Lovin' on Cilantro

as some of you know, i'm a huge cilantro fan. well, a fan of condiments in general... it's all about the condiments! it's kinda crazy how much ketchup/bbq sauce i have with my fries. anyways, dc and i try to eat vegetarian as much as we can... mostly for environmental reasons (it's crazy how much energy is wasted to grow/produce a slab of meat vs. to grow/produce non-meat products), but also for our health and budget. so how do we get our protein? mostly beans, tofu and eggs. we try to eat fish at least once or twice a week, too. i could go on and on about food, health and the environment... but don't let me bore you.

try this -- it's easy to prepare and delicious! especially if you're a fan of cilantro. :)
it's great with avocado slices, aioli, tomato slices, etc. or as a side to soup or chili.

Garbanzo Patties, makes about 12 patties
(adapted from Heidi Swanson's Sprouted Garbanzo Burger recipe in her book "Super Natural Cooking")

2 1/2 cups canned garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained and rinsed (of course feel free to cook your own garbanzo beans instead)
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 medium onion, chopped
Grated zest of 1 large lemon
1 cup sprouts (try broccoli or alfalfa sprouts), chopped
1 cup toasted whole-grain bread crumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
lemon juice, to taste
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Combine drained and rinsed garbanzo beans with the eggs and salt in a food processor and puree until the mixture is the consistency of a very thick, slightly chunky hummus.

Transfer to mixing bowl, and stir in chopped cilantro, chopped onion, lemon zest, and chopped sprouts. Season with a squirt of lemon juice and sprinkling of freshly cracked pepper to your liking. Add more salt, if needed, to taste.

Finally, add bread crumbs, stir, and let sit for a couple of minutes so the bread crumbs can absorb some of the moisture. You can always add more bread crumbs or conversely add a bit of water or more egg to adjust the moisture, but I err on the moist side to make nicely textured patties.

Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add four patties, cover, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the bottoms begin to brown. Adjust the heat higher if there is no browning after 10 minutes. Flip the patties and cook the second side for another 7 minutes, or until golden. Remove from skillet and cool while cooking the remaining patties.

Enjoy!

Hoot

i think i just heard an owl.... is it still to early in the evening for that? it took me a bit to get used to all the birds singing in the morning. they used to wake me up every morning. now, i can sleep through it all. i like to sit out on the porch at times to watch all the squirrels, chipmunks, cardinals, woodpeckers, and lightning bugs. now.... i may have to keep my eye open for an owl! izze used to love sitting out on the porch, watching all of the activity. he used to beg to go outside on the porch. i think he's bored of it all, now. he continues to sleep on the couch inside regardless of whether the door to the patio is open.

once, a very friendly feral cat came about to visit, but izze got very upset. he hissed and got very puffy until the other cat went away. dc and i've run into other friendly feral cats on our evening walks around the neighborhood. the kittens always tug at my heart and remind me of when we first took izze and kiko in. i think about how you don't have a choice when it comes to the family you're born into, and then you try so hard for the rest of your life trying to make a family for yourself to love.

have a great weekend and look forward to august!

Time on My Hands

i've been trying to work out more at the gym. i like training with weights, but doing cardio always bogs me down. my heart is a muscle... that doesn't like to train. in addition to exercising more, dc and i've been trying to eat healthier too. we've never been bad about our eating habits (although i am a helpless sugar addict), but we're more mindful now of eating more fruits, veggies and fish. i guess it's always easier to eat more fruits and veggies in the summer because there's more variety (if you're into eating what's locally "in season"... i can't get myself to buy strawberries at the grocery store in december). sometimes, i buy too much and get very ambitious about what we'll eat... i feel pretty guilty when food goes bad. so these days, i've been planning out dinner menus before my weekly grocery runs. this week, the list includes fish tacos with guacamole, salmon sandwiches with dill sauce, pizza with meat and veggies, linguini with zucchini and basil, tofu and broccoli stir fry, and a dinner salad with sardines and eggs. i only had to plan six dinners this week, b/c we've been invited to a friend's cookout on sunday. it's been years now since dc and i started cutting down on our red meat intake to about once a week. red meat isn't as healthy as our other protein options and the consumption of red meat isn't economically sustainable (i.e. the intake of grains it takes for a cow to provide us with a slab of meat). we do love the taste of it now and then, though.... beef tartare! bulgogi! filet mignon!

these past months, i've come to appreciate just how much work it takes to "run a household." there's a fair amount of economics involves and it takes a lot of management and planning skills too. then again, its rather silly for me to say that considering my experiences don't even include running a household that includes children. i'm sure that factor would take it up a notch.

did some more gardening today. watered our herbs (mint, sweet basil, thai basil, cilantro) and potted an ivy plant (my mother in law had given me a cutting from her plan about a month ago). i also planted some basil seeds to get more started before our current set gives out. we've been using the herbs in a lot of our pasta/noodle dishes (totally have been on a noodles with thai peanut sauce kick!). my mother in law is a gardener too and has quite the green thumb-- she started an avocado tree from seed and gave me the seedling. i'm curious to see how long i can keep the avocado plant going. i would love to grow fruit trees.... one day when/if we ever have a yard of our own. for now, i'm happy with our screened in porch and the view of the woods from there. we try to eat our dinners out on the porch as much as we can. it's nice to venture outside once the stifling heat has subsided and the darkness is punctuated with the blinking of lightning bugs (do you call them lightning bugs or fireflies? maybe it's a minnesota/midwest thing to call them lightning bugs). it'd be nice to go to bed with the windows open, but we live on the first floor and it doesn't seem prudent. alas.

Life in the South

my life in the south has begun. dc and i made the drive from chicago to the ATL with our cat in tow. originally, we had ambitions for a one-day drive (leaving at 5:30 a.m. central and arriving at 9:30 p.m. eastern). after 13 hours of driving, we instead stopped for a night in Chattanooga, TN and checked into a pet-friendly hotel. while our cat explored the room and stretched 10+ times after being cramped in a pet carrier all day, dc took me out for my first meal ever at cracker barrel. "welcome to the south," said dc. i must admit, the sweetened peach-flavored iced tea was mighty fine.

fast forward three weeks (THREE WEEKS already?!). we've unpacked most of our boxes (maybe 10 or less boxes remaining), opened a new bank account, shopped for a car, found the local stores and groceries, cooked a few meals (only a few b/c we've otherwise been eating one salad after another) and baked brownies, trekked out to H-mart for Korean food/groceries, met up with family for meals (cody's parents are a stone's throw away in Anniston, AL; and his grandmother, brother, aunt and cousins live in the greater Atlanta area), started some basil and dill in gardens pots, and assembled a few ikea furniture finds.

today, dc officially started work-- his first day of work as a doctor! :) also, hooray for the first day of summer! dc and i will be enjoying the longest day (daylight hours, that is) of the year, by going to an Atlanta Braves game tonight.

random bits: i'll rest easier now that i have health insurance again (phew!). our washing machine with the rental apartment is so basic that it only allows cold washes (good thing that Tide Coldwater Liquid Laundry Detergent got a great review from consumer reports). we've been line-drying our laundry instead of using the dryer (may as well take advantage of all this heat and sun in the south). thank goodness for ceiling fans! i've been saying "ghetto" a lot to describe/criticize things, but i'm beginning to wonder if it's just as faux pas as saying something is chinky. 

Listen

i love listening to stories.  i remember teachers (shout out to mr. evans at sunnyside) at school reading to us from "where the red fern grows", etc. i remember lingering and trying to fade into the background while listening to the conversations at family gatherings when the adults started talking and the other kids left to play. i've been an avid npr and talk radio listener since the sixth grade. i've started many conversations trying to tell someone about a story i heard on npr.

it's amazing... the power of the spoken word... sharing of thoughts, experiences, hopes... in the hands of a talented and articulate writer or story teller... what a gift! it's such a captivating experience. also compelling, convicting, stirring, relaxing, funny, comforting, intimate, etc. i realize now that that's why i prefer music with lyrics (vs. instrumental pieces)... b/c of the stories. 

chasing stories... has made me quite an extrovert at times. i remember the guy i met on a subway platform when i used to live in nyc. don't remember how the conversation started, but we talked and talked and it ended with him asking for my number. i don't remember why i didn't give it to him. during college, i met a wellesley alumna in her early 70's who was back on campus auditing a class for the semester and looking for a place to get lunch her first day. we ended up meeting regularly for lunch all semester. she told me so many wonderful stories about her college days at wellesley. what a different place it was! then, when i was backpacking across europe by myself after law school, i struck up a conversation with a married couple in their early 50's during a long train ride. it ended up that she was a wellesley alumna and the couple lived in the twin cities (my hometown), but were traveling on business. "what a small world!" we said at the time. during another leg of the trip, i met a japanese girl (also traveling solo) and after hitting it off, we coordinated some of our site seeing in several cities (vienna and venice) until i left for rome and she headed for florence. most recently, when cody and i went to the "great lake swimmers" concert at millennium park, i started talking to the guy next to me who seemed to have come by himself. turns out that he was an engineer from belgium on a business trip. we talked it up and cody and i shared our snacks (pistachios, cantaloupe, etc.) with him until he had to leave to catch a train back out to the burbs where he was staying.

i've noticed that i'm more passive these days. i don't chase stories as much as i used to. i'm not as extroverted.

if you too are a lover of stories, check these out and enjoy!

storycorp 

this american life

re-sound