loving working off of my weekly food plan. I have gotten most of my shopping done on Sunday. My ´plan´is to not have to run out mid week. I actually like going to the shops, but sometimes I don´t have time and then we have a crappy dinner or we get take out.
Today I needed to have a meal cooking for us while the kids were at their afternoon activities. I had the added pressure that I HAD to get to their conferences at 6pm. I wouldn´t normally try a new meal when I wasn´t going to be around to deal with disappointed and hungry children, but I took the gamble…an won.
I had some greens left over from last week that were about to go off. And cooking Indian food as often as we do, I had the spices on hand (highly recommend you make the effort to stock up). I had the coconut milk too in the cupboard. The result was a HUGE success with BOTH my kids. That rarely happens that a meal is met with rave reviews from both of them…So here you are. ENJOY!
There is one reason why I serve my family the healthiest food I can. My parents are/were not healthy people. This became very clear to me a number of years ago when my husband and I were filling out forms for our insurance company. I ticked just about every box when mentioning my family´s poor health history. I remember my husband looking at me and I am sure he was wondering if he had possibly made a mistake in marrying me.
You can just accept that as my parents being unlucky. But that is not the case. Every illness, bar my father´s cancer, was likely caused by the fact that they are/were overweight. I recognized that fact at the time, but I wasn´t motivated to do much of anything to change my behaviors as I figured that I was fit enough. About a year later my brother had a minor stroke, I had serious case of Bell´s Palsy and my father had open heart surgery. All in the same month. That was overwhelming. But still I didn´t change anything. It wasn´t until I was in New Zealand and I read the China Study that I thought I should change how I eat. I am not vegan. I have leather shoes and if offered homemade chouriço I will eat it. I also love eggs. But our diet is probably 90% vegan.
There were two points in the above mentioned book that shocked me the most. One was the possible link of the consumption of soy based formula before you are 1 year old to having allergies. (My daughter ONLY consumed breast milk, her stubbornness, not my choice. No allergies. Whereas my son gladly consumed formula and he has a serious nut allergy. Something no one on my family had ever had. Note: our niece in NZ does however suffer from allergies too).
The other thing that was probably the greatest factor to moving me away from meat consumption was the following chart.
There is this one too.
These charts are supported in this Harvard Health link article. It does specify that it is red meat they are talking about, not chicken and fish actually helps decrease the risk.  I am a firm believer that there are tremendous differences in the quality of meat (and other food). Animals raised naturally, with out being fed hormones and served closer to the kill will render a better meat. Simple. What shocked me the most about the above chart was that New Zealand, a country that does not allow GMOs, where animals all graze on green grass and are fed nothing else, has some of the highest numbers of intestinal cancer. Right then I knew something had to give. For no other reason that I wanted to be alive and healthy for my children.
I eat what I eat because I do not want to die or have a stroke. Does this guarantee me good health? Nope. My friend Cathy is the healthiest eater I know and she had beast cancer. But I have to know I tried my best.
I am not writing this to be preachy. Actually I am writing because it is devastating to hear that people I love are getting sick. I do not want that. I want you all (there are three of you reading this:) to live much longer than me. So I am going to start sharing my favorite healthy recipes here. I´ll do the grunt work and sus out which ones are great. And I love you. Period.