Sunday late lunch: Tabouleh burgers, salad, tzaziki

Today I tried something I've never made before. Saw a friend's post on Facebook about couscous burgers and although I didn't have plain couscous, I used tabouleh instead. This is actually couscous with dried parsley, garlic and a couple of other things so in a sense it's better than straight up couscous. 

Although I would have loved to have some fries or yam fries, I was hesitant because I had to use more oil than I would have liked to to avoid burning the "patties". So I relied on my trusted friend, the salad to get us through the meal.

Ingredients:

Serves 6

- 3/4 cup tabouleh

- 1/2 cup water  

- 2 tbsp lemon juice

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

- 1 can of chick peas

- 2 tbsp flour

- bread crumbs (optional)

- multi grain sandwich buns 

- salad greens

- cherry tomatoes

- goat cheese

- radishes, sliced

- cucumbers, chopped

- 1 cup non-fat plain yoghurt

Tabouleh burger

In a bowl, combine water, lemon juice and tabouleh. Let sit until water has been soaked up.

Place chick peas and garlic in food processor and pulse until smooth. 

Mix together chick peas with tabouleh. Add flour. (I ended up adding more cause mixture was still too liquidy.) At this point you can choose to roll patties in bread crumbs if desired. 

Make pattie sized formations. Place oil in pan, let it get very hot and place patties in pan.

Toast the buns and pop pattie in the middle.

Extra: my husband added hot peppers and hot sauce to his, perhaps you like your food spicy too?

Salad

Mix together greens, radishes, cherry tomato. Squeeze lime juice on top.

Tzaziki

Mix together cucumbers, yoghurt, dill. Chill until meal is ready. Can be used either on burger or as salad dressing.

Plate, serve and enjoy!

Tonight's menu

 I went to Bulk Barn on the weekend and got a few things, among which was red quinoa and decided that today would be the day to showcase it at dinner.

On the menu for this evening was:
Turkey sausage
Red quinoa
Goat cheese salad


Ingredients:


- turkey sausage
- canola high
- 1 cup red quinoa
- 2 cups water (for soaking)
- 1 1/2 cup water (for cooking)
- 4 green onions, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- mixed greens
- handful of cherry tomatoes
- 6 almonds, chopped
- 1 lime
- 2 tbsp goat cheese
- radishes, slices
- salt


Directions:


Quinoa
Soak quinoa in a bowl in water for 15 minutes. Rinse. Place quinoa small pot in water and bring to a boil. Cover with a lid, and turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove quinoa from heat and allow to sit five minutes with the lid on. Put quinoa in strainer to drain water. Place a few drops of oil in the pot, throw in garlic and onion. Add quinoa back and mix when onion and garlic have reached state you are happy with.


Turkey sausage
Make a few slits in turkey on a diagonal. Place a few drops of oil in pan. Fry sausages for approximately 10 minutes.


Salad
Wash all veggies. Mix together greens, cherry tomatoes, almonds and radishes. Sprinkle on goat cheese. Squeeze lime onto salad and mix everything up.


Serve and enjoy!

Day after grandma's departure

Today is the first day we've been without my grandma knowing that she isn't just spending a few nights at my parents' house and the first day my husband went to work before I could get him to watch the baby while I shower. So, I did what most mum's do and brought a bouncy chair into the bathroom, strapped the baby in and hopped in the shower. He amused himself very much with the the toys on the chair and didn't say a word until I was already dressed. The rest of the morning went as per usual. However...

I have embarked on a journey I am really not enjoying. I am trying to get X-man to sleep in his crib. His reaction: What the f*%$!!

The crying has been going on for 20 minutes now, I even attempted to pick him up and soothe him and he reacted as if I was the devil, and that is what I feel like right now. I know he won't hate me or remember this when he is older, I know that he will most likely eventually learn to sleep on his own, but with a holiday on the horizon in the near future, I need him to learn to sleep apart from me because we will not have the facility to sleep together. The cat definitely isn't enjoying hearing him cry, and my heart is breaking. Why do it then? Because, other than when he falls asleep in his car sear on the road, he is always in someone's arms. Now, that my grandma is gone, I can't afford to always have him in my arms, so I have to do something about it. I figured I'd blog and read other blogs while he screams and that would keep me busy.

Another 10 minutes later:

Ok, I gave in. I couldn't take it. I've taken him out of his crib. How am I going to do this?

MAJOR FAIL

Bit of a rough evening

I am not an emotional person. Bottom line. But in this moment I am feeling somewhat teary about my grandmother's departure tomorrow. Not because I won't have help on a day to day basis, but I see how much my son enjoys being around her. The biggest smile spreads across his face when she walks into the room. It's her voice that has always been able to soothe him every since we brought him home from the hospital. Every night she would come in to my room and say that if I needed her help with the baby that she'd be in her room, not sleeping, and to come and get her. We had a rough couple of weeks around the 2nd month where X-man would cry during the witching hour and she would come to the rescue. The baby would just go to sleep in her arms.

Right now, less than 24 hours prior to her departure, I've let her sit and hold him in her arms while he sleeps rather than go relieve her for the evening. When I went in to see if she was ok with him, she told me to come back at 10:00pm so she could have more time with him.

What makes me sad is that she lives so far away. It's not like I can just hop on a plane for a couple of hours, or even for 5 hours. This is a transatlantic flight with a stopover, many hours. Not that we're never going to go visit, but it saddens me that I can't just drop in or that X-man will see her in the recent future. He just loves being with her and in a way I'm glad that he won't remember this time so that he doesn't feel her absence.

I am thankful that she is healthy enough to have been able to come and that she was able to be present for his birth, and for the first 5 months of his life. We were able to take a holiday to Mexico all together and we have many pictures of X-man with her and tons of video that I have shot so that he never forgets that his great-grandma was there for him in the beginning, spilling over with love for him. This time with my grandmother is something that I really wanted and I will forever be thankful for.

To do list

Some of the tasks I'd like to get movin' and shakin' are:

1) Sign up for my French course. Deadline is the 21st, but also need to fax something to the Board of Education first.

2) Choose one sewing/craft, go buy the necessary items and make it.

3) Now that grandma is going, make a meal schedule so I know what to make and when. Soup is a given on a daily basis so just figure out which ones I'm going to make weekly.

4) Wash all of X-man's big boy clothes, even though some are years away from being worn. Just want to pack everything away smelling laundry fresh.

5) Return those library books that I keep renewing and get new ones. Some good ol' trashy novels and some real literature to vary it up. Keep a list of the books I read.

6) Research daycares in the area. This is no fun, the one I wanted doesn't accept anyone under 2 years old.

7) Go see 'someone' to talk to about being angry all the time. For someone who has a pretty darn good life, I am way too angry all the time, and I don't really have any good reasons for it. Something must be done!

In an attempt to eat some tuna...

here is a recipe I invented (not to say that it may not already exist though). I forgot to take a picture of the actual final dish, although truthfully, it didn't look very appetizing to me.

Ingredients:
- 1 can flaked tuna
- 3 tablespoons cream cheese
- 3/4 red pepper
- 3/4 yellow pepper
- flax seed bread (or crackers, or anything else you want to spread it on)

Throw everything in the food processor and pulse to your desired degree of mushiness. Spread on bread.

That's it, it was that simple. Now I can't say that I really like tuna now, but it's a start. My grandma recommended that I squeeze in some lemon juice. That was probably her way of saying that it didn't taste very good so she added lemon so she could eat it and not throw it out!! No, but she did actually say that she enjoyed it.

Too slow

Well, that was not a good start. The procrastinator came out in full swing there!

So, let's start again.

There are a few things going on which is probably the reason why I haven't stopped to write. In a nutshell:

1) my grandmother, who has been here since just before X-man's birth, is leaving in a couple of days, so we are trying to spend as much time as possible with her. I let her have the baby as much as she wants, change all the poopy diaper she wants, you know, all the good stuff.

2) I am part of a Biggest Loser Challenge, I know, I know, the whole new year, weight loss crap. It's not my new year resolution so I'm not doing it because of that. I finally feel like I have a sort of routine with the baby, am comfortable with our day to day, then again, that will change a bit now that grandma is leaving, but also I can't stand how I look in pictures. Was totally unimpressed with the family Christmas pictures we took. And most of all, I want to try for another baby in a few months and I don't want my weight to have a negative impact on that project! The cherry on top is that there is $$$ involved at the end of the rainbow, so that is a bit of a motivator at the end of the day if nothing else works.

3) I've decided to stop procrastinating the various projects I had/have in mind for this year off. They are just little silly things, but sometimes my lazy butt takes a long time to get into gear. I would very much like to attempt to sew some clothes I've seen on some of my favourite blogs. I'd also like to make some toys I've seen on those blogs as well. I admire those moms who take care of their kids and do all of these creative things on the side.

4) Have been trying to make sense of all these recipes I keep putting in my favourites folder. So as I go through them I will attempt to, when necessary, health-ify them and share them.

*Note to self: don't stick your foot in your mouth by saying you will do all this stuff if you're not really going to.*