Meals to Feel Good About: Corn Salad and Thai Soba Noodles

Here are two more meals that you can feel confident about.  They feed your body - so many nutrients are accomplished in these options.  And the bonus is that they are SUPER quick to make!

Corn Salad

I adapted this from a couple corn salad recipes I found in Sunset Magazine.  I just love their recipes!

1 Bag frozen corn, thawed but cold

1 avocado, chopped

3 green onions, chopped

3 T fresh chopped cilantro

10 cherry tomatoes, chopped

1 lime, juiced

Sea salt to tastes

Toss it all together

Thai Soba Noodles
I adapted this recipe from 101 Cookbooks and Peas and Thank You

1 bag Soba Noodles, cooked
1 zucchini - cut very very very thin (like a noodle)
4 carrots - cut very very very thin (like a noodle)
1 yellow, red, or orange pepper cut  very very thin

Sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup Tamari (soy) sauce
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/8 cup pure maple syrup
Water to get a thick but smooth consistency (think smoothie)
(vary these ingredients till it pleases your taste buds)

Sea salt to taste

Boil the noodles.  Make the sauce.  When noodles are done, add sauce and veggies. Toss and keep on low heat for about 3-5 minutes to warm it all up.

Keeping it real! Kathy

Plate of Veggies and Fruit, BLT Salad

One of my most frequently asked questions is "so what DO you eat?"
I don't know why but I actually struggle to answer that question.  Mostly because I have a hard time trying to connect with the traditional diet since we don't eat turkey sandwiches, string cheese, and mac 'n cheese.

Here is what our typical lunch looks like:

The kids eat a variety of fruits and vegetables for lunch.  Today I sliced avocado, yellow heirloom cucumbers, stone fruit apricots, and a tiny amount of homemade burrata mozzarella (note that my children shared this plate). They love to munch on the plate of snacks.  I also made them a Hot Apple Pie Smoothie adapted from www.peasandthankyou.com.

Hot Apple Pie Smoothie
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1/2 cup organic cream-top milk
2 T maple syrup
2 T honey
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1 t vanilla
1 T almond butter
1 apple, cored (peeled if you don't have a high speed blender)
8 ice cubes

Blend on high speed till the perfect consistency.

Mike and I shared a BLT salad - which the kids ended up eating too.

BLT Salad
4 slices cooked organic nitrate free bacon, chopped
1 head romaine lettuce, shredded
8-12 small cherry tomatoes, sliced
1 green onion, chopped
1 T vegannaise or mayo (I use the grapeseed oil one)
Avocado, sliced
Toss

It has taken me a long, long time to get used to our lunches.  I have a long standing history of meat based meals. Where the whole meal is centered around what meat will be eaten. Sandwiches were a staple -every day. But as we've cut back on the amount of processed grains we eat, sandwiches have become less common.  We usually eat sandwiches 1-2 days a week but not more that that.  So the other days are hard boiled eggs, fruits, veggies, etc.  What I had to say to myself every day is that if my kids only eat an apple and a cucumber they have had better nutrients than they'd get from a bowl of macaroni and cheese.  That always makes me feel better!

Keeping it real! Kathy

Steak Salad and Tuscan Bean Soup

I can't tell you how many people we know do two different dinners. One for their kids at about 5/5:30 and then one for themselves at around 7/8pm.  Mike and I have never done that.  We've always made one dinner and eat with the kids at the same time.  Now this dinner has looked a little different as the kids grow up.  At 9 months, they did eat baby food and we ate our own meal.  But as they've grown, we've tried to have them eat the same meal we do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes I try to make something I know they'll eat if I know they won't or can't eat what we are eating.  But I am NOT a short order cook.  If they don't like what we have, they don't get a different choice.  Maybe I'll give them some greek yogurt and honey as a consolation..but only if I think they are really starving!!! That said, my kids are not skinny, so I've never worried about them going hungry.

Tonight is a great example.  I really wanted a salad with steak.  Steak is a rarety for us, especially in my kitchen. We may order it at a restaurant but I almost never make red meat at home. I bought organic, grass fed/finished sirloin steak.  It looked like a flat iron steak and it was only $3.49. Wow!

Cilantro Steak Salad
Season steak with garlic powder, pepper, sea salt.
Sear steak on grill on high heat for 2 minutes per side.

Heirloom baby lettuce
Yellow tomatoes
Cilantro
2 T Goat cheese
1 t Olive oil
1 t Apple cider vinegar
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Toss salad
Slice steak and place it atop the salad

Highly recommend this wine - and it went great with the salad!

I had to dig in my cabinets for what to do for the kids. I knew they would not eat the steak, and although they'll much on salad, it wouldn't be a meal.  Viola - this was awesome. It might not look like much but sometimes a poor man's dinner is the best home cookin'!  

Tuscan Bean Soup

1 can stewed unsalted tomatoes
1 can canellini beans, strained and rinsed
1 t sea salt
1 t thyme
1 t sage
1 t olive oil
1 T basil
1 T honey
1/2 cup water

Saute the beans in oil and spices for about 4 minutes.  Add tomatoes and water and cook on high heat for about 5 minutes.

I also served them up a side of broccoli.  It was nothing special so I'll spare you the photo!

The only thing that is missing is a nice rustic bread.  But it is so yummy. The kids ate my salad - they both actually ended up liking the meat.  So I also got to eat some of the soup.  It was all good!

TIP:  I find that if I serve my kids a vegetable first - close to 5pm, they gobble it up b/c they're hungry and have no other choices.  I also have found that while a nice enchilada with a ton of veggies in it is appealing to me, it isn't to my kids. Sure, they like corn, beans, cheese, tortillas, and zucchini on their own, but not mixed together. So I try to take a meal and separate it into multiple dishes for them, so they are eating one element at a time. It's a pain, but it gets them eating.

Keeping it real! Kathy

Great video

Here's a video that is a little hokey but she hits all the right points...
http://www.beyonddiet.com/bd/landing?food=avocado&a=388

It's part of my story

Surrounding me on this October 4th, as I think about baby Liliana we may have had on this day 2 years ago, are others in my life who are grappling with very difficult challenges.  Cancer. Threatened pregnancy. And all kinds of other chaos.  I sit here thinking about how calm my life is at this moment.  How many pieces of my life (our life) are actually going in the direction we've intended.  By no means am I saying the days are easy... just that in perspective, I have a whole lot to be thankful for and I realize how important it is to take a moment and just say 'thank you' for getting me here. To this place where in this moment, things are as I hoped and wished they would be.  I am fully aware that there are ebbs and flows - and while so often the challenging times take precedence, right now - this moment needs to be celebrated.

I am listening to a podcast on cancer - in hopes of finding help for my friend, and this woman is talking about coming to terms with the diagnosis of cancer.  Finding a way to make it a part of your identity.  When I lost Maya and Liliana, I compared my pain to what it must be like to be a cancer patient.  The alone-ness of it.  The isolation and need to help yourself when no one else can.  Being isolated in pain.  And as I came through my losses, I had to realize that I was now that person - the one who had a miscarriage, then two.  I was the mother of a dead baby.  My paperwork will always say 4 pregnancies, 2 children.   Just as someone with cancer has to deal with being "that person" - the one with cancer. The one who's paper work will always say "in remission."

And as I got farther away from the losses,  all the efforts we made to make sense of those times,  all the food changes, all the education, it all changed our life.  And now, our little lost babies are forever a part of our story.  Not painful anymore.  Although I'm still in awe of what I went through.  But I've come to accept it.  And I'm actually happy that I will have two children holding two little pumpkins in honor of their sisters (when I get to take the picture after the rain stops!).  I'm at peace and I'm blessed. And I'm so thankful that I have the perspective of whole food and nutrition, integrative and holistic medicine, and the recognition that we can find answers and cures to what ails us, in raising two kiddos who are going to need these options more than any other generation.  Thank you Maya and Liliana for providing the hope of a long, long life to your sister and brother.

So on this October 4th, I say a big giant prayer, for my friends who are struggling to deal with and accept a new reality.  Who still have a chance at writing their own story and who need a little help in getting there.  My commitment is to be the researcher. Cuz that's what I've learned...how to get information on how to heal our bodies.  And to give the message that you will come to terms with your new reality. And someday, in the distant future, you will have a chance to look at how your story unfolded, how it changed you, and how it's become part of your identity.

Happy Birthday Liliana.  I thought of you all day today.