Lazy Vegetarian: Day 20

I know, yesterday is also named day 20. I published it after midnight so when I checked the date it was already the next day. And my brain works more slowly after midnight so I didn't notice.

Breakfast. Toast and Latte.

Today's mug is from the to trip to Washington DC Ben and I took the summer we met.

Obviously from this picture you can't tell where we are so you will have to just trust me. This is the best photo of us from the trip, which is pretty sad, and that handsome fellow in the back is our friend Peter. He lives in Tennessee with his lovely wife and we miss them!

Lunch-ish. We went to the Como Zoo with friends and had a picnic. I had an apple and a delicious pumpkin bar made by the charming and talented Vicki.

Fiona was taking some photos later and I think managed to delete the one of the apple. But you know what an apple looks like at least.

Later at the zoo Fiona remembered I said she could have some ice cream so we had coffee (me) and ice cream (the girls) with our second wave of zoo friends.

I meant to eat some more lunch once we got home, but then I was busy cleaning and cooking while the girls both miraculously napped, so I forgot.

This evening we had friends over for dinner - I was going to make lasagne but I only had fusilli and I didn't have any onions so in the bolognese I used a lot of garlic, some kidney beans and a splash of red wine instead. I layered that with bechamel sauce and pasta, then topped it with cheese. Tanya and Boyd brought yummy salad and Emily made a delicious pan fried cauliflower with golden raisins and pine nuts.

For dessert Mandy and Aaron brought apple cake. Mmmm good. I may or may not have a slice hidden away for tomorrow.

It was a fun night hanging out with good friends while eating delicious food. I am looking forward to doing it again soon! Consider yourselves all officially invited :-)

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 20

Breakfast! Toast!! How exciting! And Latte!!

Today's mug was brought from Aberdeen. It is cute and has my name on it. I try not to use it too much because it already has a couple of chips out of it and I would be sad if it broke. So today was a special day :-)

Lunch... I happened to pass by the Co-op on my may home from work and couldn't resist the lure of fresh, delicious soup. They usually have at least 2 vegetarian options and one of them today was.... Borscht!! I've never had it so I gave it a try. It was pretty much like vegetable soup but slightly tangy. It was good.

I was also unable to resist the muffins today, but I chose a bran one to be healthy and only ate half.

But I did eat the other half a few hours later. So imagine the same picture a little later.

After I picked up the girlies we headed over to Shriners to have Adele's orthotics fitted! I'm so excited for her to have these finally!

She's interested in them. She doesn't like for me to take them off. She wears them half an hour on, half an hour off all day, moving up to more time on progressively. After a week or so she should have them on all the time.

She wears regular shoes over them because they are slippy and thin so could be damaged walking around on them.

Here's a video of her walking on them. In the past her left foot was twisted off to the side and she put her weight on the inside of her foot and ankle, but the shoe helps to straighten it out and point it forward. I was warned that there would be a big adjustment but so far she is doing great!

After they were fitted we hung out and played on their playground for a while. Fiona played "baby sloth needs to be rescued" and Adele played "stand there and look adorable".

Dinner was teriyaki veggie stir fry with noodles. It was yummy though a little overcooked.

This evening I had a lovely time going to see Footloose (yes, really) with one of my favorite friends. The movie was ok... the dancing was really great but the story was a bit cheesy. I kind of expected that though. It was fun :-)

Man, I wish I had that half muffin still... I'd like to eat it now.

I'll announce the winner of the big cheeto competition in the next few days. If you haven't cast your vote yet, better get on that! Also, for you British readers - cheetoes are like wotsits but fatter. Crunchy cheetoes are like 100 year old rock hard wotsits that got all messed up looking. Now, which do you prefer?! ;-)

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 17

This morning we still had small bread so I had a pair of toasts again. One with jam, the other with chocolate ice cream sauce. Yes, really. Yum! And a latte.

Today's mug is one I got as a gift for Ben a few years ago. It usually lives at the back of the cupboard so I had to dig to find it. I love it, but I am not excited for it to be a reality. According to the weather man it's probably going to get down to freezing later this week. Ack.

Plum for snack:

(Insert your own wrinkled plum joke here)

Lunch: Hummus, spinach falafel sandwich, shared with Fiona. She took bites out of both of them.

We watched some curious george, ate some shortbread that my friend Emily brought back for me from her trip to Scotland, and crocheted together after lunch.

First that meant she needed her own ball of yarn to mess around with and then turned into her yanking on the yarn I was working with. She's so helpful. I'm working on a rainbow blanket for her and now I have almost enough squares to arrange and crochet together.

In the afternoon she made short work of the leaf pile we've been working on.

Then for dinner I made pizza. We'll have curry leftovers tomorrow :-)

Anatomy of a homemade pizza...

Pizza and salad.

Now I am full.

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 16

Sunday again already! Why does the weekend go so fast?

Breakfast: Latte, toast. I was hungry and we have small bread right now so I had (as my friend Amanda put it) a pair of toasts. With marmalade.

Today's mug is from the airport in Amsterdam, Holland. I have flown through Amsterdam so many times traveling to and from Aberdeen, and although I've never been outside the airport it seemed fitting to have a mug from there.

Lunch: Leftover pasta from some time last week. Adele demanded that I pick out the broccoli and give it to her. That girl LOVES broccoli!!

Dessert: a tiny popsicle with my little loves.

Afternoon snack: a little roll.

I made curry for dinner which took a long time and required an emergency trip to the convenience store for peanuts. So I ate a few while cooking the curry.

Ben always wants more sauce than I make and tonight I said I'd double the sauce. He countered with the suggestion that I should make four times as much sauce so we compromised and I made three times as much, resulting in an enormous vat of curry. I hope he liked it because we're going to be eating it all week.

Cauliflower curry with rice and naan. (I also added some carrots).

Recipe (regular amount)... from memory because I am in the basement right now and the recipe is upstairs and I'm tired. I'll check it later and change it if I don't remember correctly.

4 oz red lentils. Here you get those from a middle eastern store, such as holy land. In the UK you get them in any grocery store.

2 tbsp oil

onion

1 tbsp flour

2 tbsp curry powder

2 tbsp mango chutney (you can get this at target).

2 1/4 cups veggie stock

2 oz salted peanuts

cauliflower, chopped into florets

Put lentils in pot, cover with cold water, cook about 10 minutes. In large pot fry chopped onion in oil until soft, stir in flour and curry powder, cook a few minutes, add stock, lentils, peanuts, cook about 10 minutes, add cauliflower, other optional veggies, cook about half an hour or until veggies are cooked and soft.

Enjoy!

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 13

Breakfast: A single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man's hat.

Not really. Latte and cinnamon sugar butter toast.

Today's mug is from New York. In 2004 (when we still lived in MI) Ben and I were flying to Aberdeen for Christmas. Our flight was scheduled to leave on December 23rd in the late afternoon, and (being the cheapest possible flight) had two connections, one somewhere in the US and another one in London, arriving in Aberdeen in the morning of the 24th (Christmas Eve). We made it to our first connection but the flight to London was cancelled for some weather related reason. They had to book us on a whole bunch of different flights and we ended up having to fly to Newark then from there to Glasgow, but the flight to Newark didn't leave until the next morning. So we had to sleep in the airport.

We arrived at Newark early in the morning on the 24th and had to wait about 12 hours for our next flight to leave. So we decided it would be a good time to take the bus into New York City for a few hours. We figured out which bus we needed and set off. Once we got there we walked around a bit and ate some really fantastic New York pizza from a (presumably authentic) pizza place.

We also stopped at a gift shop to get a mug to commemorate our adventure. Of course I was so paranoid about missing our next flight that we headed back pretty quickly and spent many, many more hours sitting in the airport.

Our flight left that night and arrived in Scotland the next morning. Unfortunately since it was now Christmas Day Aberdeen airport was CLOSED and we had to fly into Glasgow which is about a 3 hour drive away. My Dad kindly drove down well before the crack of dawn and picked us up. Here's a picture of dawn cracking as we drove home.

At the time it was a huge pain, but after traveling with little kids it puts the whole thing in a much less awful light. I think if the same thing had happened with the girls in tow we might have just not gone!

Back to today!

This morning we got together with our friends and ate some treats. I forgot to take a picture so I drew this in paint.

I know you can tell immediately what those items are, but just in case, I had a slice of banana nut bread (left) and a piece of blondie (right). Yum.

Lunch: Fiona requested mac and cheese so that's what we had.

Snack: A single plum, for real this time.

Dinner: Pesto tortellini with peas and broccoli in basil pesto cream sauce. Spinach salad. Half a little roll.

Ben sent me a picture of his dinner last night since we ate different things. He ate at his parents house because they were watching the girls while I went to my meeting and his Mum made a delicious vegetarian stir fry...

I'm sad that I missed it! His Mum is a great cook and has been making a lot of different vegetarian foods recently. I'm looking forward to swapping some recipes with her. Well, really I'm looking forward to having her cook more stuff when I visit!

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 12

My lovely friend Anna is pregnant and apparently all these pictures of food have been making her feel nauseous or hungry, so to help her out, this post has been modified specially for her.

Breakfast: Toast, Latte.

The bread was smaller than the last loaf so I had cheese on my toast to substantialize it. I also just invented a new word.

Today's mug is just one I found at Target, but it's tartan and it reminded me of home. It's also gigantic, and therefore holds a lot of tea. I love it. Though in the morning I have to remember it's extra big and only half fill it with coffee or I get way too jittery and caffeinated.

Lunch: Leftover risotto. I know, I had that yesterday, and also the day before. BORING. Also, some bread and pineapple.

Dinner: I had a late afternoon meeting in St. Paul that I had to arrange food for, and tonight it was pizza... It was from Pizza Luce though so it was delicious.

I'm feeling kind of peckish so I might have to have a pre-bedtime snack, but if so it'll probably be toast, so just imagine that next!

Lazy Vegetarian: Day 10

I realized after the first few days that I hadn't used the same mug for breakfast yet, and figured I'd try to keep that going until I had to repeat one. Then today I realized that each mug (or at least the vast majority of them) have some kind of memory associated with them. So I thought I'd start sharing those.

Breakfast... toast and marmalade, latte. Today's mug is a souvenir from a trip to Bordeaux Ben and I took together during the year when I was living in Aberdeen and he was living in Michigan. We went there to visit his awesome sister Carol and her family and had a great time.

Lunch:

Picnic with lovely friends. Cheese and spinach (and mayo!) whole wheat wrap...

Plum...

Oddly shaped and flavored crackers, generously shared with me...

Frazzles, imported from home by my Mum on her most recent visit.

Later I was waiting for Ben to come home to eat dinner, but I fed the girls beforehand. I was really hungry though so when Fiona only ate half of her roll, I polished off the other half...

I made butternut squash risotto for dinner (using regular rice instead of risotto rice). It was really good, but as usual it looks like unappetizing goop!

Then later I shared a special shortbread finger with Ben (also imported by my Mum, and so yummy). I even gave him the big half.

And because I know you're just DYING to know, here's a rundown of the meanings of mugs from the last 9 days.

1.

Scottish mug, specially for me. According to the definition on the mug, a besom (biz-um) is: obstreperous girl or woman/woman of low moral standing/broomstick made from loose twigs/a comet, or its tail.

2.

Scottish mug, specially for Ben but used almost exclusively by me. According to the definition an eejit is: idiot, simpleton, one not possessed of all their mental faculties.

Charming!

3.

"Louise" mug. Also imported from Scotland because it is almost impossible to get mugs that have my name on them in this country. Sad because I LOVE mugs with my name on them!! It has a cute poem on the back about how awesome I am.

4.

Ben has not one but two lego mugs with his name on them but I have this one because although I am special, I am apparently not special enough for lego to make a mug with my name on it.

5.

That one is Ben's. I like it. He has no idea where he got it.

6.

Vegas baby!! Souvenir from our trip to Vegas to get married.

7.

Aerial lift bridge in Duluth from the trip we took up there with my parents last year.

8.

We have a lot of friends in Chicago and got this mug on a trip we took to visit them before Fiona was born. I don't remember exactly when it was but it was the trip when we first visited the bar at the top of the John Hancock building and it was awesome.

9.

I got this mug last December when I was looking for a mug to give as a gift with a mug cosy (picture right at end). I didn't use it in the end because the shape was too awkward to fit the cosy around, but I liked it so it earned a spot in the cupboard.

Now, wasn't reading all that a good use of your time?