Change Is In the Air

Well hello there!

I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last post. I know that I personally don’t enjoy reading blog posts where the author starts out with drawn out explanations and apologies for being away, but I do have some reasons for my long silence and I’d like to at least address them briefly.

My life has changed dramatically in the past few months since Baby H was born. I still love blogging and I definitely still love food, but both of those things have shifted way down on my list of daily priorities.

I’ve been back at work for a little over a month now and am only just starting to get settled into some sort of a rhythm, albeit a hectic one. Each day, I get up, pack Baby H’s daycare bag, drop him off at daycare, sit in traffic on the way to work, work all day (as well as fitting in 3 pumping sessions), then leave work, sit in traffic on my way to pick up Baby H from daycare, and then go home and spend the rest of the evening trying to entertain him until bedtime, while simultaneously attempting to clean bottles and breast pump parts and get everything ready for the next day when I get to do it all over again.

It’s not just that I don’t have the time and energy to blog, but also that the subject matter I used to write about has become kind of inapplicable. I basically never cook anymore. If I have time to eat in the evening, I do, but it’s not like I’m whipping up any culinary marvels.

Case in point: last Tuesday, for Cinco de Mayo, I really wanted tacos. So, I made some. I made the easiest, most bare bones black bean tacos imaginable, using several premade ingredients (shells, seasoning, etc.).

All I did was saute some chopped onions and garlic, add a 15 oz. can of rinsed black beans, an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce, and half a packet of taco seasoning, and then I stirred in some chopped kale at the end.

I did manage to pick out an amazing avocado for a topper!

The tacos came out really tasty but, like, is that really something to blog about? I’m not sure anymore.

It was the first time I had cooked anything since Baby H was 9 weeks old (he’s 17 weeks now). I couldn’t even get it together to bake a cake for his christening this past weekend. We ended up serving a storebought (non-vegan) cake instead.

So, this is the biggest thing that’s been keeping me away from blogging–this feeling that I no longer have anything worthwhile to share about vegan cooking and eating.

The point of this post is not to have a pity party however, but to give myself a chance to get back on track with blogging by allowing myself a bit more flexibility with the theme. It’s my blog after all! Going forward I will be focusing more on mindful eating and an overall healthy lifestyle, especially with an infant in tow, and my posts will reflect this.

I hope the content will still be interesting enough that those who have read this blog for a long time will want to stick around, but of course I’ll understand if some decide to move on.

Finally, I do intend to keep posting photos of delicious vegan food on social media, so if this is of interest to you, definitely follow me on Instagram! I’ll be posting lots of good stuff with the hastag #whatveganseat.

xoxo
A.Cook, still in the making

The Soup Solution

As the days until I have to return to work rapidly dwindle, it seems my to-do list just gets longer and longer.  I’m trying not to stress over it and to instead focus on enjoying these last few days where it’s just me and the little guy.

Sigh. #maternityleave

I’m especially determined to enjoy this time coming off of last week, which was not the most fun one we’ve had.  I got sick (for the first time in, like, seven years) and my sickness coincided with a major sleep regression for Baby H.  It was a tough week, but we’ve both come out the other end alive and in one piece, and I feel like I’ve definitely earned my stripes through this motherhood rite of passage.

During that hellish week, I found myself with very few chances to eat.  This was partially due to a reduced appetite, and also to my desperate quest to catch any amount of sleep I could whenever the opportunity presented itself.  One thing that worked out amazingly well for me though was the super-simple standby of soup and crackers.

I bought this box of Imagine tomato soup a couple of months ago when I was stocking up for maternity leave, and it was perfect. Not only was it quick and easy on the tummy, but there’s nothing quite like a steaming bowl of soup to help you fight off bouts of the chills.

I normally would skip over any tomato soup labeled “creamy,” but I was familiar with the brand so I decided to check the ingredients list, and what do you know? It’s vegan!

It tastes exactly like the sugary, canned junk of my childhood but is so much more wholesome.  And don’t worry, I balanced out the healthiness of the soup by adding some crushed up Wheat Thins (speaking of sugary junk! haha) on top.

Now off I go to play with my boy 🙂

Curry Saves the Day

Whew–it’s been another whirlwind couple of weeks!  One week, poor Baby H was sick with an ear infection, followed by a big growth spurt, then the week after it was time for his two-month checkup (complete with his first round of shots).  He has grown so much already and is becoming more fun, alert, and engaging every day as he learns more and more about his world.  All I can really do is try to keep up!

It isn’t always easy to take good care of myself when it feels like all of my energy is being put toward this miraculous new person.  My diet has been far less than stellar and oftentimes I forget to eat at all.  And then there are other times when the little guy FINALLY falls asleep that I am racing to fit in at least 1 or 2 of the 68094887324 things on my to-do list.

Exhibit 1:

This is my dining room table right now.  I’m trying to sort through Baby H’s clothes, putting away the stuff that doesn’t fit him anymore (there’s a lot of it!) and organizing the stuff that does so that it’s easier and quicker to get him dressed throughout the day (and yes, he goes through multiple outfit changes daily!).

Enter last night; around 6:00, baby boy went down for (what I thought was) his pre-bedtime nap and I figured I’d finally have the time to tackle some of the clothes sorting.  That was when I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since about noon.  So the plan changes to: eat, then sort.

Fortunately, in the fridge I had a big batch of Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry (an all-time fave from Veganomicon) that I cooked up last week when my mom was here visiting and watching the baby.  I grabbed a baggie of brown rice that I had cooked and frozen when Baby H was about 3 weeks old and stuck it in the microwave to defrost for a few minutes.

Almost immediately the cries started from upstairs.  So I went up, picked up Baby H, and rocked him for about 10 minutes to get him to go back to sleep.  Meanwhile I could hear the stupid microwave beeping every 2 minutes downstairs to remind me that my rice was done.  All I could think was, “That had better not wake him up!”

Once Baby H was back down, I went back downstairs, added the curry to the defrosted rice, and began to  heat them up.  Once it was ready, I began to eat and even started drafting a blog post.  
Except that not five minutes later the crying started again (this time sounding pretty mad, actually).   I hurriedly shoveled the last few bites of curry into my mouth and went back upstairs to pick up Baby H again.

So, the clothes are still covering the dining room table.  But at least I had dinner!

Thanks, curry.

Blogging With Baby

Oh my goodness.  That blogging once a week goal I set a few weeks ago didn’t exactly pan out, did it?

In terms of time management, this baby business is so much harder than I expected it would be!  Turns out Baby H is a pretty clingy little guy and wants to be held almost all the time.  Now that he’s almost six weeks old, he’s becoming more aware of his surroundings and is more interested in playing, so I have increasingly more opportunities to put him down while I play with him, but he still seems to prefer to spend the majority of the time in my arms.

I’ve discovered that he loves to be in his baby carrier, so at least once a day I try to strap that on and get some stuff done around the house.  Eating and tidying up his areas usually comes first, followed by catching up on emails (especially as we continue our search for a nanny for when I go back to work in just six short weeks), followed by trying to finish up the endless amount of thank you cards and birth announcements I still have to send out.  After that, I would probably next turn to blogging, but unfortunately, I have to consider it a victory if he sleeps long enough for me to do even one of these things.

Nevertheless, today I find myself with a few extra minutes and dying to check in with the blog world!

As you can imagine, my eating habits have been less than ideal during these whirlwind past few weeks. Sometimes I don’t even realize I haven’t made time to eat at all until I find myself absolutely ravenous while breastfeeding at 3:00 a.m. and have to make myself a quick bag of microwave popcorn just to stay upright. The majority of the time, I just eat whatever is available, quick, and *clean* (take my word on this one…trying to eat spaghetti with one hand while holding a sleeping or nursing infant in the other does not end well).

One thing I’ve been eating like they’re going out of style lately is lentil dishes.   They’re cheap, filling, and taste good warm or cold…all wins for me at the moment. Finding time to cook has been one of my biggest challenges of all, so I’ve been buying most of my food pre-made, but I did also actually make two dishes myself!

Store-bought:


So good. Exactly what you’d expect from TJ’s.

I also got a really tasty lentil soup from a local cafe called La Provence, which has a bunch of great veg options:

And finally, I whipped up a batch of the tried and true Veganomicon classic, Snobby Joes.

These were a lifesaver, as I was able to scoop them up with tortilla chips using only one hand. I definitely want to make another batch ASAP.

I also made a Lentil Celery Root Soup using this recipe from Fit Pregnancy.

To veganize, I just subbed agave nectar for the honey and left off the parmesan cheese. The soup came out pretty good–it’s pretty sweet (in fact, you could probably leave out the honey/agave entirely), and very thick. Definitely best enjoyed with some crusty bread. The recipe also made a TON so my freezer also found itself with some new additions.

I’ll be back again just as soon as I can find the time 🙂

It’s a Boy!!!

Some of you may have guessed from my extended recent absence that Baby H has made his debut!

He was born the morning of January 8, 2015, weighing a sturdy 8 pounds 5 ounces and measuring 21.5 inches long.  We have been home from the hospital a little over a week and it’s been quite a whirlwind!  He’s an amazing baby; really sweet and snuggly, and also alert and really strong!  We are quite taken with him.

I experienced some extensive blood loss following delivery and was severely anemic for a few days afterward, so I’m taking an iron supplement and have been trying to get lots of rest (the ultimate catch 22 with a newborn!) and eat as healthfully as possible.

Impossibly large bowls of oatmeal (also good for lactation!) and green smoothies have been lifesavers.

Plus a big batch of Becky’s Spinach Artichoke Dip with Garlic Cashew Cream is great for one-handed dipping 🙂

Blogging is definitely still something I intend to do, albeit with somewhat less frequency as I adjust to my new life as a mother.  My goal is going to be once a week but please don’t hold it against me if it turns out to be a bit less here and there.  I do have some fun posts pre-scheduled in the next few weeks so do look out for those!

Oh and I hope to be back to reading and commenting on all of your blogs soon too! Don’t be surprised if the majority of the comments are timestamped in the wee hours of the morning…