Some Christmas Pics, A Recipe, and A Plan

Alright, I'll admit it now.  In the crazy package-opening-paper-tearing-glut of Christmas, I did not take any pictures of the presents from the aunts, uncles, or grandparents.  EXCEPT for these pictures, which are pictures of things bought with Christmas money from Oma.  So here are the pictures I have.  I will post more pictures as we play with things.  Sorry.

This is her set of cutable wooden food, a wooden cutting board, and a wood "knife" that only cuts cutable food.  Handy knife for a toddler, that way.  Her serious expression here belies how much she loves cutting and then putting her food back together.  I sort of wish sometimes that my carrots had velcro inside.

(The real feeling for the cutting board.)

At the same time we bought the food, we also bought a tiny set of metal pots and pans, a set of bamboo spatulas and spoons that are nicer than mine that I use in the *real* kitchen,  and a set of baking tools including a whisk (the wires are string), a rolling pin, a pan scraper, and "meshaging spoons".  I'll let you guess what those are for.

"Excuse you, Mama."

"Oh!  I didn't know it was for the blog.  Yes, I love the Magna-doodle, even though I keep chewing on the magnetic stamps and can't really doodle yet.  It's fun to body-surf on."

(For the record, the children also got clothes with their Christmas bounty, books, crayons and craft supplies, a truck, and a set of wooden sorting/stacking blocks.  AND there was still some left to go in their respective savings accounts.  See?  After Christmas sales rock.)

This is the only Christmas picture I took while we were on our week-long Oddessy to the respective grandparents.  Sorry.  She has a dirty face here, but isn't she gorgeous anyway?

And now...

Did you eat too much over Christmas?  Like, enough for seven people from India to live for three weeks?  Yeah, me too... I didn't gain any weight, thanks to a voracious nursing baby, but I deserved to.  So here is what we're doing, starting with supper tonight.  (With recipies!)

Supper tonight was tilapia filets with Moroccan Spice seasoning, white rice (because I'm out of brown), frozen peas, and carrot slaw.  Here is how to make it:

(Toddler version.)

1. First start your rice.  If you use brown rice, barley, or some other weird grain like quinoa or millet or something, start it a LONG time before you start anything else, because everything else is fast.  White rice only takes 10 or 15 minutes, though, so if using that, you can get dinner done in, like, 30 minutes flat.  If using brown rice, what you ought to do is put it in a covered dish in the oven with 2.5 times as much water as rice and bake it for about an hour.

2. Microwave your peas.

3. Put in your fish, with Moroccan Spice (recipe below).  Melt about 2 T butter in a frying pan (or oil of your choice, but please real oils and not like, Crisco or something) and  then put your filets in.  (Or you could do a chicken breast/thigh, or a boneless pork tenderloin chop, all are good.)  Then sprinkle the spice on one side, and as soon as your fish is ready to turn, flip it and sprinkle spice on the other side.  Takes about 5 minutes on a side for the fish to cook.

4. Wash carrots, cut off the tops, and grate them (preferably in your food processor--otherwise this should be step one.)  In the bowl in which you will serve the salad, mix a dressing I made up:

3 T olive oil

2 T lime juice

a good shake of pepper

a good shake of garlic powder

a good shake of oregeno

(Remember, lime juice is a wee bit sweet anyway and you're dressing basically just carrots, which are sweet by themselves, so don't need any sugar.)

Once that's mixed up, dump in your grated carrots, a nut of your choice (walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, etc.) and I put in sesame seeds because I had some.  This is an excellent salad that I made up.

5. Make sure your peas are hot and your peas are done.  Your rice is done now.  Dish up.

Here is the Moroccan Spice recipe, which I got from my wonderful Mother-in-Law, who is really too nice to hold that title.  Anyway:

2 T Cumin

2 t ginger or cinnamon (I like cinnamon)

2 t paprika

2 t tumeric

1/2 t cayenne or black pepper (full disclosure: we double or even triple this one)

1 t salt

You mix these all together.  The note she included with my recipe says this is good on potatoes (yum, haven't tried that yet...) chicken, and fish, and that it can be mixed with yogurt for what would seem like a really delicious alternative to tartar sauce.

Moving along with The Plan...

This isn't, despite its looks, a piece of someone's gallbladder; it's lentils being sprouted into...uh, sprouts.  Because we all know that lentils by themselves are... well, lentils; they're okay in Indian cooking because they combine them with so many spicy things that eating tiny pieces of cardboard is mostly okay.  Lentils are full of vitamins and fiber and all that jazz, of course, so this is my way of eating them.  You can put anything on a sandwich or in a salad and make it better.

And this is a blurry picture (Miss Boo grabbed my arm) of a bowl of quinoa, water, and yogurt, soaking on the counter overnight.  Believe it or not, this actually makes a difference (you can do it with oatmeal too, or any grain you're going to eat as hot cereal).  I use 1/2 cup of the grain, 1/2 cup of water, and 2 T of yogurt.  Stir it all up, then cover it with a towel and leave it on the counter all night.  In the morning the grain has absorbed all the liquid.  You put this in your pan with enough water to cover, and your grain comes out soft and creamy and delicious.  AND the yogurt doo-dads have had a chance to start digesting your cereal for you, which isn't as bad as it sounds; it makes it so the fiber in the cereal does not wreak its bloody vengeance on your GI tract.

So this is the plan: follow an uber-healthy menu plan I have written out (with some help from a BBC website--links tomorrow), belly dance every day, take my vitamin (I'm bad at that), drink my water, and see what happens.

I'm starting at 179.  Let's see what we can do in a week, eh?

Cheers,

Breanna