I'm Back!

Alright, I'm back. :)

I haven't been blogging lately and, although we do eat vegetarian at home with all three kids, I haven't been doing great about veggies and fruits lately.  We do get a lot of beans, lentils, etc. which are great and cheap sources of protein that are much better for you than meat.  And all of the kids eat great!

But I've been inspired lately by two other blogs I follow (newmomnewcancer.blogspot.com and myfamilyhascancerx2.blogspot.com) to be better about the fruits and veggies too.  I'm a vegetarian but I eat way too much junk along with the "good stuff."

Today was a day that it was just the three of us (my husband, my 23-month-old daughter, and me).

For breakfast, we had one scrambled egg, homemade tempeh "sausage" (didn't turn out too well - I'm going to experiment one more time and then I'll post the recipe if it turns out well :) LOL), and blueberries.

For lunch, we had black turtle beans (made from dried beans, not canned beans), spinach (cooked in a skillet with little bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar -- next time we need to have pine nuts in the house for that, but it still tasted great), strawberries, and bananas.

For dinner, we had bean soup and homemade banana ice cream.

Bean Soup
Put all this stuff in the pot and cook for an hour (bring to a boil and then put down to low heat and cook covered):
* one package of Trader Joe's 17 Bean and Barley Mix (have to soak this overnight; it was baby lima beans, black turtle beans, blackeye peas, dark red kidney beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, green lentils, green split peas, large lima beans, light red kidney beans, navy beans, pink beans, pinto beans, red lentils, small red beans, small white beans, yellow split peas, and pearl barley)
* one 32 oz. container of vegetable broth
* two big cups of water
* carrots (my husband sliced them and sauteed them beforehand with some garlic and oil for about 10 minutes)
* you could add whatever veggies you like
* salt to taste
NOTE: This is something you have to plan for ahead of time as the beans need to soak overnight (after sorting to make sure there are no rocks in the bag) and then take about an hour to cook once everything is mixed together.

Banana Ice Cream
* cut up bananas (two bananas gave us enough for three small servings)
* place the bananas in the freezer on a plate for 1-2 hours
* put the banana slices in a blender and blend on high (will need to stop often at first to push it down as it gets stuck at first - at first it's going to seem like it's not working and then all of a sudden it will be creamy like ice cream)
* blend until creamy texture
* will be like soft serve ice cream - can put in the freezer again to get a more ice cream like texture
* you can experiment with adding items to the ice cream - we added a tiny bit of fair trade cocoa powder (not enough to taste it though - if we want to add that again, we will need to add more) and a tiny bit of peanut butter.  Some people add honey.