Meatless Meals

For a few years now, I have tried to make at least 1 or 2 meatless meals a week. It's really not as hard as most would think. I now try to do 3-4 a week, and we, well definitely I, don't miss the meat in these meals.

By no means are we planning to become vegans or vegetarians, and we were never a crazy meat consuming family/couple. But it feels really good to make a super satisfying and feeling hearty meatless meal. I don't use Tofu, I have tried it once in a meal and I am not a huge fan, I will try it again someday and maybe incorporate it once in a blue moon. I use beans a lot, and recently have started to use quinoa.

Last week we made vegetable fried quinoa (with some added black beans for extra protien) rather than rice, and it was DELICIOUS. James was very hesitant to jump on the quinoa bandwagon, he was expecting a cous cous like taste and texture, which he strongly dislikes, I LOVE cous cous. He is also the cook in the house for fried rice, he makes a mean fried rice dish hehee pretty much the only thing he knows how to cook other than plain potato/rice, steak, and boiled veggie ;) so he was the first to make a quinoa dish for the family., and we all devoured it.

This weeks meatless meals are:
-Crockpot Minestrone type of soup (beans, chickpeas, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, italian seasoning, canned tomatoes and broth, though I admit I used chicken broth, I really dislike the flavor of commercial veggie broth) with homemade crescent rolls.
-Black Bean Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries
-Baked Beans, Scallop Potato, and some sort of veggie probably green.

I like to do meatless mexican with beans yummy, pasta with lots of veggies and sometimes I throw in some beans as well, meatless stirfrys, meatless soups. Not every time I make a pasta or soup etc is meatless, but really it's so easy to skip the meat a couple times a week, I think EVERYONE should do it!

I watched a documentary a couple years ago on how much meat North America consumes, it was disgusting, and how meat is such a high demand and how damaging it is to our environment. Not that raising animals, and using them for consumption is completely damaging but the rate at which we do it is what is damaging, and how much animals are needed to meet the demands is environmentally damaging. I cannot for the life of me remember the name, but I know you can find it on the internet. I found it incredibly informative and eye opening, it was definitely what lead me to my quest for cutting out meat in every meal every day.

I'll be sure to share some recipes of meals we try and we all love....those that have recipes. James veggie fried quinoa does not have a recipe, nor does my minestrone soup, it's always changing slightly ;)

Ciao

You know your a mom when!!!

Obviously I knew I was a mom the minute her little, well uhm big body, pushed it's way through my va-jay-jay, and I held her in my arms. But every so often I have these moments, sort of like a light bulb BING you're a mom....or I guess you're a mom to a TODDLER.

Some recent ones:

-when you go to put your boots on, are grossed out by something in it (my first thought, it was a giant bug) and you cautiously investigate to find LITTLE PEOPLE

-you have a miniature person stuck to your legs, hugging you with all her strength while plowing her head into your crotch or bum while you....blowdry your hair, saute dinner, make breakfast etc. And you look down, she looks up with love, and at that moment you know what true love feels like. Hmm yet again true love is putting pressure on my crotch, just like she did for 9 months ;)

-you see your LO pull off her socks, you get frustrated that she is ripping them off, AGAIN, but then she uses them to "wash" the glass kitchen doors....I guess she see's me constantly wiping up her kiss and booger marks. Hmm guess I need to be doing more housework infront her to get some extra help.

-you get excited over poops in the toilet!

-you go to bed singing abby's flying fairy school theme song, and wake up with it in your head....even though your daughter pays NO attention to the show, it's forever burned in your memory...oh damn now I'm singing it again!

-when at a restaurant with the nugget I order something, that she can share...while daddy constantly get's away with non Skyla friendly meals...hmm something needs to be done about that ;)

-when she insists sitting on YOUR lap for a story, while also insisting on a new book every 4 seconds hehee, and stops half way through, twists her head and reaches up for a kiss.

-when you watch her imitate being a mom to her babies!

She is ONE!!!

We were out of town with very limited internet access, so I wasn't able to post her birthday stuff on the big day, March 3rd. But better late then never right!?

We were visiting Mount Washington area with my inlaws, spent a couple days in their condo up there, went snowshoeing and cross-country skiing (I stuck to the snowshoes) on the big day...she fell asleep in her pull sled, about 2 minutes into the trek, I don't even think we were on the trail yet ha. Skyla slept probably 75% of the adventure heheee...she woke up when we (just daddy, mommy and Emi our dog) went off to snowshoe on dog friendly trails (not very x-country ski friendly ones) and had fun laughing at the crazy dog running around loving the snow and chasing snowballs :P

Grandpa Tom made fagita's for dinner, which did not go over well, I guess it was to spicy...she screamed bloody murder when she got the chicken in her mouth, but she loved the peanut butter picnic cake I made her. And she was really into unwrapping her gifts....very slow but into it. She would tear off a small piece of paper and then hand it to me hehee.

A slide show of her first year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiMx-ojImJo

Here are some pics from the day (more to come when I get pictures from the inlaws, my big camera was a pain to lug out while snowshoeing)

Waiting for everyone to get their gear!

Hanging out on the snow, what a poser hehee
Not so happy about the chicken fagita's
Cooling down with some peanut butter picnic cake
taking her time to unwrap her giftsWell she is one, a toddler and full of the toddler mischief, tantrums and independence...I swear a switch went off in her brain this week....lordy you are her enemy if you try to help her with something, but she also fa-reaks when something is not going her way....examples of such things that happened today
Example 1:
She put something into her highchair that was too big to pull through the leg hole, she screamed like she was being tortured because she couldn't figure out to pull it back the way she originally got it in there.

Example 2:
She was trying to put her shirt on, clearly she is not that clever yet..but she does know it goes over her. She kept putting it ON her head and would smile so proud, Daddy offered to help and she would yell at him rip the shirt out his hands, and throw it around and put it back on her head. When he did get it over her head she would curl away from him, CRY, like the works, tears pouring down and yank at the shirt and as soon as she got it off her head, she would stop and smile, so proud she did it on her own....what a little freak. But I love her ;)

Highlight of today:
She was in the same diaper ALL DAY, she held a pee for our half hour walk with Emi this morning, and then also woke up after a 2.5 hour nap DRY, and peed and pooped on the toilet when I brought her to the bathroom after waking....the evening was not as successful, I guess I got lazy and busy making dinner and dealing with a whiny pants (teething) and missed her pee cues, so that diaper got pee in it by bath time...but oh well, I'm happy with the success we had!