To Healthy Beginnings...

K2 and I spent some of the evening watching the Ted Talk Series on Netflix called "Chew on this"...I especially love Jamie Oliver's  talk on - Teach Every Child about Food.  At one point  in the talk Jamie showed  a bunch of kids in an elementary school different fruits and vegetables that they were unable to identify (regular stuff like pears, tomatoes, broccoli ... made the point for me that it is alright to have exposed K2 to cooking, unprocessed foods, grains,  etc. early than later.

I make it a point to take K2 to the farmer's market most weeks (kicking and screaming most of the time). Last week however, I saw him checking out a stall and he turned to me and said - Ma, this Jicama (pronounced perfectly!) looks good why don't you buy it...made my heart expand with pride. For me that is progress, my veggie hating toddler is evolving into a veggie tolerating big kid...hey I am realistic...the veggie loving might happen or not happen but I can do my bit to contribute to that process.

I spent my morning cleaning out my pantry, an energizer battery for 4 hours and now exhausted... I was knee deep in grains and beans. Here is a birds eye view of one half of my pantry ( I have another entire section devoted to spices, and another one for snacks don't ask and I won't tell) :

I just discovered that I have 5 different kinds of rice (no white rice...sacrilege in my mother's book)... Brown Basmati, Red Rice, Black Forbidden Rice, Jade Pearl Jasmine and Brown Jasmine. I also have red and yellow Quinoa, Barley, Farro, Amaranth and Freekeh. In the beans and lentils sections I counted 15 different kinds of lentils and beans...my favorite way to use beans especially the 13 Bean Soup from Bob Mill's is to make Indian Chili (I just make Chili the regular way and then spike it up with a whole bunch of Indian Spices). What I have realized is I am not in my zen state in the kichen like Ina Garten (watching her cook is almost like meditating)...I am more like Alton Brown (a high energy person with a lot of information on good eats who cooks very minimally but loves loves food - remember Feasting on Asphalt). In celebration of the new year and our hope to eat healthy whole foods here is a breakfast offering...this is what we started our Saturday with...

You Need :

• One Medium Onion (finely chopped)
• One Tomato (I used a roma)  (finely chopped)
• 1 Organic Carrot (finely chopped)
• 1/2 Clamshell Organic Girl - Super Greens
• 3 eggs + Egg Beaters (100% Egg Whites)
• Salt & Pepper to Taste, Ketchup to Taste

Sweat the onion till light brown in Olive Oil ( I use about 1/2 tsp ). Add the tomato, carrots and the super greens mix. Add salt and pepper.Sweat it out till the greens let out the moisture (about 5 minutes). Now add the beaten eggs and cook till it is scrambled to your liking - some people like it runny, some dry...I like mine dry. I add the ketchup for the last 2 minutes of the cooking.

I gave this to K2 at this point with a cinnamon raisin toast. For the adults I liberally splashed Trader Joe's Habanero Hot Sauce and served with toast. To drink we had Cardamom Chai made the indian style.

 How is your weekend shaping up?