Cherry & Bulgur Salad

I made this the other night...I had cherries and goat cheese and wanted an excuse to put them together :). Here's the recipe:

I started with 2 cups of cooked bulger. I think in the future I would use less bulger and/or more cherries. The salad was a little heavy on the grains.

I added 2 cups of pitted cherries.

I added 1/2 an avacado.

Finally, I added goat cheese.

I added a dressing made from the juice of 1 lime, some (I think it was 1-2 tsp) olive oil, salt and pepper and mixed it all up. We had this in our lunches all week, it was a super easy and yummy, and filling lunch.

Breakfast

I opened the fridge this morning to try to come up with a breakfast that would use up the many left-overs in the fridge and came up with this. It's a hash of some sort. Left over cooked yam (1C), left over grilled veggies (eggplant, red pepper, mushrooms), left over home made vegan sausage, grainy mustard and a sprinkling of balsamic all fried up. I topped it off with some ricotta cheese. It was SUPER filling..I should be good till dinner ;) Tasty too.

Happy Anniversary

Monday was our sixth wedding anniversary. Time has flown by! We decided to have a special dinner at home rather than go out. Since the cooking is half the fun for me, this was sort of part of my present. D. returned home with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, and we had a lovely dinner. This is, by the way the first time we've eaten in the formal dining room, and the first time I've used my grandmother's china. I made this Zucchini ricotta cheesecake. If you have zucchini to use up, I implore you, make this. It is so very good. Breakfast, lunch or dinner :)


I also made this Orzo supper salad. It was very tasty with orzo (of course), asparagus, broccoli, cucumber, almonds, feta, and a yummy lemon olive oil and garlic dressing.


I also made these yummy sweet potato falafals. I couldn't find chick pea flour, so I substituted 1/2 chick peas and 1/2 whole wheat flour and it seemed to work - these were super yummy, and are really healthy! I had them cold the next day for lunch and they were just as good. Here's the table all set up - look at the beautiful flowers! It was a yummy dinner, and we still have left-overs! I think next time I'm going to make a double or tripple recipe of the falafels and freeze them!

Processing ways of eating.

Found this site/article today. Like it :). Great nutritional suggestions for fasting.

Made this recipe the other day. So lovely. If you have lots of Basil, as I do, this is a very nutritious, creamy recipe, that has a bit more substance than pesto or a traditional "dip." Why do I buy salt and preservative laden dips at the grocery store, when tasty ones like this are so easy to make and yummy? I've converted myself completely to making salsa at home always, and most often make hummus at home. I think that will be my mini-goal in trying to eliminate some processed foods; I will try, from now on never to buy "dips" or "spreads" at the store. Salsa, hummus and this yummy basil recipe are all easy to make at home, so there is no excuse!

New Favorites

Blog: Sprouted Kitchen

Web Browser: Firefox

Email program: Thunderbird.

I'm playing around with Sunbird, Mozilla's scheduling tool. I'm not sure I can make the switch to a digital planner. But, loosing my planner for a few days a couple of weeks ago has made me feel like I at least need to try :).

I also just downloaded Google Desktop. My favorite thing about it (besides the searches) is the nifty pop up to do list and other handy add-ons you can download.

Mom and Dad's

We went to Kamloops last weekend. My parents have a wonderful back yard, gardens and outdoor living area...I love sitting on the patio all evening talking, over dinner, over wine. Here are some of my favorite sights. Beginning with my mom's amazing basil patch (this is one of two). Doesn't it make you just want to dive in and roll around in it?

One of the veggie patches. I liked that these were nicely arranged in groups of three (though I'm sure that was accidental).

Three pots on the patio. More herbs.

I took this from the livingroom, looking out the patio doors. Those are hops on the latticework. They blanket it.


Appletree.

Hanging basket.

Dinner on the first night. This was a late night dinner after we arrived on Friday. For the record, those quesadillas are peach, goat cheese and basil. SO good.
Dinner on the second night. Grilled chicken, corn, and grilled vegetable salad. Homemade peach-mango salsa (mom's!) with tortillas.

So, you can see why I like going to Kamloops.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

Eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers marinated in garlic oil, balsamic and kosher salt, grilled and mixed with fresh basil. We made these in Kamloops with my parents :)