Last Friday Night

I told you yesterday that we had a fun weekend. Friday especially was fun. We went to the USC tennis match! It is free, and we love watching tennis, and the stadium is really pretty!

(I didn't take this picture. But I accidentally erased the one I did take and it looked pretty much like this. Except it was night time. But the lights were so bright it pretty much looked like this.)

We were actually doing our laundry on Friday night. While the wash was going, we went to Baskin Robbins. (BTW, the Baskin Robbins next door to our laundry mat is going to be my downfall. How can I resist it when I have an hour and a half to burn when I'm there alone??) I sure love Baskin Robbins. Glenn did not actually let her eat some. She was disappointed to say the least.

Then, we put all the clothes in one giant dryer and set it for one hour and headed off to the tennis match! Violet was so good, and USC creamed the other team. I think it was San Diego. Apparently, USC has won like 30 national championships in the last 50 years. So I guess it is a good team to be a fan of!

p.s. Speaking of tennis...

Here is more proof that The Bachelor is at least partially scripted:

Rafael Nadal

Ben the Bachelor

How do the girls not bring up how much he looks like Rafael Nadal in EVERY conversation??

Enchiladas

We had a wonderful weekend, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about it, because I just can't wait to tell you about the enchiladas!

(They were so good we forgot to take pictures until we were halfway done with dinner!)

We only have half a week left of vegetarian month, so I decided I'd try one more new recipe before the end, and I'm sure glad I did! I found the recipe here, but I changed enough things that I'll repost the recipe with exactly what I did. We loved it so much, I'm definitely going to keep making this one!

Vegetarian Enchiladas

For the filling:

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 big red bell pepper, diced small

1 small serrano pepper, diced very small

1 big cup of frozen corn

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

1 big bunch of spinach

the juice of 1 lime

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

as much chopped cilantro as you want

directions: Saute the red onion until it is turing brown, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, red pepper, and serrano pepper and cook until those are turning brown. Add the corn, and deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Wilt in the spinach, and stir in the lime juice, cumin and cilantro. Done with the filling!

To assemble you'll need:

-the filling

-7-8 flour tortillas

-1 big can of red enchilada sauce (I used La Victorias, per the request of the recipe creator. I was nervous about using canned sauce, but don't worry, it was good.)

-about 8 oz of monterrey jack cheese

directions: dip the tortilla in the sauce so it is saucy on both sides. Fill with the filling and some cheese and roll it up. Put it seam side down in your 9x13 pan. Repeat 7-8 times. Pour a little more sauce over the top and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cook uncovered for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees! YUM!

(We served ours with plain yogurt, which we've been using in place of sour cream lately, just because we have a bunch of it. It is a worthy substitute. I like it MORE than sour cream!)

p.s. Here is a random fact about Glenn: He uses the words "lasagna" and "enchiladas" interchangeably. He can't remember which is which!

Pin It

Dessert, yum!

This month I have been cooking dinner more often than usual, I really have. The other thing I've been cooking a lot? Dessert.

There is a reason. Even though I've been cooking a lot, there is still the occasional day when we have a REALLY lame dinner. Like chips and guac. Or scrambled eggs. Lots of my easy, go-to meals have meat in them, and I'm still getting used to vegetarian meals I can cook on the fly. So when I know we are going to have a really lame dinner, I figure we can enjoy it if we know there is dessert at the end.

Things I've made lately: giant chocolate chip cookies (Like five times in the last couple of weeks), brownie pudding (twice in the last month), and last night: Chocolate mini-cheesecakes! YUM!

Presidents' Day Picnic

You might remember from Labor Day that I decided that our family tradition was going to be that on Monday holidays we have a picnic! (OMG I just looked at the pictures from that post and I can't believe how small she was!)

Well, in keeping with tradition (aka, the second time we've done this) we celebrated on Monday by going to the park with a picnic, frisbee, and cutie-pie baby in hand.

(these pictures are weird because we took them with Glenn's phone. Which is weird. Although admittedly not as weird as mine right now. I can only text words that occur in the first half of the alphabet. Don't ask.)

We ate sandwiches, strawberries, and some homemade "corn nuts" made out of chickpeas and covered in spices and some cinnamon and sugar. Yum!

Violet helped eat the strawberries, of course.

How did you celebrate?

She moves!

On Saturday, Violet achieved forward motion! She has been scooting backwards for a while now, but this weekend she really got going on the army crawl. Then, yesterday, she pulled herself up to standing! It was amazing to watch. I can't believe how strong and smart she is!

Also, I always put Violet in her room with her toys while I shower in the morning. Today, when I got out of the shower, she had scooted all the way to the doorway of her room. I'm going to have to close the door to her room if I don't want her to get into the shower with me tomorrow!

p.s. Has anyone read anything by Ann Patchett? Like State of Wonder or Bel Canto? I just watched an interview of her, and she seems so cool! So I hope her books are cool because I'm going to get them next time I'm at a bookstore.

My first foray into the world of cooking tofu...

I just couldn't let this whole month of vegetarianism go by without cooking some tofu, right? Actually, Glenn probably thinks I could have. But he was such a good sport, and agreed to try some.

So I made this: tofu with tons of veggies and a coconut milk/peanut sauce over brown rice. You know it is going to be good for you when it starts out like this, right?

First I cooked all those veggies, then I cooked the tofu. Then mixed it all together.

And the verdict? Really good. The sauce and the vegetable were delicious.

But, how is this for a twist ending?

Glenn kind of liked the tofu, and I thought it was kind of weird.

A date

We went on Valentines Day date last night! It was so fun. We were only gone for like an hour, but it is fun to be just the two of us once in a while! My handsome date:

We went to a greek place near us that we'd heard was good. We figured greek would be a good choice because there are always lots of vegetarian options. Glenn got a lamb kabob sandwich, which made me so jealous, because that is what I always get when we get greek food. He said it was amazing! I got a falafel sandwich, which was good, but I'll admit it, Glenn's looked better. This was one of the few times I've felt deprived during this vegetarian month. We also got spanikopita for our appetizer, which is phyllo dough filled with spinach and feta cheese. Delicious!

It is a pretty cool restaurant because it is attached to a greek market where they sold big jugs of olive oil, tons of different kinds of olives, and lots of other cool greek stuff. Also they had this dessert case:

Naturally, Glenn couldn't resist. He got a big square of baklava, and I got a biscotti dipped in chocolate. Yum! We brought them home and ate them sitting in our car in our parking lot and talked for a few minute before going inside.

Oh yeah, I also bought some pitas from the restaurant kitchen before we left, because they were so good! I'm always hesitant to make anything at home that we need pitas for, because it is impossible to buy good pitas at normal grocery stores! So I put them in the freezer, and next time I see a recipe for which I need pitas, I'm making it!