Closing out veggie month with curry!

With only a few days left in veggie month, tonight we had one of our best meals yet. It was this curried cauliflower in coconut milk over basmati rice. Really dumb of me not to take a photo -- sorry. Scott loves basmati rice steamed with a few cardamom pods, and the rice was a perfect addition to the recipe. Besides cauliflower, I also added carrots and green beans in the mix. Next time I'd add more cayenne pepper and a bit more salt than the recipe calls for. All of the veggies we used tonight arrived in our CSA box yesterday, along with corn, green chard, cucumbers, yellow squash, green onions, peaches, carrots (best I've ever had), green beens, beets, and (of all things) collards. Not a bad haul considering it came two weeks after a disastrous hail storm which was followed by two straight days of rain.

I've really been looking forward to getting cauliflower in the box, not because I really like cauliflower (I don't think I've ever bought a head of it) but because I have been looking forward to eating it in some kind of curry sauce. This one seemed to fit the bill. Scott had seconds and is now incapacitated -- maybe the first time this month he's stuffed himself silly. Even the girls ate most of it...well, after I convinced them that it would be like the coconut ice cream they ate for dessert last night. Definitely an all around winner.

Attention bargain shoppers

This Mercola article lists the ten produce items with the lowest pesticide load and the ten with the highest load. If you're shopping on a limited budget (who isn't?) the list should help you decide what items are worth the extra cost that the "organic" label typically brings.

As a side note, I read in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that some pediatricians say that if you can only afford to buy one organic item, buy organic milk rather than conventional. The doctor referred to in the book actually said that he believes that the chemicals and hormones present in conventional milk may be related to the ever-earlier onset of puberty he sees in some of his patients. Not backed up by scientific studies, yet, but hard to argue with.

Veggie month, day 7

We're a week into veggie month and, honestly, I have nothing spectacular to report. Other than one catastrophic kale meal, it's really not been difficult. For our first dinner, Scott and I ate out at a restaurant in Manitou Springs known for their awesome vegetarian offerings. It's called Adam's Mountain Cafe and we were thrilled with our meals. I chose their Senegalese veggies over udon noodles (a huge mound of perfectly crisp-tender veggies in peanut sauce) and Scott had orzo with Mediterranean veggies (another huge mound of grape leaves, olives, bell peppers, and who knows what else with feta). Both meals were scrumptious and neither one of us got more than halfway through our plates. For starters, we had curried chickpea pancakes on tahini, then we shared a soup and salad, so by the time we got to our meals, we were already pretty full. Rather than stuffing ourselves (after all, we didn't want to miss out on dessert), we asked for boxes and ate the rest of our entrées the next night. I think Scott assumed that going veggie meant going hungry, but that has definitely not been the case.

Yesterday I made my way downtown to Wooglin's Deli for a veggie sandwich on their house-made walnut wheat bread. It was great, too, and I'm sure Scott and I will be back at Wooglin's several times this month and long after veggie month is over. I have to be honest here, my friend Laura's husband, Ben, sells food to restaurants and has been encouraging me for at least two years to check out Wooglin's. Now I wish it hadn't taken me so long...

I think the only other time we've eaten out was at Chipotle, where we had very tasty veggie burritos. Well, I had a bowl and Scott had a burrito. But, they had the same ingredients: black beans (their pinto beans are not vegetarian, my friend Jen informed us), peppers and onions, rice, guac, salsa, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream. Yum.

At home our most successful meals thus far have been a pasta meal (with grilled squash from our CSA and tomatoes from our garden) and frijoles charros over cilantro rice. This time I made the frijoles with roasted tomatoes, and more of them than last time. Tonight I'm going to use the leftovers as the bottom layer of a Mexican pizza. The dough is proofing in the oven right now. In a bit I'll grill up some peppers, onions, and zucchini to top the frijoles and cheese.

Callie's squirting me through the window with a water gun. Oh, what a lucky mom I am!

Is this a surprise?

Really, did anyone not already know this? What parent looks at a kid's menu in a fast food or sit down chain restaurant and thinks, "Oh, pizza, fries, and a coke. That's perfectly healthy for my kid." Or, even, "Chicken fingers, fries, and lemonade...yeah, that's well-rounded." Give me a break. We all know these restaurants are serving garbage but since we don't really get better options, we go with what the kid will eat and what's cheap. Did it really take a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to tell us what any responsible parent should already know?

Maybe if we all start ordering split meals for our kids from the "adult" menu instead of them each getting their own plate off of the kid menu, restaurants will understand that we think the choices on the kid menus are inadequate. Or just request carrot sticks instead of fries (and expect the waiter to look at you like your nuts and have to find out from the kitchen whether he's allowed to make the switch). And get your kid milk instead of soda. Or how about this novel idea...water! We also frequently make this statement to our servers, "Oh, I heard your out of mac-n-cheese (or fries)! That's such a bummer!" Our kids haven't figured it out yet, despite the servers' looks of confusion.

Ordering healthier food for your kids is not a difficult task, it's remembering to make the request that is difficult. Once your kid gets used to eating healthier options, she won't throw a fit over the missing fries. At least, my kids don't.