For my birthday I received a variety of interesting garden veggies, including a variety of beets. Now, I like pickled shoestring beets on salads, but that’s really all I know how to do with beets. Fortunately, my veggie gift also included a cookbook on how to cook everything that farm produces, so I had some options. I decided to try a really simple recipe stir-frying the beets with carrots with just a hint of cumin. Sounds odd, but I thought it was delicious! Unfortunately, I was the only one. But aren’t they beautiful?!

So, our family is becoming increasingly Vegetarian. Conan went Veggie over a year ago, then quickly turned Vegan (so, plant food only–no dairy, no eggs). So we humored him at dinner times with Vegan meals, but the kids and I still ate our chicken nuggets at lunch time, and that was that. Then, when reading the Word of Wisdom, it caught my attention that the counsel was given that we should only eat meat during times of extremity. Well, in a life and land of abundance, I could hardly say we needed meat to survive, so I decided I’d give vegetarianism a try. It didn’t really take, as I grew up on all meals including some kind of meat (if there’s no meat, it’s not a meal, mentality) so craved some kind of meat dish constantly. For my birthday week, I decided to make all my favorite meals, regardless of how vegan-friendly they were. Most of the time, I didn’t really feel so great afterwards, and I started craving more veggies. Then last night, I finally made the last of our frozen chicken into a creamy chicken dish, which I LOVE. I figured, "hey, it’s chicken the boys are bound to at least eat that," since I was also serving a Costa Rican dish called Garbanzos, which they will generally only pick at. The kids wouldn’t even TOUCH the chicken. Even Neils (who automatically despises anything with the word "bean" associated with it) asked for Garbanzos instead of chicken. And Keane, who has eaten hardly a thing all week, had three helpings. I guess I need to just to resign to the fact that: Yep, we’re officially a Veggie Family.

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  OK, so I would totally rather be posting about the great rope swing Conan rigged up in the backyard, or my cute boys, or our home renovation projects, or the video tour I took of our new home (before moving in), or even my cool new shoes… but I am missing a video cable still, and the software that helps me scale down pics for the web is bugging out, so instead I’m posting about some great new recipes I discovered.

  Since our oven is currently approximately about 12" wide, we don’t do as much oven cooking as we once did. These pan-roasted potatoes totally made my day… no need to fire up the toaster oven or use up our one casserole pan small enough to fit in there… just that wonderful roasted perfection. I also recently discovered a new recipe for beans (important with Conan being Vegan and me being semi-vegetarian) which is totally simple, made with things many people would just normally have on hand, and surprisingly delicious. Oh yeah, and it takes ten minutes to make. TOPS. 

Both are adapted from a cookbook Conan’s mom passed on to me compiled by the Comprehensive Cancer center- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Research Institute, and Ohio State University Extension. My compliments to the chefs!

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