Breakfast for Dinner

I know I am on a food kick, but we have been having some wonderful vegetarian meals and so I have to brag on my wife's cooking and share these wonderful recipe ideas!  I am so very glad we have been introduced to Green Chef, because by getting all the ingredients and the recipes, we have discovered new things that we wouldn't have, otherwise.

Tonight we had Corn Cakes with Herb-Ricotta with a Fried Egg on top and an Arugula Salad.

Preheat your oven to 350F and make your corn cake batter.  Thinly sliced scallion, lemon zest, corn meal, flour, corn and milk. Mix gently and let rest for 5 minutes.  Warm a tbs of olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat.  Cook sliced onion for 2 minutes then add halved grape tomatoes, salt and pepper. Stir and cook 2 more minutes, then place the pan in the oven to roast for 12-14 minutes.

Melt some butter in a non-stick saute pan over medium heat and divide batter into small patties. Cook 2-3 minutes, until small bubbles form in the middle of the patty.  Carefully flip them with a spatula. Add more butter to promote browning.  Cook another 1-2 minutes. Place on cookie sheet and place in oven to keep warm.

Place arugula in a bowl.  Squeeze lemon over arugula and salt and pepper.  Toss.  Using non-stick pan, fry 2 eggs.

Spoon herbed ricotta onto plate.  Place 2 corn cakes on top. Place an egg on top, arugula on the side with the onion and tomato medley.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Amazing.

Black Pepper Tofu, Pineapple Rice and Bok Choy

Well..... she did it again.  Wow.  Amazing dinner!  Shallots, bok choy, red Fresno chilis and crispy tofu.  The chilis were mild and the black peppercorn had a little kick!  It was sweet and spicy and very good.

The sauce was made with scallion, garlic, ginger, soy, honey and crushed black peppercorns.

Caprese Pasta with Arugula & Balsamic Reduction

So my wife made the most amazing vegetarian pasta last night.  O.M.G. She even loved it, and she is hard to please with the vegetarian meals.  It was a simple salad of mozzarella, basil and tomatoes with some farfalle (bowtie), whole wheat pasta.  The arugula with the honey balsamic drizzle tastes fresh with a hint of sweet and sour.  She finished it with some black lava salt and it was amaze-balls.

I think this is something we will do again and again - especially in the summertime, when you want something lighter and fresh.  Plus, no oven!

You need 2 saucepans.  In the first, start your balsamic reduction and in the second, cook your pasta.  When the pasta finishes, drain and use that pan to blister the tomatoes with 1 tbs olive oil and some salt and pepper.  After 2 minutes, turn off the heat and add pasta, mozzarella and basil pesto.  Stir to coat.  Add the arugula and stir to coat, wilting slightly from residual heat.  Balsamic reduction is finished with slightly syrupy.  Divide pasta into separate dishes, drizzle with reduction and finish with salt.  Enjoy!

Me Time

On a very rare occasion, I get to spend time alone.  With two teen-age boys and usually anywhere for 2 - 5 of their friends over at our house, it is relatively busy.  Add to that, 2 large, aging Old English Sheepdogs, a needy Jack Russell/Rat Terrier mix and 2 cats that may or may not want attention - my energy gets zapped fast.  Especially if I have been at work all day long.  My wife tries to leave me alone, but sometimes, she wants attention or just for me to do some things around the house.

I often feel tired.  I often stay up too late because I just enjoy the quiet when everyone is sleeping or getting to watch whatever I want on TV or play stupid games on my tablet.  The stillness is nice.  It has been so long since I lived without another person/pet to be responsible for, that I often will "day dream" about what life would be like if I only had myself to worry about, pay for, etc.

I am certain I would live a much different life. I wouldn't need a 4 bedroom home in the suburbs, where the schools are good and the kids can play outside in the yard.  I wouldn't be saving for college and saving for 2 beginner cars and figuring out how to pay for insurance for 2 teenage boys.  My cell phone bill would be so much smaller.  All my bills would be so much smaller.  If I went out to eat, I wouldn't have to pay for 4 people (and their friends).

I could probably take those long weekend theater trips to NYC or London to see the plays and musicals that I love and not listen to the cast recordings and pretend that one day I may see some version of it somewhere locally,  I would have disposable income.  What a thought!  I could drop whatever I was doing, whenever I wanted.  I could pick what I wanted for every meal without mediation.  I could make decisions without consensus!

I am sure that "the grass is always greener on the other side" and all of that jazz.  There are so many things I would've have missed out on if I weren't married with children.  I wouldn't want to change the past, but having this conversation recently with several single and married people joining in, I realize that I have not given myself much of an identity beyond wife and mom.  And that it is okay that there are things that I want to do that do not include my spouse and my children.  I just have to get past the guilt of not putting them first.

In 5 years and a couple of months, my youngest will be leaving for college (fingers crossed).  I fear I will be suffering from empty next syndrome in a bad way, so I am thinking that maybe, if I work on some things now, things that I want for me, I will have stuff to fall back onto and not just be left a mom all alone, missing her kids.  I hope so anyway.

But what do I want to do? What am I interested in?  Who am I besides a nonprofit manager, a mom and a wife?  What kind of life to I want to create for myself?  I have been married for 10 years, I have been a mom for 19 years, I have worked at the same office for 14 years and things are all just a little bit "same ole, same ole".  I have a lot of research to do.

Farmer's Markets

I really want to start buying my food as local as possible.  I have been very surprised at all the farmer's markets that are going on in the Oklahoma City Metro area!  I am really excited to check out the 23rd Street Farmers Market this Sunday.

The first big reason, I want to shop at Farmers Markets is FLAVOR!  Fruits and vegetables you buy from farmers are the freshest you can get.  They are allowed to vine-ripen, instead of chemically ripen like big chain grocery produce.  It is simply fresh from the farm (the farm down the road!)

Another reason I want to shot at Farmers Markets is because I want to support family farms.  I am already a HUGE proponent of banking and eating at locally owned places.  This is just one more component of that.  You are helping your neighbor stay in business and it tastes better than shopping at Super Walmart.  You can find meats, eggs and cheeses from animals that are cared for without hormones or anti-biotics, that are raised eating real food, grass fed or natural diets, not feedlots and cages.

When you buy locally, you know where your food comes from.  You can meet and talk to the farmers and food artisans that you are buying from.  And you get out and meet the people in your community. I would much rather walk around selecting fresh foods outdoors in the sunshine than wheel a cart through a cold, fluorescent lit store.

Meatless Mondays

In an effort to try to eat more healthy meals and eat more vegetables, I have started doing a "meatless Monday" several months ago.  Since I started this, I have been in awe at all the great vegetarian and vegan meals that are out there - that taste great and have great flavor and textures.  I have been pleasantly surprised!

Going meatless once a week can reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and obesity.  And going meatless once a week can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fossil fuels and fresh water.

Approximately 1,850 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of beef!
Approximately 39 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of vegetables!

Some of my vegetarian meals have included Sweet Earth Natural Foods burritos.  They are amazing! The Anasazi is one of my favorites.  It has Anasazi beans, green chilies, butternut squash, chipolte seitan and ginger.  It is very good.  The seitan is flavorful and has a constancy very similar to meat. There are 15 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber in one burrito and about 300 calories.

My other favorite is the Peruvian burrito.  It has black beans, red quinoa, sweet potato, goat cheese, roasted corn and spirulina.  It has 17 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber.  And about 300 calories.

We have also been getting meals from Green Chef delivered to our house.  It comes with everything you need to make a great vegetarian meal.  So far, everything we have tried, we have liked.  Which, I usually like the meatless things, but my spouse does not.  She has been pleasantly surprised at the things she has liked.  In fact, she recently went to chipolte and got the vegetarian burrito and is addicted to it!

My kids are not as easy, but they will have an omlette or try some of the tofu, seitan and other meat substitutes.  But the point is, we are all making an effort to eat less meat, which I think is a good thing!

City Chicks

I am not very rural.  I grew up in a small town and knew many people who had farms and ranches, but I grew up a banker's daughter.  We lived on 4 acres but never had anything more than a dog.  I did, however, go with my dad to visit his trust customers and most of them lived on farms.  I would help the lady of the house collect eggs from the chicken coop while my dad "talked business" with her husband.  I once bottle fed a baby goat and helped some with lambs and calves and pigs on my many visits to different farms.

Something about it I loved.  Being up close and personal with nature and taking care of animals.  It made me feel good inside.

I have been reading a lot about raising chickens for eggs.  I (unfortunately) cannot do that right now, because my neighborhood HOA has a stipulation in the bylaws forbidding it.  However, the town I live in recently passed a city ordinance lifting a ban on it.  Backyard chickens!  A lot of people in town have them now.

One thing I have read a lot about is that you need to be ready to be a Mother Hen before you get some chicks.  For the first several weeks, they need hourly attention.  You have to decide on using a coop or letting them be free range or a combination of the two.  I would love to have a "chicken run" fenced off on the side of my back yard where there could be a coop, but also let them out to peck and scratch in the grass and get plenty of fresh air and sunshine.

You can build a coop, there are many plans to find on the internet and you can even find chicken coops now at Petco or PetSmart!

And what kind of chickens?!  There are over 400 breeds of chickens today.  When choosing a breed, it is important to think of temperament, climate, egg-production levels, and if you will be just using them for eggs or also for meat.

If you have backyard chickens, how do you do it?  How long have you have them?  Tell me about it!