Meatless March

Fried rice needs no recipe. You cook some rice, and then heat up some oil (medium-low heat) and throw it in. Add whatever vegetables you have on hand--in my case, fresh corn, peas, and bok choy--and you make a hole in the pile of rice and veggies, into which you pour some beaten eggs, and let them scramble. You squirt in some soy sauce and you mix it together and serve it piping hot. It is a thing of simple beauty. Tonight I watched the end of Octopussy, and now I'm on GoldenEye. How does a person watch these movies as anything other than comedy? They're hilarious! Still, one admires that Bond is inevitably stylish. We should all be so stylish on a daily basis. Something to work on, unquestionably. "Jennie, you're incorrigible." Here's an interesting and practical article on recycling. I'm pleased to report that nothing here took me by surprise. Often I throw my containers into the dishwasher to clean them before recycling. https://www...

Remember Meatless March, and how it took place in March? Which is basically still winter? We ate a lot of root vegetables and dried/canned goods that month, didn't we? It turned out alright, but boy am I glad those dark days are over. There are few things that holler "summer" to me quite as insistently as pesto. I love pesto. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I use the recipe that came with my miniature food processor. Probably there are better pesto recipes, but the point is that you cannot go wrong with pesto. I bought the basil at the South Orange farmer's market today, along with the tomatoes and corn I served with it. Unrelatedly, some of my legions of fans may know that my family has a passing interest in the Revolutionary War. Washington and Hamilton This past weekend, we attended a reenactment of the 1780 Battle of Springfield, NJ, apparently a pivotal battle of the war. It was pretty much awesome. Revolutionaries Redcoats! ...

Yesterday my backup dancer lost her first tooth. Today was her last day of first grade. They grow up so fast, don't they? HA HA HA JUST KIDDING! I feel like I have been a parent for thousands of years. I can't really believe she's not old enough to drive herself around yet, and to make ME dinner. So, for now, I continue to cook, mostly vegetarian. This recipe for " Quinoa and Wild Rice Salad With Ginger Sesame Dressing " (NYT Cooking; this link is free) is a great one for spring/summer, when you can take advantage of fresh cucumbers, peppers, and whatever the heck else you are moved to throw in. Don't be constrained by the recipe's (rather intimidating) list of 18 ingredients! It's a vegan dish. I didn't have edamame, but I did throw in a defrosted packet of kelp, and it was a perfect addition (have I become that person who puts seaweed in everything?). And I used a wild/regular rice blend because that was what was in my cupboard. ...

Today started and ended with me doing my darnedest to support the planet. First thing in the morning, I co-hosted an assembly for kindergartners and first-graders at my daughter's school, representing the parent/teacher Green Team. We reviewed the topics from a journal the kids have been working on since January, which the Green Team designed. Each month, they did a simple activity to get them thinking about a new topic: plastic waste; compost, storm drains, etc. It was good fun! Hopefully we're inspiring environmental consciousness at a young age. Here we are illustrating how it's better for the environment if food doesn't have to travel very far. See that bag of spinach? It came from the local farmer's market, and stay tuned for its fate at dinnertime.... And then for dinner I made a surprisingly good vegetarian dish. I am not sure why I was surprised; I did put this recipe on my list because it looked good. I guess I just get tired of cooking so I tell...

I am so happy that our local farmers markets are back in business for the season. Among the things I picked up this week was a bunch of radishes, with an eye to making sandwiches using the recipe for " Roasted Radishes with Honey, Lemon, and Thyme ," from the Delicious Living blog. Things did not go as planned. You're shocked, right? SHOCKED. I had bought a woefully inadequate quantity of radishes, as it turned out, but I recovered. I made the sauce per the recipe and threw in some green beans, and roasted the two veggies together. (I should have started with the radishes and added the beans later, because they didn't take as long to cook, but whatever.) Pat made us some very beautiful cocktails. And then I had my backup dancer shell some farmer's market peas, and we threw those into some Kraft Mac & Cheese, and dinner was served. All's well that ends well. Today I was a volunteer at the Maplewood South Orange Book Festiva...