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…

Moving On

Well, it’s Tuesday morning.  The Patriots’ season is over and it’s time to move on.  Go ‘Hawks, I guess.

I know, I know, it’s just football and it’s entertainment and not a real life problem.

“I just want to tell you that some people have war in their countries.” 

But yesterday I spent my day off from work basically in mourning.  Normally I would be so excited to have an entire day available to spend in the kitchen making yummy stuff.  Instead, I made exactly one thing and I did so only in the interest of stuffing my face with sweets.

Rice Krispie treats!  I got this ultra-simple and delightful recipe from Becky of Glue and Glitter.  The coconut oil totally elevates it.  Try this; you won’t regret it.

With that, here is the complete, unabridged list of what I accomplished yesterday:

1) Made coffee.
2) Turned the knob of the dishwasher to “on” (probably the most useful thing I did actually)
3) Melted some stuff in a pan and called it “cooking” (seriously though it’s a fab recipe and I recommend it) 🙂
4) Ate a whole bag of baked Tostitos scoops.  Also almost an entire jar of salsa, plus my lazy bastardized version of guacamole where I take an avocado and mash it with salt, pepper, and cayenne.
5) Watched five movies.  Actually almost six, but one of the free movies On Demand that I started was too scary and also stupid to continue.

And no, I never got dressed.

But like I said, today I am moving on!  Step one:This one was a real winner: 1 cup water, 1 frozen banana, 5 frozen strawberries, 1 tbsp. hemp seeds, and 2 collard leaves, plus 1 cube of coconut water that I had frozen in an ice tray.  I cribbed that brilliant idea from Kathy of Happy Healthy Life.

Step two: tonight I actually will make dinner for myself and my dear, sweet, loving, patient husband.  I’ve got this Black Eyed Pea Curry with Collards and Potatoes from the PPK on my mind.

See you next season ❤Yes, I do have a calendar of “Football All-Stars” that you color yourself.  This was a Christmas gift from my sister, whose ingenuity in gift-giving knows no limits.

Fighting the Cold

Happy New Year!!!

In my head I like to refer to January 2nd as Apple & Carrot Stick Day, aka the day when I look around my office and see that everyone is suddenly eating a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables.

By this time next week, of course, it’ll be back to Handisnacks.  Or whatever other gross imitation of food the kids are eating these days.

Foul.

I guess I am not really all that different though since I started my day with one of these:

Greeeeeen smoothie–YUMMMM (set to the tune of the Red Robin jingle, in case my meaning wasn’t entirely clear from all those extra letters!)

My current go-to consists of 1 frozen banana, 5 frozen strawberries, 3/4 c. orange juice, 1 tbsp. hemp seeds, and about 3 cups of fresh kale.  Today I also added 1/4 c. water because it was having trouble blending.

I credit breakfasts like this for the extreme mildness of the symptoms I am experiencing from my current cold, which was a belated Christmas gift from my husband and/or sister over the weekend.  I am very fortunate to have such a strong immune system, and I’m going to need it, because this is what’s currently happening outside:

If you look closely, you can see the flakes of snow zipping horizontally past the window pane.

Yes, we’re about to get hit with a big, fat blizzard up in the New England parts.  So I’ll be fighting A cold and fighting THE cold at the same time.  *chuckle chuckle cough cough*

The snow started overnight, has continued all day, and will continue all night and into the day tomorrow.  Supposedly there will be an accumulation of 8-15 inches just between the hours of 7 and 8:30 p.m. tonight!

My office is closing at 3:00 (20 minutes from now) so I’ll be heading home to do some pre-shoveling (for the non-New Englanders, this is when you shovel and salt your driveway and path before the worst stuff has even started, in the vain hope that this will make it easier to complete the rest of the snow removal once the storm ends) and soup-making.

I’ve got this Creamy Tomato Thyme Soup from Plant Based on a Budget in mind.  Grilled cheese on the side for H and Toasty Pumpkin Chickpea Fritters from Happy. Healthy. Life for me.  Photos to come!

I hope that, wherever you are, you are safe and warm!  

What healthy foods have you been enjoying to kick off 2014?

Spilling the Greens

Get it?? It’s like beans but…green.  Except not green beans.

I’m tired.

And I’ve been spilling stuff non-stop for the past two days.  This morning I knocked over my bag of chia seeds and they went all over the floor.  Just a minute ago I knocked over my coffee mug at work and it spilled onto a case I had been reading (thankfully just a print out and not an actual court file!).

But yesterday’s spill was the king.  I had hoped to get in to work a little early, so I set up my coffee and prepped my smoothie ingredients the night before.  I was totally jamming and making great time.

I made my pretty purple smoothie:

1 cup frozen organic strawberries, 1 cup chia gel (1 tbsp. chia seeds + 1 cup water soaked overnight or longer), 1 cup fresh blueberries, 1/2 fresh banana, 1 large collard green leaf, 2 leaves of kale.  [Pause: If I made this again, I might add a touch of liquid sweetener, because my berries weren’t all that sweet.  Resume.]

As I was filling my smoothie cup, I knocked the blender bowl into it and I spilled half (okay maybe like a third) of the smoothie onto the floor.

It was disgusting and surprisingly hard to clean up.  I was not early for work.

Anyway!  I’m getting pretty pumped about Vegan MoFo (that’s the Vegan Month of Food) this year.   I’ve never participated in anything like it before.  And, as is probably crystal clear from scrolling down a few inches on this blog, I don’t publish anything close to 20 posts in a month, ever.  But I have a fun theme in mind, and I’m really excited to challenge myself to be creative and to post very frequently.  It’s starting September 1st this year, and the deadline to sign up is August 28, in case anyone else is interested.

I don’t want to reveal my MoFo theme just yet, but I will say that it does NOT focus on green foods.  I, along with many other herbivores, eat so many greens each and every day that it wouldn’t be all that daring or interesting to do a whole month on green food.  They’ll be there, of course, but not *featured* is all.

To that end, I’m doing a photo dump (or “spill” if you will…see how good I am with themes??) of some yummy green stuff I’ve eaten lately, to get ready to fill my camera up with MoFo pics.

Green Smoothies: nothing new in the blogosphere, but somehow they never get old.  I made this one at home (fresh pineapple, frozen banana, hemp seeds, kale):

And bought this beautiful thing at Whole Foods:

My wallet may never forgive me for discovering that Whole Foods has a smoothie and juice bar.  This one is called the Mighty Green and it has unsweetened non-dairy milk (you can choose from coconut, soy, almond, or rice), banana, kale, spinach, avocado, and your choice of fruit (pineapple, mango, strawberries, or blueberries).  The one pictured above was coconut milk and pineapple.  The one below was almond milk and blueberries.

SO GOOD.

Despite all of the Halloween decorations you are seeing in stores, it’s still summer, dammit, and basil is calling my name.

Half the time I go into a store (well, really, a farm stand) with no plan to buy basil, but then its aroma wafts over to me and it’s game over.  I mean, it’s never going to go bad as long as pesto is a thing.  My favorite recipe (and everyone else’s I’m sure) is the Classic Pesto from Vegan With a Vengeance.

I could eat this every day for the rest of my life and die happy.

I had a buttload of corn and black bean salad leftover from a barbecue H and I hosted at our house.  The original, ultra-simple salad recipe (by Maria Guadagno) can be found here.  I ate some of the leftovers on tortilla chips, and cooked up the rest with some onion, red bell pepper, garlic, and tomato, and added a little lime juice, fresh cilantro, and some additional cumin (because I can never have enough cumin).

For 3 days I ate it over steamed collard greens, topped with chipotle hot sauce.  Talk about cheap and cheerful!

I also have discovered this:

If you like hummus (or “hommos,” I guess?), and you like spinach artichoke dip, you have to try this.  Trust me.  It is creamy and tangy and best of all, dairy free. My favorite way to eat it is spread on crostini (also leftover in droves from this storied barbecue), but regular bread or toast would do just fine.

I want to write a little more about the barbecue H and I had, because I served up a whole lotta vegan food to a bunch of omnivores and it went over pretty swimmingly.  I also found a restaurant in the Boston suburbs that has actually heard the word “vegan” before and I want to give them a write-up too.  I’ll try to get a post on both of these topics up before Vegan MoFo begins.

Make sure you get out and enjoy the last few weeks of summer!!