What's your vice?

So it's Friday and the end of my work week is getting closer and I am feeling excited about picking up the Pepper from daycare, coming home, hanging out, and then once D is done with his work sharing our Friday tradition: tequila shots! Ok, I know that sounds really immature but there is something about a tequila shot that really relaxes me. It's like a little hammer to anxiety. And sometimes I need a little help unwinding and easing into the slower pace of the weekend.

I can admit that of all the vices alcohol is probably mine. I've never been interested in smoking, I eat pretty healthily, I stick to an exercise routine. But everyone gets to have one vice right? And I am a lady who enjoys a glass of wine. Or a little sipping tequila (and of course I'm talking about in moderation). I like the social aspect of drinking and love getting together with friends over some wine. I also enjoy the times D and I have to ourselves and we pour some drinks and sit on the porch and talk. It's probably a cultural thing. The family I grew up in often included alcohol in meals or get-to-gethers. My mom is from a former British colony and she herself grew up with a 5pm daily cocktail hour so that spilled over into my home life. But it always made things feel social as people would come over to have a cocktail and everyone would sit around the table and talk while they enjoyed their drink. Even kids too young to drink knew it was a time designated to sitting back and relaxing and being together.

Now that we are so close to wine country I'm hoping to take more trips up to the beautiful Santa Ynez. Also, loved this validating article on the benefits of combining wine and fitness :)

Cheers to Friday! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

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Unusually excited about growing my own herbs

The above picture isn't the prettiest but I wanted to share it because I am unexpectedly excited about my tiny growing basil plants! I've been wanting to grow my own herbs for a long time but in our loft in LA there just wasn't the right place to do it. We didn't have a sunny window sill for pots and I wasn't prepared to get crafty and build some amazing at-home herb tower like some of my friends did. But, now that we are in a new home I have the perfect kitchen window sill. I bought these pots, this soil, and these seeds. I started off slow: I planted some basil and parley seeds and anxiously waited to see if anything woudl happen. Within days I had adorable little basil shoots! The parsely took longer but yesterday I saw my first little parsley plant poke up from the soil. I'm thrilled.

So now I've also planted some mint and some cilantro and I'm obsessively watching to see how tings develop. I've always hated purchasing herbs because I feel I can never buy the portion I actually want or need. Growing my own feels economical, and it was surprisingly easy. If all goes well with these first four I'm going to want to expand my little garden (though I know D will have a problem if pots start taking over his kitchen).

Anyone have any tips for indoor herb growing?

Picture of my little basil plants

Recipes: current favorites

I realized that I haven't written about any favorite recipes recently and then I realized why: when we moved we had to give up our wonderful CSA. Without the deliveries of new and surprising fruits and veggies I haven't had to seek out and try new recipes. But the flip-side is that our produce deliveries have been replaced by trips to the local Farmer's Market. Ojai is an agricultural valley so you can imagine that the farmer's market here is pretty excellent. We love our new Sunday morning tradition of going to the farmer's market as a family. The Pepper is the sample queen and I even had her wear a bib around this last Sunday to sop up the berry juice she always has running down her chin as we walk around the stalls. And once we get the fruit home we seem to be enjoying it in it's pure form. I've been eating a lot more fruit just as is, and chopping up my veggies for a simple quick salad. This has meant I've been cooking fewer "recipes".

But, we did recently have some friends come visit us for the weekend and I wanted to cook everyone a nice dinner. There were two new things I did that were a huge hit:

Roasted Cauliflower & Chickpeas with Mustard and Parsley: This was all gone by the end of the meal. It's a great vegetarian side dish and my friend left with the recipe so she could make it at home.

Roasted Artichokes with Lemon & Garlic: This was the best artichoke I've ever made. I've boiled them before but never found them to be special or worth remaking. But the artichokes at the farmer's market looked so good I had to buy one. Turns out the secret is actually roasting them! I served it with some metled butter for dipping and even the 6 year old liked it.

Once we've settled in to our new routine more I want to get a bit more organized with my weekly meal planning and not rely so much on the usual quick throw-together dinners. But for now I'm just happy we have access to great produce and we're all enjoying the bounty that this valley has to offer.

Image of the Roasted Artichoke via.

Thinking about summer! And gelato

It's summer and there are two things that I closely associate with the season: rosé wine and gelato. And both of these have to do with previous summer adventures. As a teenager and into college I was lucky enough to be able to visit family friends for a few weeks over a couple summers. These friends lived a few hours outside of Geneva near a town called Bursinel. My time at their home was about walking through local vineyards, exploring sunflower fields, eating delicious food, and going out on leisurely boat rides. And it was also where I was introduced to rosé. For years it was the only place I would be offered this perfect summer wine and to this day I feel those memories whenever I drink it.

If rosé means summers in Switzerland, gelato to me means summers in Italy. Two years ago we took a trip to Italy so that D could participate in a music festival that took place in a town called Pavia. There is a lot I could write about that trip. Not only did we make wonderful friends while there, we also learned I was pregnant with the Pepper just a few days into the trip! But what I'm thinking about today is the amount of gelato we ate during our stay. Pavia has an amazing gelateria that we frequented on an almost daily basis. And we weren't the only ones. It was late afternoon on the first day of our trip and as we were exploring the city I started noticing how many people were eating gelato. All different sorts of people (families, girlfriends, men in business suits, teenagers, elderly couples) were enjoying an evening stroll accompanied by a cone of delicious gelato! I would often joke while on the trip that I wanted to do a photo series of men eating gelato and I so regret that I didn't follow through! Upon seeing this D and I decided we had to adopt this wonderful routine ourselves. And our regular gelato excursions became some of my most cherished memories from the trip.

It was not something we replicated when we got him but a new gelato place opened up just up the street from us and D was nice enough to bring home some pistachio and salted caramel for me the other day. As I sat at my work computer enjoying my treat I was taken right back to sitting next to the magnificent San Michele Maggiore and enjoying my day's selection of gelato in the soft evening Italian light.

Enjoy your long holiday weekend and your own summer traditions!

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Healthy eating is hard

 

I think one reason we as a culture are fascinated by celebrities is we're a little jealous of the fabulous lives we imagine they lead. Gwyneth Paltrow seems to have become the ultimate embodiment of the privileged celebrity disconnected from us mere mortals. I don't find her as annoying as some, but I really loved this article by a woman who tried to live Gwyneth's life for a week, at least when it came to food as described in her cookbook. The big take away: it is great to eat healthy! It does make you feel better! And probably look better! But it's very expensive and labor intensive. Lindy West, who conducted the experiment, wrote "The workload is CONSTANT. This is a meal plan for people with a housekeeper and a chef." Yeah, not surprised to hear that. In my experience it takes commitment to eat yummy, healthy, made at home meals. I have a friend who adopted a raw food diet to battle her cancer naturally. It actually seemed to work wonders but it also meant she spent the entire day making and preparing food. And if you are a working parent without the ability to hire help it's hard to fit in time to prepare food. The vegetable chopping alone on some recipes can take over a half hour if you don't have fancy tools to help. I struggle with it and that's one reason I like to share recipes that I find work well for our family. But sometimes we run out of time and go the easy route. Last night we ordered pepperoni pizza for dinner because neither D or I had energy to prepare a meal. And I'm ok with that. I try not to be extreme about things and it's about balance. If I can make the Pepper a yummy kale and hemp smoothie for most of her weekday snacks, I know the occasional pizza won't kill us. But I do like preparing food and I feel triumphant when our family has a healthy home-cooked meal on the table, so I am jealous of those who find a way to make that happen more than I can.

Any tips or tricks for at-home healthy eating you want to share?

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Recipes: current favorites

The Pepper has started to get picky about her food. I think this is a combo of her being able to communicate with us ("No No!") and now that she feeds herself she can pick around the healthier items. So I'm trying to get creative with incorporating veggies into meals. Here are my current favorites and as usual, this list includes it's fair amount of soup :)

Lentil Soup with Coconut: Yummy and very healthy vegan soup. The lentils provide a great source of fiber and protein but also help control cholesterol and improve heart health. Plus, you get the added pepper, carrots, and celery that get "hidden" in the coconut-y broth well enough for the Pepper to not notice them.

Parker's Split Pea Soup: Slit Pea Soup was one of my favorites as a kid so I'm thrilled to be re-discovering it. The Pepper loves this soup. And the dried peas have many of the same benefits of the lentils along with tons of Potassium. I make this with our home-made chicken broth and even D who doesn't like this sort of soup always seems happy to eat it.

Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta:  The Pepper loves her pasta, so this recipe is a way to sneak some broccoli into her dinner. And I really like it too!

Any suggestions for recipes that help kids eat healthy?

Image of the Lentil Soup with Coconut via.

Favorite quick lunch

Even though I grew up in California I only recently discovered a taste for avocados. Since my dad is from the East Coast and my mom is from Africa, they just weren't part of our family diet. But I'm so glad avocados have come into my life. Not only are they super healthy, they help me put together quick meals. Working at home it is crucial for me to be able to throw something easy together in the middle of my busy work days. And one of my favorite quick lunches is toast topped with avocado.

But I have a trick (that I stole from these guys) to make avocado toast even tastier: coconut oil. Spread some coconut oil on the toast underneath the avocado. It's a subtle addition but it matches the avocado so nicely and gives it some depth. Top the avocado with a pinch of salt and you've got a great lunch!

Image from my instagram.

Recipes: Current favorites

This post could also be called "Recipes to use up my CSA delivery". One of the reasons I love our CSA is that it challenges me to get out of my comfort zone. I will get vegetables I wouldn't buy myself if I were at the farmers market (such as fennel or cauliflower) and when certain items are in season and more prevalent, I need to get creative. Here are recent recipes I've made that helped me use up our recent deliveries, and they all came out deliciously! And you can see that two of the recipes are soups. Yes, my soup love continues.

Curried Carrot Soup: For when you get carrots. I've roasted carrots and done Moroccan carrot salads, but this is my families favorite way to enjoy carrots. Plus you can make it spicy (which is key in our household). The Pepper loves it.

Beet, Ginger, and Coconut Milk Soup: For when you get beets. I was really running out of ways to use beets so I was so happy to find this recipe. The coconut milk is a brilliant idea and compliments the beet flavor in a way I would never have guessed. And we love ginger so I increased the ginger to about 3 tablespoons.

Baked Kale Chips: For when you get Kale. Since I had recently made my go-to kale pesto recipe, this was a great alternative. I think everyone should have this recipe in their back-pocket because they come out really yummy. And you can tweak it to your liking. I used some Spanish rosemary salt for example and the bowl of chips was gone by the end of the day.

Image of the Beet soup.

Recipes: current favorites

While I was pregnant D and I knew we'd soon be eating more meals at home. In preparation we decided to create a family recipe collection. My first thought was to buy a cute little recipe box with pretty index cards, but D wisely convinced me to use Evernote and it's working out great. We have a "Family Recipes" notebook that we share and we can access the recipes on any of our devices (laptop, iPad, phone). Plus we can search for recipes based on keywords and use tags (like "Breakfast" or "Vegan"). At this moment we have 409 recipes, yikes! But it's good as we do try have variety in our food. We haven't tried them all yet though but as we go through them some we keep and some we delete. Here are my current (and newly discovered) favorites:

Kale and Walnut Pesto: Delicious, healthy, and easy to make. I like to have it around because i can toss it with some pasta for dinner or use it to make a sandwich for a quick lunch.

Lentil and Coconut Soup: This is great take on a lentil soup as the coconut really adds a wonderful taste. Another healthy one that stores well so I can have it aorund to use for lunch or dinner. And it's actually both a vegan and gluten-free recipe.

Cauliflower "Couscous": I tried this just the other night because we received some Romanesco cauliflower in our weekly CSA and it was so yummy, though next time I'll use slightly smaller quantities of the spices. It was great to have an alternative to the usual white rice or pasta.

Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot: I've recently been discovering the beauty of the crock pot. This one was so easy, and came out so very tasty. And the broth we made from the bones was wonderful.

Any new favorite recipes you can recommend?

Image of the Kale and Walnut Pesto

Obsessed: Droga chocolate

Like most people, I love chocolate. And luckily my darling husband discovered a fabulous chocolate company based right here out of downtown LA: Droga. They are soooo yummy! D brought home a couple boxes on Valentines Day and I have to make a special effort to limit my daily intake.

The Rebel Rocky Road I think is my favorite, but I have a new love of the Peppermint Peppies. If you see these someplace I highly recommend picking them up!

Image from Droga website

Eat (or drink) your veggies

I've never been good about eating my vegetables. I'm more of a carb person and could eat pasta or rice all day long. But I'm always trying to find ways to work veggies in. Jordon wrote here about how she's trying to eat a salad a day. A great goal but I am not a salad lover. So my solution: soup!

Soup is a great way for me to incorporate veggies into my diet. I started making soups when D and I started getting our bi-weekly CSA delivery. I'd often receive fruits or vegetables I was not used to cooking with. I'd therefore go to google and I'd often find great soup recipes. I've made eggplant soup, mushroom soup, cabbage soup, broccoli soup. And if you have left over you can freeze it and pull it out if you need lunch or dinner quickly.

This soup is my go-to. It's simple, quick, and very tasty. This one is also really quick and can be dressed up in a lot of different ways. I also recently brought this one to lunch at a friend's and it was a hit. I'm hoping this will also be a way for me to get the Pepper to enjoy vegetables once she's older and pickier.

Funny anecdote. My company has a few offices in Ukraine so we'd often have team members from Ukraine come to work at the LA offices. When we were out to lunch as a group one of our Ukrainian team members commented that we don't seem to eat a lot of soup here in the US, at least compared to the Ukraine. He was getting sick of eating sandwiches all the time. Ever since then I've notices how many sandwiches are on menus and how little soup choices there often are.

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Discovering blue cheese

I've never been a blue cheese fan. But lately I've discovered that even if it's not something I enjoy on it's own, it's a wonderful addition to a recipe. It adds a great little tang. Plus, it's always nice to do something a little different.

Caffeine

I really enjoy a good cup of English tea. I have not taken to the taste of coffee. But my mom's British colony background meant tea was a staple in our household. And a strong cup of black tea definitely gives me the caffeine jolt I sometimes need. But, D has been encouraging me to give it up for years.

My baby eats better than I do

The Pepper is 7 months old now, so for the past few months we've been introducing solid foods. It was a slow start but she's really embraced all sorts of foods now and seems to love almost anything we give her.