Run With The Fishes

Planning out our menu for the next couple of weeks.

Over lunch we decided that it was time for us to start some sort of recycling. I brought home two appropriate sized boxes from work and made them all fancy.

The kids were super excited about it. Like, as soon as we said the words "recycle bins" and "in our house" they started cheering. Zoey spent the afternoon going through the whole house gathering up scraps of paper.

I know, I know, it’s something we probably should have done sooner. If we lived somewhere that made recycling more accessible, there is no doubt we would have been recycling with the best of them.

We received a package today that had all of the information for pre-school that we will need for Alli. I instantly sprouted even more gray hairs. She is super excited. We immediately had to start checking off the items we already have.

Here is another one for the Whip It Up weekly submission. Even without this challenge, this recipe would have made it up here. It is definitely one I will be making again.

Lettuce wraps are the perfect meal for the summer. They are light, cool, fairly easy to make, and mostly healthy. The first lettuce wraps we made were a success, and since we liked the idea of lettuce wraps, it was time to find a new one to add to our rotation. When I saw this one over at Two Fat Als, I knew I had to try it. It did not disappoint.

I (and consequently the kids) had never had fresh mango before. It’s not something that’s readily available growing up in the Midwest. When my children hear of anything that remotely resembles a word for fruit, their heads pop up, their eyes glaze over, and their mouths start watering. They act like they have never had a piece of fresh fruit in their lives. Mango, we’ve discovered, is tasty, but sticky.

Everyone really liked this wrap. Even Nathan and Allison didn’t mind the green onions with it because the mangoes gave it a sweeter flavor. Greg and I were a little leery of the honey lime vinaigrette, by itself, it just didn’t work. Once I poured it over the chicken though, everything came together with a delicious flavor. The next time I make it I will cut the amount of sesame seed oil in half (I’m not a huge fan of it to begin with) and will only make a half batch of the dipping sauce. I guess that means I will really be using 1/4 of the sesame oil.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps, by Two Fat Als
Ingredients (serves 5 or more):
(wraps)

1 cup jasmine rice, rinsed * I don’t have jasmine rice. It’s not something that is sold locally so I just used regular white rice
3 chicken breasts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 head Boston lettuce, leaves separated
1/2 cucumber, cut into matchstick-size slices
3 scallions, thinly sliced into 3-inch strips
3 carrots, shredded (in the food processor) or cut into matchstick-size slices
1 mango, peeled and cut into matchstick-sized slices
1/2 cup cilantro

(lime vinaigrette)

1/4 cup lime juice
3 tbsp oil
2 tbsp honey
pinch of salt

(soy dipping sauce)

1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
6 tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup ginger, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil

Bring 1 3/4 cups water to boil add rice and a pinch of salt. Cook covered until rice absorbs water, about 20 minutes.

While rice is cooking, heat olive oil in a large pan. Add chicken and cook through, about 5 minutes per side. You can also grill the chicken if you prefer. Once chicken is cooked, shred it into small pieces by pulling it apart with two forks.

Make lime vinaigrette by whisking together all ingredients. I just put them all in a lidded container and shook it, shook it up baby. Dress the shredded chicken with the lime vinaigrette.

Combine all ingredients for soy dipping sauce in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Lay out all ingredients, stuff lettuce leaves with chicken and vegetables, dip in soy dipping sauce or add it into the wraps.

We have been spending some time drawing over the past few weeks. Zoey has always loved drawing and sketching, ever since she could hold a writing instrument. I should really scan in some of her drawings. Allison is starting to think it is a pretty fun activity. This is a picture of Alli’s whale.

Week 2’s submission for the Whip it up! Challenge. I know, I know, it’s a little late, but we seriously ate at the ball park every night last week (except for Wednesday when I made some light and healthy cucumber pasta salad). This week was supposed to be an eating healthy, mostly some kind of salad for dinner week. My problem? I lost my hand written list of meals I had planned. Next week I’ll get back to putting our menu lists online so that I don’t forget what I bought ingredients to make again.

The suggestion for week two was cheese. I thought it would have been cool to make some of our own mozerrella but couldn’t find some of the key ingredients. Instead we opted to try out the Pizza Frittata recipe from the October 2004 Everyday Food magazine. I’m not sure why I didn’t keep my subscription up, there are all kinds of great recipes in the issues that I do have.

In case you didn’t know, a frittata is basically a baked omelet. Even if it isn’t, it felt so much healthier than a regular pizza. We had it with a side salad and some garlic toast. It was so yummy. Next time we have this, and there will for sure be a next time because almost everyone loved it, we will add some pizza toppings and really add to the flavor.

Ingredients

1 tbls plus 4 tsp Olive Oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 large eggs plus 2 egg whites (I just used 8 eggs)
salt
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 can whole tomatoes with juices
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint or parsley (I have some wild mint that took over a portion along the fence in the back of our yard).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 10″ oven proof non-stick skillet, heat 2 teaspoons oil over medium heat. Cook onion, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes. Cool completely. ** I forgot to do this step and it still tasted fine.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, egg whites, salt, and 2 tablespoons water. Stir in onions and 3/4 cup mozzarella.

In skillet, heat 1 tbls oil over medium heat. Add egg mixture; reduce heat to low and cook until beginning to set around the edges (about 3 minutes). Transfer to oven and bake until set (about 12 minutes).

Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 tsp oil in large skillet over low heat. Cook garlic until soft, 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, mint and salt; simmer, breaking up tomatoes with a spoon, 5 minutes.

Spoon sauce over frittata; sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup of cheese. Return to oven and cook until cheese melts; about 1 minute.

makes 4 servings. 296 calories per serving; 20.1 grams of fat; 19.6 grams of protein; 9.7 grams of carbohydrates; 1.9 grams of fiber.

The fire escape where some of the people go to take their smoke breaks, or if you don’t smoke (like me) fresh air breaks.

I don’t know what it is with me and stairs, but every once and a while I have a vision of spinning around the top bar of this then coming to land perfectly (arms poised above my head) on the ground below.

At work on Friday two of the girls asked me if I wanted to go to Billy Bob’s in Ft. Worth to see a concert with them (I think really they wanted a designated driver). After talking it over with Greg, and getting over my guilt of leaving him at home with the kids, I decided to take them up on the offer.

It is strange how our minds work. I shouldn’t have felt guilty about going out with some friends, but some part of my brain thought it wasn’t fair to Greg that he stays home all day with the kids already only to be deserted by me so that I could go have fun one evening. It didn’t make it any easier when I rushed home to throw some things in an overnight bag only to have Alli tell me, “It’s going to be 3 people home tonight (Nathan was over at a friend’s), I wish there would be one more”, with her sad little puppy dog eyes.

We left at 5pm and got to Ft. Worth at 9pm. After checking in and changing into party clothes, we headed to Billy Bob’s. It is one of the country’s most famous honky tonks. I’ve been there for sure once before with Greg’s dad and girlfriend. That night there must not have been a band. It was full of tourists from China. They were cute. This time it was a completely different crowd. There were cowboys and girls, a few guys riding real bulls, and the dance floor was packed the whole night.

We went to see a guy named Jeremy McComb. I’m not really that into country music so didn’t have a clue who he was. I was taken by surprise by how good a show he put on. Sure, some of his songs sounded twangy, but most of them weren’t over the top. He sang a great song (his first time to sing it on stage… he said) about a girl who only saw him as a friend, but he wanted more. It’s not recorded anywhere yet or I would link you to it. Two things that made it a really fun show. During one kind of monologue/interlude he and the band played “The Joker“, excellent drunk people sing along song. Then after he played his acoustic section, when the band came out to rejoin him, he busted some old school rap lyrics. It was awesome and totally unexpected.

A few other highlights from the night:
Some guy tried to convince one of my friends that he could get her onto the tour bus, “Yeah, I’m friends with the band.” The thing is, the line worked. After spending some time dancing, she went outside to sit on the curb waiting for the bus doors to open. For the record, they never did and the band was inside the club hanging out with other people.

I just knew the other friend I was with was going to get us thrown out of the club. She bought her CD early not realizing Jeremy McComb was going to hang around and sign autographs. No problem, I was in line already to have it signed for her. “No, No, No, I was the third person to buy the CD tonight. We’re going to the front of the line and he will sign it!”.

Then when they told her we needed to go back to the end of the line, she started telling them how, “Mad, Mad I tell you!!”, she was. It was super funny, but also scary. I am not a boat rocker.

Eventually both of the girls went off to do their own thing (whatever it is that two single girls at a club do) while I stood in line to get the CD signed.

Apparently it wasn’t just my friend not getting on the bus. There was some glitch with one of the doors and no one was getting on the bus. The drummer was trying to get back into the club and some guys started giving him a hard time. Eventually, the complete mom in me came out and told them, “Listen, you need to stop being ugly to him, he doesn’t have to let you on the tour bus at all.” Yeah, I’m a dork.

Summer Fruit Ripple, a semi healthy, super tasty dessert the kids whipped up for us out of their favorite cookbook. Nathan likes the book so much he asked if he could take it with him when he goes off to college. And then I grew a few new gray hairs, because he is old enough to talk about going to college?

This was taken after midnight, so totally counts as today’s right?

I stood in line for one of the girls I was with so that Jeremy McComb could sign the CD she bought while she and the other girl kicked it up on the dance floor. I was towards the end of the line. Dude looks tired (of picture taking and just exhausted).