Whoops, there goes another post.

(sidenote: do the kids today even know the song ‘high hopes’? Other than the Phillies fans, who sing it every time the team wins. Am I officially old by cultural standards?)

There’s no great conspiracy that prevented this post from existing yesterday. I was going to do it, and then I forgot and had a snack and went to bed. Simple! To apologise to you the reader, I present my latest dinner success: veggie burritos!

First an admission: these would more likely be called soft tacos, not burritos, but I like the sound of burritos more.

The inspiration for this meal came from the metric ton of  romaine lettuce hearts I bought from Costco to make a giant greek salad. Even after making said salad, I had an armada of lettuce heads to use. The solution was to use them in place of the tortilla. I still have 2 and a half heads left, but at least I put a dent in it.

Ingredients:

bean filling:

mushrooms (about a pan full, after slicing)

Can of black beans, rinsed.

Cumin, cinnamon, salt,pepper

hunk o’ butter (you could replace with vegetable broth, if you really wanted to)

salsa:

4-5 Roma tomatoes, diced

1 onion, diced

generous handful of cilantro, diced

1/2 a bell pepper, diced.  (use a spicy pepper if you’re so inclined)

1 clove of garlic

lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste

along for the ride:

rice

romaine hearts

avocado slices

Cheese and/or sour cream  if you’re so inclined.

Bean filling:

Start by sauteing the mushrooms in the butter until they gain a healthy golden brown colour. Add the beans and spices and fry for a few more minutes until the beans start to fall apart.

Cook some rice (I used basmati, but your rice is your business) while the sauteing is going on.

The salsa is easy:throw the ingredients together and taste. Is it delicious? If yes, success! If no, add more seasoning. (in the case of too much salt, add more tomatoes until you get back to a sensible place)

Dismember the romaine hearts into their composite leaves. Put a layer of rice in the middle of the leaf, followed by bean filling, then salsa. top with a couple of avocado slices, and cheese/sour cream  if you’re using it. Each person should get 3-4 portions. These burritos fall precariously between appetizer and full meal, due to their limited storage capacity. Don’t try to make huge gonzo burritos and then come crying to me when the toppings end up in a pile on your plate.

 

Go Go Speed Poster!

Ah! Too many things! Must post quickly!

-NaNoWriMo is going well. Word count is a little behind but the chapter by chapter approach is going great. My primary success metric is posting a chapter every second day on the other blog, and so far, so good.

-you can only ask a two-year old to handle so much stuff in a week, so don’t be surprised when they go into an atomic meltdown by week-end. And since he was really tired, we got a nostalgic reminder of his old night terrors. But he slept in today and was back to his wonderful self, so no harm done.

-I am growing a moustache to raise awareness of prostate cancer, as well as just to grow a moustache. I don’t know if I’ve ever really grown one before, having been a goatee dude, with an occasional beard occurence. It’s going well, except I drifted off while shaving in the shower and accidentally shortened one side, forcing me to match the other side too. It’s not a hitler ‘stache, but it’s uncomfortably close to the Stan Laurel. I will disguise it with general stubble for the next few days until I can return it to its intended shape.

-Does it seem wrong to anybody else that the kiwis we buy at the grocery story come from Italy? I have no grasp of geography or botany, but aren’t kiwis a tropical fruit? Italy’s not tropical. Kiwis are frequently one of the fruits in a ‘tropical blend’ juice or a ‘tropical’ fruit salad.

Could be good, probably won’t be.

Ah, sleep. One of the behaviors that some parents fool themselves into thinking they have any say in the matter. It took a very long time for me to realize the little dude sleeps when he sleeps and we just have to ride it out.

You can make small adjustments, create a good sleep environment, and try to hold to a schedule, but don’t get bummed out when things go sideways. Today is an example of sideways sleeping. Max spent the day with his mom while I worked on my NaNoWriMo project (which is going great, thanks for asking. check it out yourself by clicking the link over on the right). She’s currently out at a social function/ volunteer event, and I was in charge of post-dinner entertainment and bedtime. Well, bedtime was pretty easy. Easy because he passed out in my arms an hour and  a half before bedtime was supposed to start. That’s the consequence of a long fun day with no nap,I guess. So now I’m hoping we get a lucky break and he sleeps until his regular time of 6AM, but I have a bad feeling that he’ll be up and ready to start his day in the dark, dark night. It could be a long day for mom and me.

At first, I felt guilty that he fell asleep so early on my watch. But honestly, what was I going to do? I could have engaged in a long and unpleasant keep awake campaign, but do I really want to make my sleepy dude miserable for the sake of routine? And I’ve had limited success keeping him awake anyway, so getting worked up over it was pretty pointless. So let’s roll the dice and see what we end up with tomorrow.