A new chapter

A lot has happened since I last posted here:
- I graduated with my PhD in Pharmacology and my Masters in Human Genetics
- We conceived and welcomed our daughter, Evelyn, into the world.
- We've found a better home for our sugar gliders.

I may someday write about those adventures, but for now, I'm going to focus on what we're doing now. I've been sharing a lot on Facebook about my adventures at home with Evelyn, but I think there's a limit to how much I want to flood everyone's page with my little musings on motherhood and children. However, we have so many family and friends that are spread across the states, I still want to be able to share those memories with them. Thus, the resurrection of this blog.

For today, I'll leave you with this:

Because sometimes I manage to find a shirt and pants that actually match!

Re-defining my {blogging} goals

1. I will write, for myself, about anything. I want to write for me. I want to write things that so that I can look back and remember the beginning of our life together, the good, the bad, and everything in between. It sounds so cliche, but this is my space. This also means I won't write just what others might want to read. I'm going to write things that I want to remember, that I want my kids {when we have them} to be able to look back and read.

2. I will write about struggles and the journey, rather than just the accomplishments. Life brings many challenges, and often I quickly forget about how I overcame those challenges, in favor of just being glad it's over. I need to remember and remind myself of how hard I have worked and that that is the goal - to work hard. To fully take on challenges and be fearless in doing so. Not to check many easy things off a list.

3. I will write freely, and allow myself to make mistakes. I am allowed to hit 'publish' even when the writing is not perfect. Even if the structure is not perfect. Because I have way too many posts that have never been finished because I didn't have the time to make them 'perfect.'

Black Bean {and bulgur wheat} burgers

This easy recipe has become a favorite around our house. It's based off a recipe from Simple Vegan by Good Housekeeping.

Southwestern Style Black Bean Bulgur Burgers

(makes 4 patties - doubling/tripling the recipe works fine)

Ingredients:

1 c. water
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 c. bulgur wheat
1 can black beans (rinsed and drained)**
6 oz nondairy plain yogurt (optional, keeps burgers together better, can also use plain or greek dairy yogurt, as long it is plain)
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cloves garlic
3 chopped green onions
1/2 tsp ground red pepper (aka cayenne)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp chipotle chili pepper
1/4 tsp ground cumin

Directions:

1. Heat the water and salt in a microwave-safe dish. Once water is almost boiling, stir in bulgar. Continue heating until water is absorbed. Can also do this in a covered pan on the stove. Bulgar should get to the consistency of al-dente rice.
2. In a large bowl, mash beans (with a fork or potato masher) with 2 Tbsp yogurt until almost smooth.
3. Stir in bulgur and spices until combined. With lightly floured hands, shape mixture into 4 patties. Coat both sides of each patty with cooking spray.
4. Heat nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Add burgers and cook until lightly browned and heated through, browning both sides.

**You can throw the black beans directly into a colander and run some water over them until the water draining out is clear. Since this rinses all of the salt and extra liquid off the beans, you don't need to buy the expensive reduced-salt beans.  

Modifications/Notes:

• Make ahead of time - If you don't have time to do this all at once, or you want to plan ahead, you can make the mix and store it in the fridge for up to a week. I have not tried freezing but I imagine it would be ok, as long as you stirred thoroughly once thawing to allow any separated water to re-combine with the rest of the mix.
• Plain non-dairy yogurt - I can't usually find it, so I usually leave it out. The patties don't come together quite as well, so if yours aren't working - make it a sloppy joe!
• Black bean "Sloppy Joe" - Don't have time to form patties or your mix isn't coming together as well? Throw the whole mixture into a pan and cook until the mixture is thick enough to form. Then scoop onto buns and serve.
• Don't like these spices? Try whatever combination you fancy. This combination gives you Southwestern-style spice. If you want the burgers less spicy decrease or omit the red pepper, black pepper and chili pepper.
• Grilling - I have not yet tried these on an actual grill. They don't have quite the solid consistency to actually put on a grill unless you put foil on the grill. 

My Inspiration -
I get inspiration from many cookbooks, including these:
Vegan Indian Cooking by Anupy Singla
The New Vegan Cookbook by Lorna Sass
Simple Vegan by Good Housekeeping
Family Vegetarian Cooking by Good Housekeeping
The Sexy Vegan Cookbook by Brian Patton

Our recent activity: Cooking Middle Eastern-Inspired {MEI} food from a Midwestern girl

As of late around here, we've been trying all sorts of new spices and seasonings to add a little variety into what we're eating. I'm now eating mostly vegan, and one of the best things to add into your diet {vegan or not} is lentils and a variety of beans. I thought I would start to post some of the recipes and tricks that I've been trying.

I have been reading a lot of different vegan and Indian cookbooks and I will include links to the sources so that all of you can enjoy them {and hopefully I won't have anyone try to sue me}. Although I'm using a lot of Indian spices and recipes, I hesitate to call it Indian food, because I have not been taught by anyone how to do it correctly, so I'm calling it MEI {Middle Eastern-Inspired food}.

Some of my favorite books so far:
Vegan Indian Cooking by Anupy Singla
This woman is amazing! She walks you through all of the various spices, lentils - what they look like, where to find them, how to roast spices {a new one for me!}, and how to cook beans/lentils in your slow cooker so that you don't have to spend lots of time over a stove. She also has quite a few new and inventive recipes for not just dinner, but also breakfast and dessert! The only downside to this book so far is that most of the recipes are rather time consuming until you've built up your pantry of spices and homemade spice mixes {she gives recipes and instructions on how to make each combination}. She has another book using the slow cooker, which I am waiting to get from the library so that I can use my favorite appliance too.

The New Vegan Cookbook by Lorna Sass
If you have to get one vegan cookbook, get this one. She has written out helpful hints and tons of basic recipes for everything from creamy herb salad dressing to cuban picadillo. This cookbook has a great variety of recipes for foods that you can easily combine with whatever else you plan to make for gatherings, barbeques, or just lunch.

Simple Vegan by Good Housekeeping
This book was a pleasant surprise. It has awesome recipes that are not overly complicated, and have turned out really tasty. My favorite recipe so far has been their idea for black bean burgers, which I have been able to manipulate into many different flavors depending on what we are in the mood for. Good Housekeeping also has a really good vegetarian recipe book, which has some good vegan recipes which I really like. This book would be great for vegetarians out there who don't mind having some vegan dishes. However most of the vegetarian recipes are not easily converted to vegan {they rely a lot on eggs, cheese, and dairy products}.

The Sexy Vegan Cookbook by Brian Patton
This is good for plenty of laughs and definitely has some good recipes, but too many of the recipes rely on cooking with tempeh, seitan, and tofu. I don't mind using these manufactured protein substitutes sometimes, but they always seem a little off to me, as someone who recently gave up meat. He has some really good salad recipes though that have worked well.

I'm writing up some new recipes that I have recently tried, as well as some that have become quick favorites, so as soon as those are finished, I will post them here.

Leftover vegetable soup

I had plenty of fresh vegetables in the fridge that I was planning on using in a salad. But for some reason the split pea soup I made two days ago had me craving more [as it is in the 80's around here, I'm sure I'm going crazy].

Anyway, I was going to write a funny post about how I just kindof put things in a pot to make this soup, but since I have to present my research tomorrow for the first time to my thesis committee, I'm just going to show you guys. Enjoy!

Split Pea Lemon Spinach Soup with carrots, parsley and barley (aka whatever-I-had in the fridge-today soup)

Combine the following in a pot and cook until the spinach is wilted and the onion is soft:

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup water

10oz Spinach, chopped

1/2 large white onion - sliced into thin strips, then chopped enough so you won't get big pieces

1/2 bunch parsley, chopped

10-12 baby carrots, chopped

While the vegetables are cooking add:

the juice of one lemon (two if you want it to have a stronger 'kick')

1 tsp salt

ground pepper to taste

Once your vegetables are cooked, add:

2 cups of water

1 cup of split peas

1 cup of pearled barley

[These are estimates, I didn't measure when I made this, but I will go back and edit the amounts when I've made this again. I added some more water once most of this was soaked up by the peas and barley. Add water during the cooking process until the peas and barley are cooked, and the broth is the thickness you want.]

Cover and cook until peas and barley are soft. You may need to mash the peas with a spoon to get the consistency right. 

They are so spoiled...

So I never thought I would be one of "those" pet people. You know who I'm talking about - they bombard you with comments about "how cute" it was when little Fluffy rolled over and "made a stinky" on the carpet. You would rather die than hear one more comment about their pet that is probably laughing inside as they make their human pick up after them.

I swore I would never be like that. And for a while I was saved. I had fish, and aquatic frogs growing up - but no one can really gush about their aquatic pets - they just don't do enough even if you are a pet fanatic.

Enter these two girls. I'm a changed woman. I can't stand when they seem bored, or sad, or lonely. So recently when it seemed that they didn't like any of their toys - even when we re-arranged everything, I went shopping. Along the way, they got some extra treats, and extra challenges.

They LOVE their new foraging toy - we put treats inside it, and they spend all night trying to get at them!

Mealworms are now their absolute favorite treat - they can't get enough of them. And they 'attack' them as if they were still alive! It's as though they have an instinct that tells them the worms might actually escape if they don't eat it fast enough.

Healthy brownies

So I've been really trying to make some of the recipes I've pinned {because really after all - that's the point}.
This week I tried this brownie recipe - lower fat, lower sugar, etc than most brownie recipes - AND high protein? Sounds too good to be true right?
Well it is - sort of. They don't taste exactly like decadent brownies that you would make from a box or buy from a store. You can definitely tell that they have bananas in them. But I like chocolate and bananas, so it wasn't a bad thing. And the batter is really too thick for a blender, I had to add at least a cup of water to the blender to get it to blend {but then these ended up being nice and moist and almost fudgy}.
The batter was delicious {I ended up eating a bunch a little while I was mixing}. They are definitely sweet enough even though I decreased the agave syrup down to a 1/4 cup.

Overall - I like these. They are definitely a nice "treat" when you are trying to eat healthier.