Tempeh Vegetable Taco Filling

This recipe is based on the Tempeh-Vegetable Enchilada recipe from the book, The 30-Minute Vegan. I haven't tried the recipe as it appears in the book, as I didn't have all the ingredients on hand. This experiment turned out pretty well. It is fairly adaptable too, depending on what veggies you happen to have available. I think zucchini or cauliflower or spinach would be pretty good additions/trade-ins.

Ingredients
8 ounces tempeh
1/2 red onion
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2-1 cup broccoli
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp thyme
2 tbsp braggs liquid aminos or soy sauce
1/2 tsp agave nectar
salt and pepper to taste
tortillas (6-8)
optional toppings - avocado, cucumber, tomato, cheese (dairy or vegan)


Directions
Dice the onions and peppers. Chop the broccoli florets and stems into small pieces. Chop or crush the garlic. Crumble the tempeh.

Heat the coconut oil in a large pan. Add the onion and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the veggies, the tempeh, and the garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes. Add the liquid aminos, spices, and agave nectar and saute until the veggies are done to your liking.

Heat the tortillas and spoon the filling in. I added some grated cheese, chopped cucumber, and avocado to my tacos.

Checking in - Swamped

I'm still alive, just swamped. Work is super busy. Home life is super busy. No time to sit. No time to read. No time to write. So, here are just a few random snipits of what's been going on around here.

I took SchmoopyBoy to ride on Thomas the train last weekend. He had fun. I took pictures. Unfortunately I accidentally changed the setting on the camera without realizing it and none of the pictures turned out. boo.

Lil' Schmoo is trying really hard to pull himself to standing. I am going to be in for it early with this one, I fear.

SchmoopyBoy started gymnastics 2 weeks ago. Loves it! He is more excited about gymnastics than he ever was about soccer or t-ball. Of course, he is a little monkey, so it's no surprise that he loves any activity that involves flipping, rolling, hanging, jumping and the like.

Lil' Schmoo is tolerating his carseat much better these days. Still won't fall asleep in it, but he'll last multiple trips in a day without complaint. So much better than the days of complete meltdown after about 2 minutes in the carseat.

That's all I have time for now. Hopefully I can start writing more again soon.

Vegan Banana Matzo Brei Recipe

 I've been trying to figure out a way to include the vegan husband in the yumminess and festivity of "traditional" Passover foods.This experiment turned out pretty well. The recipe is based on the banana french toast recipe in The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook.

I only had about one and a half pieces of matzo left in my stash, so this recipe is only for one (although the husband, SchoopyBoy and I all shared the small portion). It does lend itself quite easily to doubling or quadrupling. I made this recipe pancake-style, but I think it could work scrambled style too. Also, as usual, I didn't really measure the cinnamon or vanilla, so the amounts are approximations. My apologies, I am a Jewish mother after all, so gawd-forbid I should actually make precise measurements in my cooking. ;)


Ingredients

1/2 banana
1/4 cup nondairy milk (I used soy milk)
~1/8 tsp vanilla
generous sprinkle cinnamon
1 1/2 pieces matzo

Instructions

1. Break the matzo into small pieces in a bowl and fill with water until the matzo is covered.
2. While the matzo is soaking, combine the remaining ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and thick.
3. Drain the water from the matzo. Pour the banana mixture over the wet matzo and stir to combine.
4. Heat a pan on the stove and pour a little oil in. When the pan and oil are hot, scoop the matzo mixture with a spoon into pancakes.
5. Let cook for a few minutes and turn to cook on the other side for a few minutes more.
6. Done!

cooking in the pan

the finished product, golden brown

The banana and vanilla make these sweet enough that you really don't need any additional syrup or other sweetener. That being said, a little agave nectar drizzled over them enhanced the sweetness of the banana flavor quite nicely.

morning hair - devil horns

One of the things I love about Lil' Schmoo is his soft, fine hair, that fluffs and poofs after washing. This morning, after washing his hair before going to bed, he woke up with these two perfect little devil horns.

The cutest devil-baby I ever did see

Oy Vey! You call that a Passover?

It was quite a weekend here at chez Schmoopy. Passover and Easter in one big hodge-podge of festivity. On Friday evening, the traditional night of the first Seder, I got home late from work and so made matzah pizza for dinner. Vegan "cheese" for the husband, and dairy for me and SchmoopyBoy. Ancestors, I apologize. Please don't strain something as you turn over in your graves.

Vegetarian matzah pizza

Vegan matzah pizza

I haven't really done Passover for a few years. Putting together a full Seder is a lot of work. I don't have grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins around, and quite frankly it's not worth all the work involved for basically, me. Before SchoopyBoy was born I always found a community Seder to attend with the husband. The thought of dragging a small child to a 3-hour community seder with a bunch of strangers sounds like about as much fun as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, so I've basically been doing not much more than a Passover themed dinner. This year, however, I wanted to do something more, since SchmoopyBoy is at an age where the things we do in the home will become "his".

Covered matzah, parsley, eggs and salt water appear
on traditional seder tables

So I put together a short child-friendly Seder for Saturday. With the help of Uncle Eli (think of a Jewish Dr. Seuss after drinking 4 cups of wine) and a few other online sources like this and this, I put together a mish-mash children's Haggadah. I made fresh vegetable stock and matzaball soup. Parsley and hard boiled eggs for dipping into salt water, charoset, matza in the cover I bought at a Jewish cultural fair a number of years ago, and grape juice in wine glasses and one plastic cup adorned my table. We got through everything in about an hour, including the main course, a Moroccan style eggplant and garbanzo bean dish (garbanzos are kosher for Passover aren't they?).

Then on Sunday we first went to visit our next door neighbors for an egg hunt in the morning. Another egg hunt at my in-law's followed in the afternoon. More toys and candy than any human should be exposed to. But fun, fun, fun for SchmoopyBoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Clusters

I heard about this recipe through the Alisa Cooks website, although you can find her recipe here listed as Addictive Double Chocolate Granola Bars at the Attune Foods site.

I used Go Raw brand chocolate granola, peanut butter, and dairy-free semisweet chocolate chips as my variations, and put the mixture into lightly greased mini-muffin tins - thus I have renamed them Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Clusters. The size is perfect for a preschooler-friendly treat, and between the raw granola and peanut butter, this a guilt-free nutrient-dense delight for everyone in the family (baby excepted, of course).

Forgive the blurry picture. With the gaping hole you can tell we devoured most of them in short time. :)















Super fast and easy to make. This one's a keeper.

Speaking to the Need

Welcome to the March Mindful Mama Carnival: Mindful Mama Challenge

This post was written for inclusion in the Mindful Mama Carnival hosted by Becoming Crunchy and TouchstoneZ. This month our participants have challenges they've set for themselves toward becoming more mindful. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

***

On a scale of 1 to 10 for mindfulness, I would probably rate myself at around 2-3. I tend to be more on the reactive end of the scale. So, writing about how I am trying to challenge myself to be more mindful in my parenting is a particularly apt topic for me. I’ve got a long way to go to become the parent I want to be and that my children deserve. Nonetheless I actually have had a few successful moments. One way I’ve been able to bring more mindfulness to my parenting is by speaking to the need.

I adhere to the philosophy that children behave in ways that they think will enable them to meet an underlying need. Three-year old SchmoopyBoy has been struggling a bit with increased independence and the need to control what he gets to do - with his time and otherwise. Frustration can sometimes ensue. I have recently had remarkable success in diffusing meltdowns by acknowledging when he is trying to get his needs met, articulating that I also have a need that I am trying to meet, and then talking about what to do next.

Here is one example. We allow for screen time in our house, but my husband and I enforce limits on the time spent in front of a screen. Sometimes SchmoopyBoy wants to exceed the limit that we have established. One day in particular he wanted to watch more TV than we usually allow. The alternative to TV that he suggested was to play a video game on the computer. He became very upset that he was not permitted to engage in either activity. In trying to find an alternative, he requested that we bake muffins. I should mention here that I commonly bake with SchmoopyBoy during the weekend. He and I both enjoy the time together as well as the homemade goodies. I should also mention that this episode took place in the middle of the week. I was home from work in the evening and was trying to get dinner started. Evenings tend to be very hectic and busy between dinner and bedtime while the husband works evenings.

The thought that first entered my head when SchmoopyBoy requested that we bake was “Not a chance. There is no way we are going to have time to bake muffins at this time of evening when I’ve got to prepare dinner and I’m going to have to start bath time and bedtime routines for two kids.”

But then I thought for a moment and asked myself - Is that really true? The baby took a late nap that day, so there could be more flexibility with bedtime. Preparing the batter could take as little as 15 minutes. With a bake time about a half hour and about 10 minutes for cooling, we could easily have muffins prepared and ready to eat in an hour. And really, the bottom line was that I just didn’t want to bake muffins because I was feeling tired and because baking during the week at evening time falls outside our regular routine and I wasn’t comfortable with that. After acknowledging my true reasons for not wanting to bake muffins, and further acknowledging that SchmoopyBoy was so upset because he was feeling out of control and was frustrated that he wasn’t being allowed to do any of the activities he wanted, I concluded that “I just don’t want to” was not a good enough reason to tell SchmoopyBoy “No” to baking muffins.

So, I told him that I understood that he has needs that he want to meet, and that I understood that he has a need to control what he does with his time and what activities he partakes in. I further told him that I also have needs that I am trying to meet. At that moment, I felt the need to take care of my family by preparing a healthy dinner. I told him I wanted to figure out how we could both need our needs, and suggested that after I prepare dinner and we are finished eating, then we could make muffins. He enthusiastically agreed, and in fact helped me prepare dinner. All whining, complaining, or any other expressions of frustration completely disappeared. After dinner he was in such a good mood, he didn’t even want to make muffins anymore and was happy to simply play with me.

I am not always able to satisfy his desire. Sometimes I have to acknowledge that he wants to meet his need, and then explain that I am saying no because I also have a need. For example, another time he wanted more screen time and insisted there was nothing else he wanted to do. I acknowledged that he wanted to meet his need for control over his activities, and then explained that I said No to his current desire based on my need to take care of him and help him grow up healthy and strong. I told him that I limit his screen time because I believe too much screen time is bad for his brain. When asked “Why?” I tried to keep the conversation at a 3-year old level and told him that when he older and is trying to learn in school, he might have a hard time concentrating. Satisfied with this answer, we had some food and SchmoopyBoy started singing a song.

I think that SchmoopyBoy appreciates that I am making an effort to really hear him, and that I am explicitly saying to him, I get it, I understand that you have a need that want to meet. The very act of being heard in this way appears to soothe him. I still miss the boat with him more often than I’d like, but with more successes, I’m hoping speaking to the underlying need will become more second nature.

***

Visit The Mindful Mama Homepage to find out how you can participate in the next Mindful Mama Carnival!

On Carnival day, please follow along on Twitter using the handy #MindMaCar hashtag. You can also subscribe to the Mindful Mama Twitter List and Mindful Mama Participant Feed.
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• The Importance of a Moment Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama reflects on the need to slow down and breathe in life instead of rushing from one moment to the next.



• Mindful Playing With My Daughters Rani at Om She Said looked at her girls and realized that more than anything they wanted her right there next to them, playing, laughing, creating, and having fun; that's exactly what she did!



• Watch Your Words Patti at Canadian Unschooler challenges herself to make her words a reflection of her intentions.



• The Mindful Benefits of Knitting Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares how knitting has helped lift her out of depression and has given her a new form of meditation.



• Self Compassion: How Thinking About Bad Experiences Can Make You Happier and More Compassionate CJ at Imperfect Happiness challenges herself to be more compassionate...with herself.



• Calming the Home Environment by Selecting Traditional Toys Sam at Love Parenting discusses the benefits of natural toys.



• Quieting my Infernal Inner Ramblings Tree at Mom Grooves writes about her commitment to get out of her head and into the moment with her daughter and husband.



• Changing Our Everyday The Aniweda Dream is sizing up the changes they’ve made by moving across the country and looking at how to make their lives more mindful as a family.
  



• A Mindful Cup of Tea Amy at The Daily Muttering tells how she's trying to regain control of her life with the chaos of 3 kids thanks to the introduction of a simple daily ritual.



• Mindful Mama Moontime Lucy at Dreaming Aloud shares how becoming conscious of her moon time has helped her find balance in herself as a woman, and a mama.



• Speaking to the Need Shana at Tales of Minor Interest shares how she tries to stay mindful of her preschooler’s needs.



• Going Within Amy at Anktangle describes a centering practice she's been being more intentional about lately, and which she has come to realize is a precious gift in her life.



• Waking Up With Meditation Amy at PresenceParents shares how awakening with presence carries her through the day.



• Mindful Meditations Zoie at TouchstoneZ explores six weeks of seated meditation and discovers some things she doesn't expect.



• Mindfulness in the Kitchen - an Everyday Challenge Kelly at Becoming Crunchy shares how she’s been challenging herself to involve more mindfulness in everyday tasks - especially in the area of cooking for her family.