wish i knew

Anna is a real reader. I just wish I knew what language she's speaking! Her two favorite books right now are What the World Eats and Cookies Cookies. Yes, both about food and Yes, both books that I often read.


Anna is way into the imitation phase of life. She does EVERYTHING I do. I've got to watch myself very carefully! Except I'm not sure who she's getting these temper tantrums from....

Weekend to the MAX

Wow. That's what I call a weekend. We need a weekend break from our weekend.

So wed night when rich got home we went shopping at fred myers and ace. We bought tortillas and milk. Wahoo.

Thursday Rich played football with the ward. Anna and I did our usual 4 mile route. Turns out it's a perfect turkey trot route, so we got some good entertainment while running (if you count watching people dressed in turkey get up running good entertainment).

After that we raked our neighbors leaves.

Then I took the best hot bath bubble bath I've ever had while Richard watched football.

After that I cooked some stuff for T-day (brown rice hazelnut dressing which rich hated, roasted brussel sprouts - which are always a hit, pumpkin crumble - which is also always a hit, and poppyseed salad - yum).

We headed over to our friends the Lymans for dinner. It was very nice. Becky is a super good cook so everything was wonderful. Anna ate like a queen - and then when she was done with her tray she ate all the food off of her friends trays. What a monster. What 18 mo girl can make a 5 year old cry? I guess jello w/ marshmellos is not something to be shared.

We finished the night watching something lame on TV after anna went to bed. It was great.

Friday I worked - but first I went to freddy's and bought marked up 1/2 price boots, of which I took back later in the day. Rich and anna visited me for lunch. Anna was very naughty but after they left I heard a million times how cute she is. I knew I wasn't just biased.......

When I got home I was craving cheesy bread. Rich was demanding to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! he now knows the perils of being a stay at home parent. So we went shopping for a rocker recliner. I hate sales people so that didn't last long. But I was still craving that cheesy bread so we stopped by whole foods and got some pizza. Anna ate all mine. So we went home and took her to bed, after which we ordered a pizza from dominoes and ate the whole thing. I was so bloated I fell asleep on the couch while trying to stay awake to watch a movie.

Saturday we went hiking. Turns out I suck at choosing a hike and directing us where to go - so we parked at the wrong trailhead. Turned out to be a good hike anyways. Horsetail and pony tail falls. We hiked probably 3 miles and the end of the hike took us to a waterfall. Funny thing is the waterfall is right on the highway, about 1/2 mile down from where we parked. Our camera battery lies to us and says its charged when it's not. So we didn't bother bringing the camera. A nice lady offered to take pics and send them to us. Hence the pics.

Anyways, since we parked away from where the trail ended I decided to jog back to the car - full bladder and everything (seems that no matter how often I pee my bladder is full - darn baby). My clothes don't fit good, so I had to empty my pockets before jogging back to the car. Otherwise I would lose my pants while jogging. Hence, I gave rich my phone and he set it (naturally), on the trail head sign.

Turns out we left it and didn't realize until we stopped for lunch at ikea. Someone honest called and said she had our phone.

anna's begging to go outside to be continued later. We're back, 3 hours later. And anna sees the waterfall picture and says WAAAERRAALL. Awesome.

So anyways, this girl calls while we're at Ikea and says she'll meet up with us later so we can get it. How nice huH? While waiting for her to call we had lunch at Ikea, which is always good, mostly because it's so cheap and totally free for anna!! (this is important because it seems ridiculous to buy a meal for an 18 mo old - but if you don't buy a meal for anna you are forced to practice extreme portion control)

Alright, so we get home and Anna is asleep. I attempted to take a nap but couldn't sleep with the 3 football games going on in the front room. I went out and raked leafs instead. I needed to work off that pizza we ate the night before. While I'm out there slaving away rich says - Hey! Want more work to do? Actually he said "Someone's giving away black eye susan transplants" so I took em. Awesome. So I put those in and then was worn out.

After that we went to retrieve my phone ALL THE WAY back up by Ikea (it's by the airport in case you've been here - its far away). Then since we were in portland and since we bought a pass to OMSI we decided to stop by. wowsas.

After OMSI we hurried home and made an appetizer for a get together with some friends. That's right, we kept anna up past her bedtime. Super shame on us - anna was a monster the whole next day. We only kept her up until 8:30. Anyways, it was a lot of fun, the one game we played......

Sunday morning we made a turkey and mashed potatoes then went to church. Anna was actually good. We took her to nursery. Sunday night nothing exciting happened. I guess that's the end of our weekend! Hooray for a weekends to the max.

unadulterated meatballs

Thanks to our generous Buhler parents, we have a freezer full of meat. We have stuff from cows and elk and a few cuts of deer for Richard's brother steven. This is good news to the creature growing inside of me because she increases my iron needs by about 10 milligrams per day. Menstruating women need 18 mg/day, Prego's need 27 mg/day, men and women who don't lose blood monthly need 8 mg/day.

Meat is the best source of iron for 2 reasons. #1 Meat contains the most mg of iron per serving and #2 15-35% of the iron in meat is absorbed. While tofu and lentils may have high amounts of iron (2.8 mg and 3 mg respectively per Bowes and Churches), only 2-20% of that is absorbed due to the phytates and different proteins.



As you can see in the chart above (created during naptime, thank you for the 2 hour nap anna). Red meat is also a great source of zinc - which is also important during pregnancy. Similar to iron, zinc from meat is more readily absorbed than that from plant foods, which is why it is important that women who are vegan and pregnant be careful about their food choices.

Something I was not aware of previously is the high content of MUFA in red meat. Monunsaturated fat (MUFA) is good for you (or so we think at this time). This is why olive oil is preached as the holy grail. For reference, olive oil has 10grams per tablespoon, canola oil has 8 grams per tablespoon. From the chart above you can see that 80/20 has 6.5 grams. Interesting. However, 80/20 ground beef (meaning 80% muscle and 20% fat) also has 5.7g of saturated fat.....you need about 12 grams per day.......so I suppose its better to get your MUFA from plant oils.

Getting to the point - red meat is NOT BAD FOR YOU. It's only bad for you if you eat too much. Just like everything else. This may be gross to some people - but have you heard the term don't reinvent the wheel? Eating vegetarian could be thought of in a similar manner. Animals eat ALL day to make the meat the on their bones. Eating a small portion of animal muscle provides our bodies with the nutrients they took ALL DAY to create. While it is possible to get all those nutrients from plants and supplements - it's a lot easier to just find a way to fit in a little meat.

Now that you are utterly disgusted with the thought processes I go through before cooking a meal - here is a yummy recipe for meatballs (without any "healthy" additions, hence the unadulterated) that I made out of some cow from our freezer:

1 package of ground beef (? possible 3 pounds - any input joyce?) - pulled out of the deep freeze and defrosted in the microwave for 10 minutes

1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
some soy sauce (probably about 1/2 T)
some Worcestershire sauce ( probably about 1 T)
basil, oregano, parsley (probably 1 t each)
1 onion, fine dice browned without any oil in a skillet

I preheated the oven to 400, mixed it all up with my hands, and formed it into balls and placed on a cookie sheet lined with foil. I baked them for about 20 minutes - checked the temp with a thermometer (it was like 180, only needs to be 160 for ultimate safety). They were really good. Anna couldn't get enough. And we put them on top of spaghetti squash (you know to get some fiber vitamin A, I'm not going to continue that thought process today- delectable!)

"I had a purple punch" CRABS!

Nicole & anna and Richard. (beard guy)

Anna, do you want to play w/toys? I saw a tiger at the zoo! I want a horse. My favorite colors are purple and green. What are yours? "I love you! Animal. A bone from a dinosaur. Lollipops! I want a pet turtle, because I don't want a guinea pig anymore. Cat."

Nicole, Dog. do you have a dog? We had a party at school. We played games my favorite game was bingo. I was a mermaid for the party. we carried pumpkins, mine was a scary face. we also played buckets. you throw Balls. I hurt my finger on the shopping cart. " we Went to a doctors, I want you to see my bandaid. I cried. I need a pill today. We had a picture of my ouchie (x-ray). Long time ago we had stitches at my doctor." she was under the shopping cart where the "big " items go and stuck her finger under the wheel in the parking lot and it messed it up pretty bad.

Richard
"Its time to eat, I will get back after I get eat." I had a purple punch" CRABS! Do you want to catch more crabs? I want to come see you again.

heart
CHLOE

THANKS Chloe, you made our day! Nieces/cousins are the best. Anna especially loved the baby card! (chloe is on the left in the picture up top)

what we are having

So my sis in law skyped us the other night. Anna and I were eating grapefruit at the table. Richard said "hey joy - guess what we are having." She said "Sloppy Joes?"

Then Richard said "no - for number 2"

She was even more confused.

Joy did not know that we had just returned home from our ultrasound! We are having a.........

GIRL

a cold time at the zoo

"I'm a stinker, I don't deserve this trip to the zoo!"
"look at me, I'm so cute!"
"look at my cute hat - by the way this is not the same day as the zoo trip but the pictures just got here somehow"
"bundled up at the zoo!" Look at this little cute walking. She's got on a onsie, a long sleeve shirt, a fleece vest, a coat, long underwear and sweats. Oh yeah and a pair of mittens + a pair of gloves + a hat. I think she was warm.

Oh yeah, our camera died after this. so no more zoo pics.

lunch with the ladies (+ zachie)

To celebrate Britt's b-day (uh a month late...) we went out to lunch! I thought sweet tomatoes was a good place for kids because of the wide array of foods available for tasting. Turns out that jello was a big hit. Oh, and the mini ice cream cones. Anyways thanks for a fun time ladies!

A good gloomy weekend

Anna was getting a little stir crazy, so Richard decided to play a little game with her. She got REALLY excited. This is at the tail end, so she's a little more tame here. She loves her daddy! And for good reason!

Anna's hair is turning brown at the top ): She's still a pretty blonde right now though! Look how cute she is. I love this pea.

It was rather gloomy this weekend. Ah well. We still went running. Cleaned up the yard a little. And then, like the rest of Portland we went to OMSI.

We bought a pass to this museum and apparently it is really busy on saturday afternoons. Luckily, having a membership voids you of the big line. Anyways, anna had the time of her life and I enjoyed it much more since I only had to pick her up 1/2 of the time.

Lentils, I love you.

picture from here
Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2011 Oct;36(5):634-42. Epub 2011 Sep 29.

So I was just browsing pub med during naptime looking for new news on lentils. And, lo and behold, I found some! Apparently lentils and chickpeas have been proven in 1 study (of only 25 males) to reduce your appetite and post prandial blood glucose when compared with an equal caloric serving of mac and cheese.

Research is so weird. Basically they fed people 3 different meals, all of equal calories. 1 chickpeas, 1 lentils and 1 mac and cheese. Then they tested how much pizza the same people ate ~4 hours later. People who ate lentils and chickpeas instead of mac and cheese ate less pizza later and weren't as hungry between the meals. They also had lower blood sugars an hour after eating the lentil/chickpea meal.

Why? I'm thinking fiber - because mac and cheese has some protein and fat. Here's the nutrition breakdown of lentils and chickpeas:

1 cup lentils

Nutrition Facts
Calories 230	(960 kJ)
Total Fat	0.8g	1%
Sat. Fat	0.1g	< 1%
Cholesterol	0mg	0%
Sodium	4mg	< 1%
Total Carbs.	39.8g	13%
Dietary Fiber	15.6g	63%
Sugars	3.6g
Protein	17.9g
Calcium	37.6mg
Potassium	730.6mg

1 cup chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)

Nutrition Facts
Calories 269	(1124 kJ)
Total Fat	4.3g	7%
Sat. Fat	0.4g	2%
Cholesterol	0mg	0%
Sodium	11mg	< 1%
Total Carbs.	44.9g	15%
Dietary Fiber	12.5g	50%
Sugars	7.9g
Protein	14.5g
Calcium	80.4mg
Potassium	477.2mg

You can see these pulses have quite a bit of protein - (3 oz of chicken has about 26 g protein, and is a better source of protein actually). But they've got a TON of fiber - (1 cup of oatmeal has 4 grams, 1 cup of raspberries has 8 grams). Most people need 25-35 grams per day. Old and/or constipated people should aim for the 35 mark.

Although it doesn't take a 4 year degree to tell you why fiber is important (anyone who keeps metamucil in their cupboard can explain it to you) It is interesting to note that there is a lot of research happening with fiber right now. Well, I suppose its less about fiber and more about what what eats it.

Basically fiber serves as food for the good bacteria that live in your gut. Good bacteria ferments the fiber (science term for eats it) and turns it into short chain fatty acids. These acids (butyrate specifically) are the direct fuel source for your colonocytes (cells of the colon) and are thought to protect your colon against disease and possibly cancer. Woot woot for fiber.

Anyways. So Lentils have fiber - and fiber is good for you because it keeps you full and keeps the bacteria in your gut happy. Enough about nutrition science. Here's fun part about lentils. LENTILS ARE YUMMY. Lentils are very FAST and EASY to cook. For example, watch this Mark Bittman movie about how to cook Dal (which is the indian word for lentil dish). Looks easy enough huh? Did him eating it convince you how good it is? Yeah yeah, keep your smart comments to yourself Paul (Richard's dad is a true blue lentil hater).

Lentils are great because you can keep them in your cupboard for months and cook them at anytime without pre-soaking. One of the first recipe's I ever made with lentils was sent to me a few years ago from a foodie friend. I've tried this recipe on kids, teens and many adults. True blue meat crazies miss their ground cow - but most people like the substitution. I like that there is no worry about cross contamination and that I can have this meal when I haven't been to the store for a month because lentil keep FOREVER. I've tried it without onions before and its still good. I've tried it without chicken broth - still good. I've tried it without salsa -NOT still good. Do not make this without salsa (which also keeps in your cupboard at least a year).

I've also fallen in love with this recipe from Mollie Katzen. It's a lentil soup recipe with dried apricots. I usually use RED LENTILS. Just because I'm pretty sure there is something different in them that's good for me that brown lentils don't have. Anna likes this too - which makes me happy.

I love lentils so much sometimes I'll just boil them up and eat them plain. They are also good tossed on a salad as you would kidney beans.

In other countries, lentils are a staple. I've never been there, but I'm pretty sure that in India there are as many types of lentils as there are varieties of cold cereal in the US. My thoughts were verified in this Oregonian article that richard pointed out to me last night. Pretty cool that my thoughts were on the same page as these guys. There's some cool recipes in that article that I want to try.......

Anyways, if you happen to have read this long post I would just like to encourage you to try adding lentils to your diet. They are CHEAP (like 60 cents a pound at winco), EASY + FAST to cook, and yummy. Oh yeah - and they are good for you too. Not only for whats in them - but also for the fact that if you eat them for lunch there is a good chance you'll want less pizza for dinner. ps if you happen to have a good recipe please share!