Lunch.

Am I the only mom who forgets to eat? Amidst all the time I spend feeding Foster and keeping him happy it's not uncommon for me to pass noon before I realize I haven't had breakfast or lunch. I am trying to fix this so today I accomplished a miracle: homemade soup while home alone! Foster has a new swing with a detachable rocking chair so I brought that into the kitchen and tackled some tasty lentil soup as blogged about by my lovely friend Lisa. I made it almost exactly the same with a few minor changes. First of all, I couldn't imagine this soup without garlic so of course I had to throw some of that in with the onions. Maybe it's the Ukrainian in me. Second, I had tomatoes sitting on my counter but the heat left them inedible so I ended up moving them to the compost and adding a tin of tomato paste instead. Also, as per usual I added spices to taste instead of following the instructions. It turned out really tasty and I was proud of myself for making a decent lunch for once. I have a hard time preparing food for just me but t will be nice to have leftovers for tomorrow and Davis can take some to work too. I find soup is one of the hardest foods to take good photos of but here is my version:

Would definitely make again! Now Foster has graciously decided to take a nap so I am going to try to get some dishes done before I make some more in my dinner prep. I'm planning on whipping up some potato salad and maybe some jerk tempeh to go with it. I'll let y'all know how it goes. Thanks to Lisa for the great soup idea!

Time to cook again!

Well Davis and I are settling nicely into parenthood and now we have time to make exciting food again. We set a grocery budget for ourselves of $100 a week and for the past two weeks have stayed under it and our meals have somehow managed to improve. It's amazing what a little planning can do for dinner time. Recently I've become obsessed with the food blog VeganYumYum. This is awesome but also depressing because the blog is no longer updated. However, there is an iPod/iPhone touch app with all of the recipes on it available for free on iTunes and it's amazing. Today I made Flaky Pizza Purses and they turned out remarkably well considering it was my first go with phyllo pastry and it's pretty finicky stuff. (Also considering I don't own a pastry brush for some reason and that made things extra interesting!) I was also thrilled at this prime opportunity to showcase our new basil plant. Here are the results!

The tomato sauce made with just grape tomatoes, olive oil and a couple dried herbs was scrumptious. Simplicity is underrated. The sauce would also be lovely on some whole wheat pasta. I added some veggie pepperoni and mushrooms to a few of the pockets and made the others according to the recipe. They were good both ways. My mind is now turning over some other options for fillings. Artichoke hearts, roasted garlic and caramelized onions anyone? Mmm...

Anyway, that was lunch at our house. What did you have?