Gardening & cooking

So, tonight I made Spicy Red Beans Indian Style, with basmati rice and a salad. It turned out pretty good, with lots left over to take up to my grandparents tomorrow. Last night I made spaghetti, so we’ll be taking some spaghetti sauce up too. I think dad should be capable of cooking rice and noodles to go with them. I’m still amazed at how much I like cooking and eating vegetarian meals to be honest. I never thought I’d be able to even consider being a vegetarian, but I really think I could do it these days. Mostly, anyways.

It’s been pretty nice outside the past few days, which has been awesome. We got tomatoes & peppers started upstairs and green onions (yellow & red), planted outside on Tuesday. Then today we planted 22 rows of lettuce, spinach, mustard and arugula outside. I really hope everything comes up and does well. Its the first time I’ve planted anything in a really long time. I think the last time I did any actual gardening myself was when I grew a giant pumpkin in like 1997 or 98. A long time ago, basically.

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Happy Valentine’s Day!!

So, tonight for Valentine’s Day Kevin & I went and saw Jumper. It was really pretty decent, definetly not the best movie ever, but not bad. An interesting story line that obviously has at least one or two sequels in the pipeline already.

On our way back, we had a pretty decent conversation about outdoor lighting. So many houses have outdoor lights that are just “always on”, for no good reason.  Personally, I can’t figure it out. There is no logical, reasonable reason to have big, spotlights and such on all night long. They are a waste of electricity and are the main source of light pollution. In cities and towns, an argument might be made to have at least some lights on at night – for safety and security – but out in the country that argument just doesn’t hold water. So, I’m urging everyone that has these lights to think long and hard about their purpose. I realize this is all a bit disjointed and not all that well thought out, but just imagine how much electricty might be saved if we all just turned off these lights – there are literally millions of them in this country alone.

I made salmon with lemon butter and brown  rice pilaf. It turned out pretty good, though the salmon was definetly better than the rice. Tommorrow I’m planning on making stuck pot rice with lentils and yogurt. So far, most everything I’ve made out of Bittman’s vegetarian cookbook has been pretty good – last nights was my favorite so far (baked pinto beans enchilada style, with cooked tomatillo salsa).

Swimm’n

So, today we got up early and went in to the Tuscarawus YMCA. I did 30 laps (down and back), in right around one hour. It was a blast. I love swimming, love being in the water, and just swimming… We got signed up for First Aid, CPR & Oxygen, and I got signed up for Lifeguarding too. Kevin ran on the treadmills and did some other strenght training stuff. I went in and was first riding one of the reclining bicycles. One lady came up and was like “good for you!” then some guy came up an was like “YOU CAN”T DO THAT! OMG!!” and so… I stopped, and walked around the track (cause’ Andros just wanted to be doing SOMETHING), an then he was like “OMG you can’t be in here with him!! He’s a BABY!!” So… I left. How stupid. I meant to ask someone else and see what their response was… but meh, didn’t feel like it at the time. They do have childcare… but I’m just leery about leaving Andros with them, especially today as they were packed (cause’ no school, cause’ tis “too cold”), and it costs money ($2 a day or $12 for 10 visits), not a lot but, still. So, I just wanderd around the place untill Kevin was done an then we went grocery shopping an came home.

I made Lentils and Potatoes with curry and basmati rice and indian flat bread for dinner, and it was very good. Definetly the best thing I’ve made from How to make Everything Vegetarian so far. Overall just a really good day..

Eating less meat

So I just ordered How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I’ve been trying to learn to cook more vegetarian recipes and thereby eat less meat. So far though, I’ve been pretty much stuck on about 4 recipes – spaghetti squash, black beans & rice,vegetarian stir fry,tostadas… So, after seeing this at borders yesterday I came home and read lots of reviews on amazon. Most of the complaints seem to be along the lines of ‘hes not a vegetarian and talks about meat’ – but since we aren’t either, it doesn’t really worry me. In anycase I’m excited to get it and start cooking 2 or 3 or 4 meals a week vegetarian, and saving meat/fish for the weekends and special occasions. I’ll post about how I like it when it comes!

Tae Kwon Do class last night was very good. We did the usual stuff and then take downs and how to get OUT of take downs at the end of class… and then left the mats down so that we could actually practice our fighting steps after class. I’m feeling slightly better than I had been about testing on the 9th, though its still more than just a bit nerve wracking. I’m excited to go again tonight though, and practice some more. Its just very hard to do so here at home what with Andros running around, and the simple lack of space…

We went up to Canton yesterday, so we stopped and got Grandpa a longer printer cable, which made him very happy. Now he can actually pull it all the way out and not have it get caught or anything. We also found out that my Aunt Carol was in the hospital and got her appendix removed! Which got us wondering how you get appendicitis anyways. I mean, is it like a virus/disease or does your appendix just randomly quit working properly?? Maybe I’ll look it up and figure that out sometime…