Category Archives: Food

What’s in a name?

Although there are many factors that influence your impact on the earth, what and how you eat, and your transportation options and choices, are two big players.  Food and transportation choices also contribute to health, or lack thereof.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve realized that two topics really inspire the posts around here: food and bicycles.  To that end, I’m pondering changing the name of this blog to better reflect the content.


I’ve brainstormed some good title possibilities, I’m just on the fence about whether or not to actually take the plunge.

So, what do you think?  Good idea?  Bad idea?  Neutral?

Making dinner happen

Monday through Thursday,  we enact a carefully choreographed dance, working together to make and eat dinner, put The Dude to bed, and get ready to do it all again the next day.  Here’s how it goes (exact timing varies slightly):

5:00  Matthew takes the lead on dinner, starting prep as soon as he gets home from work. At a minimum, we discuss dinner plans during the day, but we’re trying to sit down on Sunday and sketch out a rough meal plan for the week.  Some sort of plan helps things run much more smoothly than the arrive home from work, hungry and tired, and stare in the fridge asking “What’s for dinner?” approach.

6:10  Gabriel and I arrive, and Matthew spends a few minutes with him (mostly involving a potty opportunity and a nice, thick diaper).  I change, hang up my clothes, use the bathroom, and grab a drink of water.

6:20  The Dude and I snuggle up on the couch, and he  eats his dinner/bedtime snack.  Meanwhile, Matthew continues working on dinner.


Assembling a new lasagna

6:40  Once Gabriel finishes eating, we head to the bedroom.  We sing his bedtime lullaby, and I lay him down for the night.  On good nights he goes down without a peep, on so-so nights, 5-10 minutes of crying, during which I agonize over all the things that I may have done wrong in the bedtime routine while anxiously awaiting the quiet.

6:45  I return to the kitchen and jump in where needed to get dinner on the table ASAP.  Most nights this happens between 7:00 and 7:30, but some nights we’re pushing 8:00, which would just be quaint and European, except we’re trying to go to bed by 9:30, which doesn’t leave much time to digest, not to mention taking care of the after dinner stuff.

7:15  Light candles, set table, and sit down to dinner.*  If we’re lucky, we’re not too tired to enjoy the delicious food in front of us.

7:50  Pack lunches for next day (usually leftovers from the previous night’s meal), complete some minimal kitchen cleanup (I’m trying to improve on this, but things tend to pile up until the weekend), and put away dinner leftovers.

This concludes the “dinner” portion of the night.  In the remaining time, we grab a few minutes relaxing on the couch with books, use our neti pots, and have a bit of dessert (if we’re hungry having just finished dinner).**  I like to have things all wrapped up, including brushing, flossing, and last call in the bathroom by 9:00 if possible, leaving a few more minutes to read in bed before lights out.

*The fact that Gabriel is not at the table with us for dinner really bugs me, because family meals are important for establishing good eating habits.  Unfortunately, given my current work schedule and his current bedtime (which may sound incredibly early, but really seems to work for him), our options are limited.
**Some nights we also engage in fun extracurricular activities during this time, like hanging the diapers 😉

Baked oatmeal

Growing up, I always looked forward to mornings when my dad made baked oatmeal.  The summer after my junior year in college, I found myself in New Jersey, far, far away from my family and friends in the Midwest, working as a live-in nanny, and craving this taste of home.

I scoured the internet for recipes that resembled the baked oatmeal I knew and loved, something simple yet delicious.  I experimented with one or two recipes, that, while okay, were not what I remembered.  Not what I wanted.  (I’m not sure why I didn’t just call my parents and ask for the recipe — that would have been too logical.)

My husband, who, try as he might, can’t stomach a bowl of traditional oatmeal, likes this.  Something about the dryness and texture of it being baked, versus the gooey-ness of regular oatmeal.  The added fat and sugar don’t hurt, either 😉

This makes a nice change to my normal big bowl of oatmeal, and it’s a fun treat for a weekend morning.  Leftovers reheat well.

Baked Oatmeal
Serves 6

Ingredients
1/3 c. butter/margarine
1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. milk (soy, dairy, whatever you use)
3 t. baking powder
3 c. quick oats
Cinnamon and brown sugar
Sliced apples, or dried apples or cranberries*

Directions
Grease a 9 inch pie pan and preheat the oven to 350° F.  Combine quick oats and baking powder in a small bowl.  Cream butter and sugar, then mix in the eggs, followed by the milk.  Spread the mixture in the prepared pan.

Cut an apple or two into thin slices (peeling first is optional — my dad always peeled the apples, but leaving them on is faster and more nutritious).  Arrange the apple slices on top of the oat mixture.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and a bit of brown sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes, testing the center  — it should not be gooey.  Serve hot, with milk poured over the top, if you like.

*If you want a shortcut, or just don’t have fresh apples, you can sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar directly on top of the oat mixture and bake it sans apple slices.  Serve with dried apples or cranberries.

When in Rome . . .

. . . eat Indian food???  Absolutely!

When we were in Italy last spring, our first dinner in Rome came after we’d been traveling in other parts of the country for over a week, and, quite frankly, we were ready for something other than Italian food.  We made our way to Shanti, an Indian restaurant recommended by one of our guide books, and enjoyed one of the best meals of our entire trip, including one dish in particular.

Fellow blogger Nupur (One Hot Stove) was kind enough to help us identify the dish as malai kofta (see her comment on this post for recipe links).  We haven’t gotten around to making malai kofta ourselves, but we identified a couple of local Indian restaurants that serve the dish.

Over the weekend, we finally made the trek to House of India for our fix.  I liked the idea of their lunch buffet, but I called to investigate and they told me that the malai kofta is never on the buffet.  Further, they ONLY offer the buffet at lunch time.  What to do?

Go for the lunch buffet and order malai kofta from the takeout menu, which is available any time.  Clever, no?

We enjoyed a nice buffet lunch and left with a double order of malai kofta to enjoy later.  I brought a glass container to avoid polystyrene or other disposable plastic to-go containers, and our server agreed to use it, no problem 🙂

We heated half of the malai kofta for dinner last night, and it was every bit as delicious as we remembered.

Great eats

“Great eats” sounds a bit more descriptive, or at least more appetizing, than “Food dump” (the working title of this post), wouldn’t you agree?  We pretty much rocked the kitchen last weekend, yielding a week’s worth of delicious food along the way.

Eating well, especially with a baby in the picture, requires time and effort, I’m not gonna lie to you.*  It works, though, because we enjoy spending time cooking and baking — and the results are totally worth it (the resulting food, that is, NOT the resulting state of the kitchen)!

Friday
Anyhow, the great food parade began last Friday, when I whipped up a big pot of Easy Black Bean Soup to share with our special dinner guests — Gabriel’s great-grandparents — who drove all the way from Texas!  We served the soup with a side of wonderful bread.

How easy is “easy,” you ask?  Easy enough for me to make while home alone with The Dude all day and have dinner on the table before five-thirty.**

Saturday

  • Started the day by making some baked oatmeal, a favorite family recipe from my childhood.
  • Soon thereafter, Matthew started in on his almond croissant project.
  • Dinner = a tasty curry, featuring our garden potatoes and cabbage.

Sunday

  • The culmination of the almond croissant project provided our mid-morning snack.  Matthew’s first attempt at making croissants = huge success!  Watch out, Medici Bakery!
  • For lunch, we feasted on our first attempt of Pi-style deep-dish pizza.
  • Dinner brought a protein-packed Pad Thai.
Almond croissants, fresh out of the oven

Obviously I have some more recipes to post.  Look for those soon.  In the meantime, you can check out the current offerings on the updated and reorganized Green Recipes page.

Finally, you have five more days to vote for Her Green Life in the Circle of Moms Top Vegetarian and Vegan Moms, and you can vote once every 24 hours.  Thanks for your support!

*More on our evening/dinner routine in a coming post.
**A good two hours earlier than we usually eat these days, but it allowed Gabriel to sit at the table with us.