Homemade Buddha Bowls

Did you know that Buddha Bowls are “one of the year’s top-emerging food trends”? It’s true.  Buzzfeed says so.  Naturally, as huge trendsetters, we made our own on Sunday night.

Truthfully, we had sweet potatoes and a can of chickpeas in the pantry, and I built the idea of the bowls from there.

I had a kitchen helper on hand to tear kale and slice (very closely supervised) mushrooms:

It’s true what they say about cooking with kids creating better eaters– anytime Lila helps in the kitchen, she’s definitely way more likely to actually try the food.  Even a meal like this, which she would probably totally turn her nose up at otherwise.

The bowls started with sautéed kale:

Plus roasted sweet potatoes and chickpeas (both were tossed with olive oil, cumin and garlic salt then roasted in a 375 oven for about 30 minutes), sautéed mushrooms and onions:

Then finally they were topped with avocado, pumpkin seeds, and a sauce of lemon juice, maple syrup, and tahini.  It sounds weird, but the maple syrup was the perfect balance of sweetness with the lemon and tahini.

There’s really no way to make that sauce look good, but I swear it tasted great.  And Lila was very proud of her own little bowl:

Great quick and easy dinner!

Weeknight Pasta

One of my goals (actually I feel like I make this goal a LOT…which says something about how often I follow through with it, haha) is to cook more from  my cookbooks.  I have so many cookbooks, but I always just seem to make versions of the same 4-5 meals, especially on weeknights.

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe from my Moosewood cookbook for a while…basically just because I thought it sounded kind of weird.  Onions and skim milk in pasta?  Okay.  But, Moosewood rarely lets me down.  So I decided to give it a go:


I made a few changes to the recipe– we only had whole milk, so I used that.  I also added a lot of the cooking water from the pasta so that it could cook down more.  And I added grated parmesan at the end, because cheese.  

It was really tasty! The combination of the onions, tomato, and fennel was really good, and they were right– the sauce cooked down and got really creamy.  Even Lila liked it:

We enjoyed the vegetarian version, but it would also be tasty with some Italian sausage.

Happy Thursday!

Things to do in winter when you’re bored.

 Hello! Yesterday was Lila’s first day back at school and my first day of teaching for the spring semester. I guess Christmas break really is over. 

Speaking of classes starting, this guy is starting up at the Little Gym: 

  
    …and Lila started winter swim classes. Hopefully she’ll be totally ready for the pool by the time summer rolls around! 

  Towards the end of break, we were blessed with a “snow” day…which really just meant bitter cold temps and no snow. We spent the day baking gingerbread cookies:

  

  
  …and painting bird houses.

  
We’ve definitely reached the end of our rope for winter activities. God bless pre-k. 🙂   
Colder temps called for lots of soup. This ended up as a beef, kale, and veggie soup– simple and tasty!

  
   In other news, I’ve started running more and Ryan and I have even signed up for a spring half marathon! It will be my longest race since running the marathon two years ago, so…eek! I’m nervous but excited– it’s fun to have a big goal to work towards again!  
I’m using Map My Run to track:

  
but I had a friend tell me about Strava, so I might try that. I’m also hoping for an Apple Watch for my birthday, which I think will be great for training as well.  How did people ever run without technology? 😜

Have a great day!

 

Welcome, 2017

Uhhhh…happy new year?

Well it’s been…oh, about four months?  But every time I think I might be ready to hang in the towel on this ol’ blog, I find myself also thinking, “You know…it might be nice to start blogging again.”  And so, here I am.

I won’t try to catch you up on what we’ve done, where we’ve been, everything we’ve been up to since my last post (which was August 16th…yeah, sorry about that).  I guess those days are just gone forever.  Haha.

But, I’d like to make this space something active again.  So here is a picture of the black-eyed peas we made for our luck in 2017, and here’s to wishing all of us luck, love and happiness in the upcoming year! 

We make our black-eyed peas with bacon, onion, green pepper, kielbasa sausage, chicken stock, liquid smoke, garlic salt, brown sugar, and last but not least (of course) black-eyed peas.

We even convinced Lila to eat a big bowl.  We told her that her luck in the new year depended on it.  😉

 

Weeknight Dinner: Peanut Noodles with Chicken and Veggies

Good morning!  We’re on our second full week of school here, which means that we’re slowly getting back into the swing of things.  Ryan and I will start teaching on Wednesday, so there will be more adjustments being made as we figure out our routine—it seems like every year, our schedules and needs are a little different.  Lila is also starting to take on more extracurricular activities—she’s in ballet again this year, as well as a drama class (yep—drama class for four year olds.  I guess at least they’re tapping into something they’re naturally talented at?).  Something tells me she’ll be good at it:

When the school year starts, I always feel a little more motivated to do some actual meal planning, and Shipt is really helping with that—I’ve been doing a better job of picking 2-3 meals per week to prepare and ordering ALL of the ingredients for each meal, instead of thinking that I’ll visit the store mid-week (which never happens…so I just give up and we go out to eat, haha). 

On Sunday, we made this easy dinner based on this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction blog.  She used all zucchini noodles, but we had some soba noodles that needed to be used up, so I threw those in as well.  Zucchini noodles, soba noodles, veggies (red pepper, carrots, and cabbage), plus TONS of fresh herbs from our garden—our basil is out of control, so we’ve basically been putting it in everything.  We used cilantro and mint too.  This was tasty and probably only took 30 minutes to prepare from start to finish:

 

Even Lila enjoyed it—well, she enjoyed the noodles and the chicken, anyway. 

August!

Wow—August already?  How did we get here?  I feel like we were just getting out of school in May.  Sigh.

It’s always kind of depressing to see summer go.  Okay, it’s always REALLY depressing.  But, I have to admit, once I get over the initial disappointment of the end of summer:

…I actually start to get excited about the beginning of a new school year.  Hello, school supplies.  Hello, new students.  Hello, seven hours of freedom a day as this one starts pre-k:

Public pre-k at the school that (hopefully) she’ll be at for the next eight years!  We walk her to school every morning and walk to pick her up in the afternoon, which I love.  And, despite my worries that the long day was going to be a tough transition, she really seems to love it.  Whew!

Of course, it’s not *true* freedom because I still have this little monkey hanging around:

…but he’s pretty easy to handle.  Plus, we’ll have a sitter coming a few days a week once Ryan and I officially start back at work next week.

Other than that, we’ve been enjoying some great end of summer meals.  I’ve started using Shipt, which is Publix’s grocery delivery service.  Um, it. Is. Awesome.  I love getting the groceries delivered (of course) instead of having to drag one or two kids to the store.  Plus, it’s really forcing me to buy only what we need.  When I shop at the actual store, I’m REALLY bad about throwing in a lot of items on the spur of the moment—usually stuff that we don’t really need at all. 

Here’s some of our eats, lately:

Earthereal-style vegetarian tacos…

Fresh pasta from Whole Foods…

Stuffed + baked Bell Peppers…

Tomato and basil salad in cheese cups…

Pasta with sausage, mozzarella, and veggies…

And finally, simple, delicious caprese salad.   Because summer.

Sorry for the break between posts—summer kind of got away from us!  Hope you’re soaking up that last bit of summer like we are!

Aloha, Hawaii!

Well, despite being there for two full weeks, our trip to Kauai seemed to fly by, especially by the end of the trip.  We made it home safely to Alabama yesterday morning, and are settling back into our day-to-day life.  SIGH.

Post-vacation depression is a real thing, right?

It was a great trip.  Here are some final photos of how we wrapped the week up.

We took a hike with my parents one afternoon to Sleeping Giant– a tough hike that was all uphill for the first half.  Lila hiked the whole way up and down, and did awesome– I was impressed!

We also went out on a  boat tour, which was so much fun.  We saw dolphins and sea turtles, and stopped to snorkel.  If I had to choose between this and the helicopter tour, I’d definitely choose the helicopter.  BUT, the boat tour was great too, and the kids had fun and loved seeing the dolphins.

Beyond that…we just had fun!  We visited the pool a few more times, went to the beach, went out for a nice dinner at The Beach House (so good!), explored the town of Hanapepe…just had a great time!

I will admit, I am happy to be home– including our Seattle trip, we were gone for three full weeks.  We missed the dogs and Tenny! But, what a wonderful vacation this was– I’m so grateful that we had the chance to explore such a cool place and spend so much time with family.  Lila really misses her cousins from both sides of the family when we’re home in Alabama, so to be able to spend three full weeks all around family was a special treat, especially for her.  I’m not sure when we’ll get back to Hawaii (that trip back– yikes!), but I hope to, someday.  It is so beautiful.

And now…we only have three weeks until school starts again.  How is that possible?!? Eek!

Kauai from the Sky

Another “must do” item on our list for this vacation was a helicopter tour– we heard from several people that taking a helicopter tour is the best way to see parts of the island that you would never otherwise get to see.  We set up two tours with Jack Harter Helicopters– my parents took care of the grandkids while me, Ryan, and my sister and her husband went; then, we switched out and my parents went.

We had the option of flying in a helicopter with the doors on or off, and although it made *some* of us nervous, we opted for doors off.  I figure, if you’re going down, those doors aren’t going to make a different anyway, right? 😉

After we got to the helicopter place, we had a quick safety briefing, then they carted us in a van to the launch pad, about 5 minutes away.  And then…it was up, up and away!

Luckily, we made it out alive.  And, everyone was right– it was awesome.  It definitely gave you a huge appreciation for the island.  Plus, our helicopter pilot was a great tour guide– he pointed out various sites and details, while providing interesting commentary (but not talking the whole time).  Plus, he pointed out a bunch of celebrity’s houses– you know I liked that.

Again, a helicopter tour is probably not something that I would do on many vacations, but it was a great choice to do it here on Kauai. I would definitely recommend this as a must-do!

Holy Hike, Batman!

Kauai is known for having beautiful hikes all over the island, and Ryan and I do love to hike, so we knew that we’d want to take advantage of that while we were here.  Some of them have been close to where we’re staying (on the South end), like the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail:

But I read that a lot of the best hiking was on the North end of the island, at the Na’Pali Coast State Park.  We knew that these hikes would be too tough for the kiddos– they’re supposed to be really muddy, tough trails, with a lot of dangerous ledges and drop offs– not exactly a place you want to take a 3,4, and 6 year-old (plus a baby!).  We all really wanted to do the hikes, however– our helicopter pilot (more on that in another post) said that if there was one hike you did on Kauai, you needed to do the hike to Hanakapi’ai Falls– an eight mile hike.  The first two miles take you to a beach, then it’s another two to the waterfall.

We all kind of went back and forth on whether or not to try for the waterfall.  In the end, we decided that all of the adults would try to hike to the beach, and then whoever wanted to continue on to the falls could do so.  We found a highly recommended sitter service and left the kids at home to watch Aladdin– which was much preferred by them, haha.  And, we set off for the North shore!  After about an hour and a half of driving, we were ready to hike!

The hike was difficult from the get-go– lots of climbing up steep bluffs, which paid off with amazing views of the coast:

About one mile in, it got even tougher– very MUDDY.  My parents ended up turning around about 1.5 miles in, and I don’t blame them– it was a hike that you had to take very slowly, and the mud made it especially difficult.  I found myself slipping and sliding on the trail multiple times.

Finally, after two long miles, we made it to the final obstacle.  Before the beach, you have to cross a pretty big river– yikes! The current was strong, but it wasn’t that bad once you actually started crossing– it looked scarier than it actually was, but I was kind of freaked out about it!

After crossing the river, we were rewarded with the beach– finally! It was a beautiful spot to eat our lunch:

 

The four of us (my sister and brother-in-law, plus me and Ryan) debated a bit on whether or not to continue on to the falls.  The guidebooks and trail signs really did say that it was a difficult trail, only meant for strong hikers.  Ryan and I hike quite a bit, but the trails we do are pretty easy.  We were also thinking about the time– it took us a full hour and half just to hike the two miles to the beach, and going on to the waterfall would mean another three hours altogether, at least.

But…after some back and forth, my sister said, “We are going to regret it if we don’t do this”– and we all knew she was right.  So…it was on to the falls!

The trail really was treacherous– muddy, muddy, muddy, with a lot of river and stream crossings, ledges to walk across, and boulders to crawl over.  It was probably the hardest hike I’ve done to date. We didn’t get a lot of pictures because we were too busy trying not to die, heh.

 

But, finally, we were rewarded with a sneak peek of the falls:

…and we knew we were getting close!

Finally…we made it to Hanakapi’ ai Falls! And it was beautiful:

We swam in the pool– it was FREEZING and the wind was blowing water all over our faces.  But again, it was worth it.

And then…after lots of pictures…it was time to turn around and begin the hike back.  Womp, womp.

This hike was amazing and definitely worth the effort.  It can be harder to do these types of things once you’re traveling with kids, but I’m so glad that we found a way to do this hike– it is one that I will remember forever.  And my legs will remember it for a long time too.  😉

 

Just Another Day in Paradise…

What else is there to say?

We’ve been having a blast, exploring beaches, hikes, canyons, and waterfalls.  On Thursday (I think?), we drove up a winding, winding road to Waimea Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of Hawaii.”  I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but I was pretty impressed!

After viewing the canyon, we hiked around a bit with the kids…and rewarded ourselves with GIANT shave ices:

 

Just a little sugar.

That night, we were beat from the day, so we just relaxed and ate dinner at the pool.  The kids soaked their weary bones in the hot tub:

Hahaha.

Yesterday, we drove up to Wailua Falls:

…which apparently you used to be able to hike down to, but now can only view from above.  Womp, womp.  Oh well– they were still beautiful!

Afterwards, we headed to Lydgate State Park, which was a beautiful state park with a really cool playground that Charlie loved swinging at, plus a GREAT children’s beach.

I strapped Charlie in the Ergo so that he could nap, and we strolled the “big” beach too:

So pretty!

Finally, a few days back, we explored a local farmers market, and indulged in some great Hawaiian treats:

We are having so much fun.  Hawaii has been a great choice for kids AND adults– there is so much to do, and we have another week but I’m already feeling the stress of running out of time! Gah!

We’re checking a big “must do” off our list this morning though– helicopter ride around the island!! Eek!

Pray I make it back alive, haha.