myspace

i've been avoiding myspace since it's creation - i really think it's stupid, but j. put up a myspace page for his art, so i made mine to be one of his friends. lame, i know, but the owner of the gallery where he is showing his art told him it would be a good idea and i try to be supportive. anyway, as i'm making my page, i begin searching for my friends and and i found my three closest girlfriends from high school. i'm a little weirded about by having to ask them all to "be my friend" just so i can send them messages, but whatever. my friend kristin is who i'm really excited to hear back from, i'll be totally disappointed if i don't. she was one of my favorite people in the whole world - so funny i nearly peed every time we hung out, which was almost daily. i was so sad when she moved to california our sophomore year . . . wow - it's been a long time.

on a different note, i totally made it to the gym this morning. it wasn't as hard to get up as i thought, mainly cuz my throbbing toothache wouldn't let me get back to bed. so i just took 3 tylenol and got dressed. I'M SO OUT OF SHAPE! i can't believe how hard it was for me this morning - i didn't even make it one whole mile without stopping to walk. i'm glad my goal is the half marathon - after my run this morning i'm starting to wonder if even that is achievable at this point.

as for dinner, i made a salad and we just ate the rest of last nite's pizza. after working all day and being up at 3:30, i wasn't in the mood to cook. j. didn't mind and the pizza was almost as good today as it was last nite.

pizza

j. and i decided to have pizza for dinner tonite. we bought an amy's roasted vegetable pizza at the store the other day, which doesn't have cheese but has yummy looking veggies on the box. i also bought some 'follow your heart' mozzarella that i shredded on top. now, the cheese didn't melt, however it did get brown, which looks nice enough i suppose. j. took one bite and spit it out immediately. i laughed and he tried another bite, swallowing this one, but hesitantly. anyway, we ended up ordering a veggie lovers pizza from pizza hut with extra sauce and no cheese, thin crust. it was so good!

i feel a little guilty about having pizza for dinner since i talked myself out of going to the gym tonite. i'm having a hard time finding balance in my life right now. i hate having p. in daycare for 9 hours and when we get home in the evening, all i want to do is play with him and cuddle. unfortunately, that cuts into my gym time - i haven't been in almost a week, and last week i only went once (on my day off!). i've decided that i would like to run the 1/2 marathon in january and should really start training for it now since i'm starting at below zero (i haven't done any substantial running since i got pregnant, last august!). however, i can't seem to go and get off my ass to get to the gym. between being tired and wanting to hang out with p. and j., i don't know when i'll go. i'm going to try and get up at 3:30 so that i can be at the gym by 4:30 and hopefully get some running in. i've copied some training programs to help me get ready, one says i can be ready for a full marathon in 18 weeks, the other in 30. hopefully i'll be able to be ready for the 1/2 in 25 weeks, cuz that's all the time i've got. i hesitate to even talk about this in case i end up never going to the gym (which is always a possibility), but maybe announcing my goal to the world (or just to j. since he's the one who reads this) will help me to stay with it. anyway, this week i wanted to run 4x - 1.5 miles, then 3 miles, then 1.5 miles and then 3 more miles. if i start tomorrow morning, i'll have to run wed, thurs, fri, and sat - 4 in a row instead of 2 and 2. i'm ok with that, i just need to get out of bed!

fingers crossed!

missing feta

for dinner i made couscous with grape tomatoes and asparagus. i used to add feta, before we quit eating cheese, and i can't seem to find a good replacement. the recipe is super simple and delicious, shame i forgot to take a picture cuz it's pretty too. anyway, it's 2 cups of couscous, one container of grape tomatoes halved (probably about 2 cups also) and a bunch of asparagus. cook the couscous and asparagus, mix together with the raw tomatoes, add olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. it's not as moist or creamy as when it had the feta and i don't have any good ideas for a substitution, but it's still good. it leaves you full but not stuffed or bloated.

that's about all the cooking i've done for the past few days. j. and i went to jerome on saturday with my parents. it was fun and the food was good. there's a pizza place we like going to up there but i got stuck being the designated driver this time. j. was celebrating getting an offer to be represented by a gallery. yay j!!!!

it's sad but i can't even remember what we ate the rest of the week. well, last night j. and i split a bagel with hummus cuz neither of us were very hungry. there's a local company called vegetas that makes super yummy garlic hummus and since we went grocery shopping yesterday, we picked up a big container and wolfed some down.

back to work

well, maternity leave was great. me, j. and p. all hanging out together, every day for 10 weeks! naps, flip flops, not knowing what day it is and laughing about it. but now it's back to the real world. j. is back to work, and i worked mon and tues this week, then i'm back full time next monday. i was super, super depressed about taking p. to day care. j. and i checked out at least 6 different child care centers and only found one that we even considered taking him to. it's really a beautiful place, the staff is super, super friendly and they are all so nice to p. that i feel better about it. i wish i could stay home with him and work at the same time, i miss being my own person but it was dreadful to be at work without him. the last half an hour went so slow and i was giddy with excitement to go pick him up.

anyway, back to food. i've cooked dinner a few times in the last few days, namely two dishes. the first one was chilli, which i made with yves meat crumbles. i've never tried to cook with them before, j. and i aren't really big on the fake meat usually. i thought they were good, j. had to warm up to them. we agreed that the texture was pretty authentic but j. thought they had no taste and that weirded him out a bit. that said, he took chilli to work for lunch and we also ate it for dinner too. i took canned black beans, pinto beans and kidney bean, rinsed them and then heated them in some veggie broth. i added a large canned of stewed tomatoes, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, oregano and parsley. i sauteed some onion and garlic and added those and the meat crumbles to the pot. i just heated everything to boiling and then simmered it until we were ready to eat. it made about 6-8 servings, depending on the size of your bowls.

then last nite i made pasta and tried to use up some veggies that were going bad. i used green beans and mushrooms, i also threw in some fennel. now, i've never cooked with fennel before and only knew how to cut it because i saw it on the food network. i think the pieces were too big and i may not have cooked them long enough, although they added a good texture being kind of crunchy against my beans, pasta and shrooms. anyway, i sauteed garlic (4 cloves) and 1/2 an onion in some olive oil while my pasta boiled and my green beans cooked. i threw in the mushrooms and about 1/2 way through cooking them i added the fennel. i threw it all together in a bowl, added olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh lemon juice. i ended up added more lemon juice and salt once i sat down to eat it, but all in all it came out really good. we're having it again for dinner tonite! this one made about 4 servings.

farmer's market

went to the farmer's market this morning. i felt rushed because we had a. there and i know he thinks things like that are boring, but he was good and i got to do a little bit of shopping.

got all this food for less than $12. the pic doesn't do it justice - we got tons of green beans, tomatoes, peaches that are the BEST i've had all summer, and corn that aren't really in the picture. but j. takes way better foodie pics than i do, so he's become my official food pornographer. lol.

the beans & quinoa and the pasta i made on thursday have given j. and i plenty of leftovers to eat the past two days, so i haven't done much cooking. i showed them both to a. and asked if he wanted to eat with us, but he didn't think either looked very appetizing. oh well. can't please everyone.

today is my dad's birthday and we'll be at j's mom's house for a while this weekend, so i may not have to cook for another few meals, but i'll be sure to post when i get back to it.

on a separate note, there are two veg restaurants that i just found out about in phoenix - the persian garden cafe and the mandala tea room. as soon as i get my bank account out of the red i'm going to both - i'm totally excited!

three beans and quinoa

i made lunch today - j. loved it and said it's his favorite vegan recipe to date. i made some quinoa using veggie broth instead of water.

then in a seperate pot i heated up 1 can of each trader joe's organic black beans, organic kidney beans and organic pinto beans. i threw in some salt and pepper and some garlic powder.

once my quinoa was done, i added the beans, some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a little more salt and a little more garlic. here's the final product.

in hindsight, i would probably leave out the olive oil since it didn't add much to the flavor, just calories. it made about six servings, so there's more than enough for us both to have lunch tomorrow. j. had two helpings and i'm totally full off of one, so i'm calling this one a success. yay!

thought it would be a good idea to give you some idea as to who i am and what my life is like. i live in arizona with my husband, j., and my son, p., who is 10 weeks old today. j. has a son who comes to stay with us every other weekend and we take him to dinner one night a week. we live in a nice house in a neighborhood we despise with our 5 dogs. i know that sounds a bit excessive, but two of the dogs weren't really supposed to be ours to begin with.


we had our three dogs, two chihuahuas and a weimaraner, then one day when we made our morning circle k run before work, we saw a man with the cutest puppy trying to give him away to anyone who would take him. he told us that his neighbor got evicted and left the dog tied to the doorknob when he left. (a few weeks later at a pet store we saw identical puppies for sale, so we kind of think the dog was stolen, but the owner didn't know what he was getting). anyway, we gave the puppy to j's mom for xmas, only to have him returned two days later. he's a really super dog now that he's house broken and done being a puppy. circle k dog decided to fall in love with our weimaraner and they had a litter of puppies. (no worries, everyone is now spayed/neutered.) the whole litter was successfully given away to super good homes (friends/co-workers of ours) except the runt. we gave him to a good guy with one other dog, but apparently his dog didn't want to make nice, so we ended up with the runt back in our family. i suppose that means it was meant to be. lol.


i'm studying to be a librarian, i'm not one yet. i've got one more year to go and then i'm finished with my master's and with school, forever. i can't tell you how tired i am of writing papers, studying for tests, blah blah blah. j. is also earning his master's, only in illustration. j's a painter with crazy talent and has had several gallery shows here in town. i think it's only a matter of time before he makes it big. here's a pic from the last gallery opening on june 30th. it was a full house all night long. he had four paintings up but you can't really see them from this picture. unfortunately, that's the only real picture we have of the place, but you can check more out at http://www.windupgallery.com/.

well, that's all i have to say right now. obviously that's not all there is to me, but i'm tired of typing and besides, if i said it all right now, what would i post next time?

day 3

so today is day three of my vegan diet and the food has been so-so. i've been a vegetarian for over a year now and i'm moving on to a vegan diet for a few reasons: 1) it seems to be the natural progression of things 2)my 'baby fat' hasn't gone away even though my son was born 10 weeks ago and i've been nursing the entire time 3) i was on my way to veganism before i got pregnant but was worried that i wouldn't do it right so i went back to eating cheese and eggs.

my super-supportive husband, j., jumped right on the vegan bandwagon with me. in fact, it was kind of his idea. when i was pregnant, i began eating fish when the craving hit me, mostly because i was worried it was a sign that i wasn't getting enough protein. my husband has eaten fish since going veg (i think they call that a lacto-ovo-pescetarian) and just a few weeks ago decided that he was done eating fish. then the other day in the kitchen he told me that he thought maybe it was time to quit with the cheese, eggs, dairy, etc., too.

i pretty much gave up the dairy/eggs/etc. on the spot and i guess he did too, since we eat together all the time (minus the ice cream bar he ate at my mom's house). anyway, i've been searching through vegan blogs and websites for info ever since and decided to chart my own adventure.

i cooked twice today (i've been cooking a lot since being on maternity leave). lunch was an italian dish - penne and tofu. i sauteed garlic and onions, then added chopped tofu, oregano and parsley. i boiled up some whole wheat penne and then threw it all together with some marinara and basil sauce i bought from trader joe's. i topped it off with some fresh basil from the plant in my window sill.

the final product was good, although you could hardly taste the garlic, despite me using 6 cloves! so i ended up sprinkling on some garlic powder and a little salt and pepper. j. said it was tasty and would definitely eat it again. i wish the same could be said for my dinner!

i used some wild yam soba noodles, threw on some frozen asain veggies and topped it off with some teryaki/soy/sesame sauce i whisked together. i put a few red pepper flakes on top, but it still came out looking a little gray for my liking. j. was nice enough to swallow the first bite, but the look on his face told me we were going out for dinner.

i didn't think it was inedible, but the subway veggie delite i ended up with was 1000x better for sure.