Food
It seems my life these days revolves around food. What am I going to cook for dinner? Will it be appropriate for the Turtles? How much time will it take? How am I going to get to the grocery store with all these babies? Did I really just eat four sugar cookies? Did Vivi have at least one green vegetable today?
I used to love to cook and I am generally pretty good at it but I hate feeling the pressure to produce a meal every night. There's something about having to get it done that makes me not want to do it at all. All this is complicated by the fact that we generally eschew processed food so I don't have the "throw it in the microwave and it's done" meal just lying around. (This is on purpose. Although I am not intending to be a food snob, I've read too many books about our food supply to believe that the convenience is worth it. You always have to pay somewhere and I feel that the economic, health, and environmental price is too high.)
So, what's an overwhelmed gal to do? Well, in this house, Vivi often helps herself to her own snacks. Sometimes this is good and sometimes, well take a look:
I used to love to cook and I am generally pretty good at it but I hate feeling the pressure to produce a meal every night. There's something about having to get it done that makes me not want to do it at all. All this is complicated by the fact that we generally eschew processed food so I don't have the "throw it in the microwave and it's done" meal just lying around. (This is on purpose. Although I am not intending to be a food snob, I've read too many books about our food supply to believe that the convenience is worth it. You always have to pay somewhere and I feel that the economic, health, and environmental price is too high.)
So, what's an overwhelmed gal to do? Well, in this house, Vivi often helps herself to her own snacks. Sometimes this is good and sometimes, well take a look:
I've discovered a good lazy night meal is what Vivi and I call "egg faces." These are the nights when the babies are eating baby food leftovers and Daddy has to fend for himself. All in all though it ends up being a pretty entertaining, yet fast and nutritious option.
But this is all I've got. Anyone have any suggestions for easy, nutritious, meatless meals? I need an intervention before my kids overdose on eggs.
Hey Sam
ReplyDelete-Buy a carton of miso paste (with dashi). A tbsp of that in some hot water, with tofu chunks, some wakame seaweed and chopped spring onions.
-Angel hair pasta tossed in a sauce of butter/olive oil, garlic, pan-fried diced tomatoes, olive tapenade and grana pandano cheese.
-Onigiri = Japanese rice balls. Mix tuna with Japanese mayo, put a bit into a palmful of rice and shape into a ball. Wrap with seaweed.
-My favourite food blog might have some ideas for you http://contests.apartmenttherapy.com/2009/thekitchn-quick-meals/
Awesome ideas, Rose! We love miso soup but I never really learned how to make it properly. This looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteHey there...my kids just loved these faces! We played "guess that food" and they did a pretty good job. :-) I'll be watching the comments here for ideas, too.
ReplyDeleteI know I probably just need to read the tutorials here better, but how did you add the wallpaper on the sides of your blog? Is it just one template you found? Blogspts defaults are all so dull. Happy New Year!
Hi Amy,
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you too. I used Aqua Poppy backgrounds. I think if you google them you will find it easily enough.
MMQC
Your egg faces are awesome! My 4yo doesn't eat anything green so there's no hope of him eating the greens on those faces. I'm not too worried because he will outgrow the picky eater stage eventually. He LOVES toast with jam, toast with nutella, toast with hummus. Mac and cheese with peas and cut up chicken sausages and applesauce on the side is an easy dinner option. Homemade veggie and chicken/turkey soup with homemade bread. You may find this website helpful: http://weelicious.com/
ReplyDeleteGoogle has a wealth of resources. ;)
Wow! My family calls me Vivi, and I don't know too many of us, so, it was too cool that I found your blog!
ReplyDeleteIs Vivi short for anything? Our daughter is Aviva.
ReplyDeleteJust stumbled on to your site so am reading back a few posts... I have 2.5 year old and we also go through the what to make for dinner headache. I love to cook, but my husband and I both work full time, so we're always searching for the 20 minute or less quick and nutritious dinner. We end up eating a lot of beans. It turns out my daughter love beans (we joke she would do fine in a 3rd world country because her favorite foods are beans and rice). A good rinsing, and different seasoning and beans out of the can are quickly transformed into veggie chili (maybe with crumbled tofu, tomatoes, onions, corn) or quesadillas (frozen spinach, cheese tortillas) or cajun red beans and rice (veggie sausage, peppers, onions, canned tomatoes and a few spices). We sometimes make our own tortillas since it's actually a lot of fun with a small helper, and flour tortillas are just flour, shortening/lard, water, and salt. You can roll them out with a rolling pin and cook them in a dry frying pan. The dough is tough enough to be handled by a toddler without falling apart. Lots of fun and they freeze well!
ReplyDelete