Peeps, if you are like me, you have already been to several Cookie Exchange parties and feeling more than stuffed with Holiday treats. This time of year, I try to keep weeknight meals as light, simple and healthy as possible. For instance, I found this awesome recipe from The FoodCharlatan that my family loves:
[servings=6]
Ingredients:
3 quarts water
1 tablespoon salt
1 and 1/2 to 2 pounds fresh broccoli
1 pound rotini pasta
3-4 cups fresh spinach
4 tablespoons butter
1 large lemon, zested and juiced
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 cup fresh Parmesan, plus more to garnish
olive oil, to garnish
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
In a large skillet or pot, bring the salt and water to a boil.
While you wait, prep your broccoli by trimming the stems and cutting the florets into similar sized pieces.
Add the rotini and boil on high for 4 minutes. Add the broccoli, cover, and set a timer for 3 minutes (Leave the burner on high enough to keep a rolling boil).
When the timer goes off, turn off the heat and drain the pasta using a lid or colander. Return to the pan and stir in the spinach.
Sprinkle with lemon zest. Let it sit for a few minutes so the spinach wilts.
Meanwhile, in a small skillet melt the 4 tablespoons butter over medium heat.
Add the minced garlic and crushed red pepper and saute for about 1 minute, until fragrant.
Turn off the heat and add 2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice. Add the lemon butter to the pasta and stir.
Stir in 1 cup fresh parmesan cheese. Add a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish with more cheese, fresh lemon wedges, and eat hot!
Alas, my favorite time of year has arrived: bone-chilling winter is upon us, time for me to get yummy soups going on my stove. This is a particularly favorite recipe that I keep coming back to, so I wanted to share it with you – It takes only about 20 minutes to prepare and then you are feasting (hopefully by a cozy fire) on heart-and-soul-warming goodness. Enjoy!
Southwestern Chicken & Rice Soup Low-Fat and My Way
Ingredients:
48 ounces fat free chicken broth
1/3 cup onions, chopped
1/3 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green bell peppers, chopped
1/2 cup long-grain rice, uncooked
1/4 teaspoon cumin
12 ounces boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped (*I purchase a baked chicken and de-skin and shred)
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup whole kernel corn, frozen
1 (4 1/2 ounce) can green chilies, chopped, undrained
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Bring broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Stir in rice and cumin.
Return to a boil.
Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes until rice is tender.
Stir in chicken and next 3 ingredients into rice mixture.
I am all heated up over here on Cheeky Street this week about gun violence. Mother Jones recently published some great material providing important background and facts about the current political environment (e.g., powerful Gun Lobby) essentially prohibiting the Centers for Disease Control from addressing gun violence in America as a public health issue. Thus, research about the impact of gun violence on Americans since 2005 is not cohesive and, more alarming, public policies to address the facts are stifled by members of Congress who are financed by wealthy gun advocates. So, stories like the ones in this article continue. And America is paying mightily:
Friends, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this blog! The writing, images and author’s voice are beautiful gifts that remind me of my own childhood and also contrast sharply to my own experience (in a funny way!!!) relocating to the country. GREAT READS, peeps.
After 49 Thanksgivings, I finally “get” why it did not matter to my Mom, in her later years, whether our family ate dinner together on paper plates (themed, of course) or not. The mere fact that we were together was enough for her – and it should have been enough for me – but, alas, I needed more “road miles” in life to fully understand.
This Thanksgiving I am wildly and enthusiastically thankful for 4 Things:
CURIOSITY
Mario’s preschool class visited our 34-acre wilderness every year for their Spring field trip – here he is greeting the bus! It was a truly wondrous time.
To be curious is a state of willingness to allow life, ideas, people, nature and the world to enthrall and intoxicate you. In spite of my struggle this 49th year of my life on earth to discover and maintain a healthy sobriety, I am thankful to discover that I still experience the wonder of a child every single day. AMEN to that and keep the curiosity coming!
After all, it has been said, “interesting people are interested people.”
SETBACKS
It has taken me 49 years to learn the slow and steady “tortoise” way – I used to prefer to hurry and get my reward or pain “over with.”
We all experience setbacks and many of them are stunning, paralyzing and utterly terrifying. Looking back, I really am thankful for each and every setback I have experienced. Not only am I learning humility, I am experiencing the ebb and flow of the journey and learning to take my EGO OUT OF IT. I mean, a mortal can only do so much – the Universe is so much larger and powerful, and there is no escaping the lessons we’re each meant to learn. To me, setbacks are just another way of experiencing mortality and human limitations. And like Garth Brooks famously crooned, “I thank God for unanswered prayers” every single day.
ACCEPTANCE
You’d never know it but this picture of my darling children was snapped during one of the darkest times of my life. Complete shock and uncertainty colored my days, but they, being the curious and resilient little teachers our children are meant to be, marched onward!
My husband and I were “curious” about life in a tiny town more than 200 miles away from our home so we packed up and moved away from friends, family, professional connections, and all the lovely comforts of city life. We stayed there 8 years. I joke that 2 of them were happy, but I seriously mean it! Looking back, that really is not true: my mental state was not happy because I was fighting the flow of our new lives. But something super cool I have discovered in mid-life: you can actually reflect back and accept what was once unimaginable and unendurable and it has the same effect – now my memories of what I thought was a “really dark time” are mostly funny and happy! I am so thankful for this gift.
MY TRIBE
Becoming a Mother is just one way of earning the responsibility for tending to a tribe. This is my first little tribe member, Isabella Bernadette.
A wise woman once told me, “Your kids aren’t always going to be this little.” Obvious statement of fact but, at the time, I could hardly imagine a time when my life was not dictated by play dates, diaper changes, snack times, story times, intrusive “Mom friends” and never-ending messes, usually involving bodily fluids. This is my beautiful daughter, now 16 years old, at 16 months old. I hardly remember the passing of time. Another wise woman, my own Mother, told me, “Honey, life will pass you by so quickly it will leave your head spinning.” And it has. She was right, as usual. I am thankful for my tribe of family, starting with my husband and children and colored with many interesting friends and co-workers. At the tender age of 49, I have learned how to assess quickly what “works” for my tribe and what needs to just go away! THANKS be to GOD!!
Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are, and whether you enjoy it on the finest china or paper plates. Life is a gift.
There is absolutely nothing written anywhere that says Moms who carry clean wipes and organize with twist ties and “label-able” baggies are better than Messy Moms. Yet, on many occasions, I have pondered this. Yes, life would be simpler if I were a more organized ziplock baggie-type of Mom, but would we be a happier family? Show me the studies that prove children raised in organized environments thrive and flourish and I might consider (though at 49 I am pretty sure it is far too late) changing my ways.
Like Carrie Bradshaw, each morning I awoke to a boutiquey trail of shoes down my steps and to the front door.
I mean, it isn’t as if nobody saw this coming: when we were dating, my husband recalls the “trail of shoes” in my little pink house – I liked it that way because I never knew what kind of “shoe mood” I would wake up in. Some people simply need to see their stuff to feel comfortable.
This is cozy. A bookshelf would be “cold” and uninviting.
Ask any other Clutter Mom how they manage to run an organized household around so much “stuff” and you will get the same answer: “I know exactly where everything is and it makes perfect sense to me.” Just not anybody else!
To me, THIS is organized.The first time I took baby Isa to visit my parents in St. Louis, my car was loaded down with so much baby gear (to improve her intelligence at 3 months), my Dad asked “Where’s the BABY?”
My kids are teenagers now and my family pretty much knows “I Yam Who I Yam,” and they take responsibility for organizing their own stuff. In addition to my proclivity to create clutter, I also have disastrous handwriting. So much so that, on many occasions, my children would come home from school claiming the teacher accused them of “forging your Mom’s signature” on papers she had sent home. Sigh. For years, Isa re-wrote my grocery lists for me.
Instead of making life more difficult, I think my messy-leaning-habits have created a sense of acceptance, tolerance and love in my household. Put THAT in your labeled baggie and twist tie your opinions, ORGANIZED MOMMAS!
Because my children and household are F-I-N-E with their Messy Momma. I may not be able to whip out exactly what my children need at precisely the right time from my purse, like other Moms, but my kids always understood my struggle with organization and everybody managed to get by.
If you are reading this and have perhaps been feeling badly about your lack of organization, I urge you to to think a moment about whether anybody in your family would be happier or better off but for your personal failings. I always found the Organized Moms to be a tad boring, myself. And THAT’s how we ROLL………..
Cheeky Street 