Pink Eyes, Big Heart

Olivia came down with pinkeye recently. She had it once before and it cleared up on its own, but that was not the case this time. Just when I thought I had better take her in to see the pediatrician, she started running a fever and wheezing. Off we went!

When the doctor said she wanted to do a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia, I panicked internally. That's not a word any mama wants to hear. Thankfully, Olivia did not have pneumonia! She got some antibiotics and she was also given a breathing treatment to help her lungs.

She was so happy she didn't have to get a shot.

I made some of her favorite foods to help her get better, including whole wheat toast with jam.

Our favorite hummus, Horseradish Dill Hummus from Appetite for Reduction.

Perfect Kale Chips from Oh She Glows. They really do turn out perfect every time and Olivia will eat a whole tray.

15-Minute Creamy Avocado Pasta from Oh She Glows. If this was the only pasta I made for Jackson and Olivia, they would be fine with that.

What are your favorite foods when you are sick?

Problem Solver

Today Jackson received a "problem solver" award at the quarterly awards ceremony. It's one of the character traits that they focus on. He has always been a curious little person who loves figuring things out, so I thought it was a fitting award!

Olivia loves to check out the fish tank whenever we visit Jackson's school.

For lunch, I made the Horseradish Dill Hummus from Appetite for Reduction. I love horseradish. Olivia and I polished off the whole bowl, along with pita chips, carrot sticks, and a peanut butter protein ball for dessert.

For dinner we had veggie burgers with curly fries. I was hungry, can you tell?

Hot cocoa is a bedtime treat I've been enjoying on the regular. I don't buy the prepackaged mix. It is super easy to make your own. I like to add maca to mine.

Maca Hot Cocoa

8 oz. almond milk

1 tsp. cocoa powder

1/2 tsp. maca powder

2 packets stevia

Spoon the cocoa powder, maca and stevia into a mug. In a separate cup, microwave the almond milk for 2 minutes. Pour it into the mug and stir vigorously with a fork, to break up any clumps of cocoa powder. 

Salad Days

Sadly, I wasn't kidding about needing to go on a diet after eating Tex-Mex pretty much every single day of our vacation. Especially considering that my parents are coming to Austin in early August...and we'll be eating Tex-Mex pretty much every single day of their visit! So between now and then, I'm monitoring my eating habits more closely than usual.

I'm not following any kind of trendy diet plan or anything. I've just stopped snacking between meals, and I watch my portion sizes. I also try to eat as many fruits and veggies as possible.

One night I made fettucine with tons of fresh zucchini, from my uncle's garden, and cherry tomatoes, from my own. Keeping the veggie-to-pasta ratio high allows you to eat a big helping, with fewer calories.

H-E-B has started carrying this crazy powdered peanut butter stuff called PB2. You add water, and it turns into a peanut butter sauce. Not quite the consistency of regular peanut butter, but similar. However, almost all the fat has been removed. This is a wonderful find for a dieting peanut butter lover like myself. Peanut butter is awesome, but it's also high in fat.

PB2 sauce is great spooned over apple or banana slices. This is a typical lunch. Apple slices with PB2, and Wheat Thins with a little cream cheese and raspberry chipotle jam.

One day I roasted some beets. Pretty purple jewels!

I made a salad with romaine lettuce, beets, red onion, and avocado. I blended up some Creamy Horseradish Dressing, from Appetite for Reduction. Such a fantastic pairing! I bought a huge thing of prepared horseradish -- this is my go-to salad dressing now!

Here's another salad I made, also from Appetite for Reduction. It's the Sushi Roll Edamame Salad with Green Onion-Miso Vinaigrette. This salad totally has a huge "wow!" factor when you place it on the table. Just gorgeous. And it has all the lovely flavors of veggie sushi. Most importantly, it's quite filling, thanks to the brown rice in it. It's a salad you can eat for dinner and be satisfied.

I had a couple of less successful attempts from AfR, as well. The Apple-Miso Tofu sounded promising, but I found it bland and way too salty. Tony agreed.

I served the tofu over rice alongside Orange Scented Broccoli, which I didn't care for, either. It was too spicy. I should've cut the amount of red pepper flakes in half. 

Oh well, they can't all be favorites. AfR will still be getting a lot of use over the next several weeks.

Tony loves to dine out and so do I, and I can't deprive us of that just because I'm trying to drop some L-B's. I just try to eat mindfully and stop eating when I'm full, since restaurant portions are always huge. My veggie enchiladas from Chuy's provided some tasty leftovers.

I said that I've restricted my snacking, but Natural Grocer was having a really good sale on Go Raw snacks, which I'd been wanting to try. So I picked up a couple of bags. I sampled them, then passed them over to the kids.

The Pizza Flax Snax really do taste like pizza! They have a strong fennel flavor, and a nice satisfying crunch. Olivia loves them. The Chocolate Super Cookies are slightly chewy and have a rich chocolate flavor. Although they are small little discs, these snacks are filling.

Here's one more lunch I had this week -- beets, carrot sticks with Sanctuary Dressing from AfR (didn't care for its thick texture -- the horseradish dressing is better), and a few Go Raw cookies.

I am down three pounds so far, so I'm pleased with that. We'll see how this next week goes.

Hope you have a great week!

Chickpea-Harissa Cakes with Lemon-Dill Dip

I'm not usually a creative cook -- I read cookbooks, I follow recipes.  But, on occasion, I can find inspiration by looking through my fridge and cupboards. Today, I challenged myself to use up a bunch of stuff in preparation for our move. Here is the result. Recipes included!

Spicy Chickpea-Harissa Cakes - sort of like baked falafels, but with the spicy chili flavor of harissa. These are soooo good.

I served the cakes with a Lemon-Dill Dip. This would also be a good dip for potato chips or carrot sticks.

Spicy Chickpea-Harissa Cakes (makes 10)

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 small white onion, chopped

2 Tbsp. harissa

2 Tbsp. flour

1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil for brushing

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine chickpeas, onion, harissa, flour, lemon juice, garlic and salt in your food processor bowl. Mix until it has a smooth consistency like a thick hummus, scraping down the sides as needed. Form into small patties and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten each patty slightly with your spatula. Lightly brush each patty with olive oil.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400F. Flip patties and brush with olive oil. Bake 10 minutes and remove from oven. Serve with Lemon-Dill Dip.

Lemon-Dill Dip

1 12-oz. block silken tofu

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp. dried dill

1/2 tsp.salt

Combine all ingredients in food processor. Thin with soymilk if desired.

I also made Horseradish Potato Pancakes -- my first go at making potato pancakes. I'm not ready to share my recipe on this one, since my mixture was on the gummy side. I'll work on it. Potatoes love horseradish. So do I!

Check it out -- John and Jill over at Vegan Backpacker have started a new program called Vegan Cuts. Sign up and you'll receive a weekly email featuring deals on vegan products and services.

Also, Molly of Vegan Flower has over 250 blogs already on her new Vegan Blogs List. It's quite a compilation -- I've found several new blogs to start following. If you have a blog, you can contact her and get yours listed.