1-9-07 POW

Alyssa has a new chore. Would you like to know what it is? Windows!!!! I tell you, it's a glorious day. My oldest does the dinner dishes and my youngest does the windows. All of this, may I remind you, is in addition to their usual Sunday chores (bathrooms, baseboards, mini blinds, dust the silk plants). You know, if I didn't want to strangle them so often I think I could have had more kids. I wouldn't have to do anything around here! Yeah, right!!!

Sidney informed me today that tryouts for Track start in mid-February. She has been running every day for the last week or so and is really excited about it. She said that you don't automatically make the team if you were on it in 7th grade, but they go easier on you while judging. I'm sure she'll make the team. She did really well last year and she's trained a lot harder this winter.

Have you all broken your New Year Resolutions yet??? I'm doing...OK. I was going to try to eat better this year. My inspiration was the night I was sitting on the couch with a handful of M&M's, channel surfing. The TV stopped on Fit TV ONLY because I had to go to the kitchen to restock my M's. On this show they were following 4 different people around, all trying different diet techniques. Long story short, this one guy had to eat healthier food and they gave him a grocery list. I was intrigued by the stuff he was forced to buy so I pulled up the recipe on their website and made up a list. The next day I hit the stores.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find Mung Beans in a city like Greensboro? Heck, I didn't know what in the world they were, only that they were sold in bulk. After striking out in 2 grocery stores I finally went to the health food store (duh!). They had the stupid beans. They look like dried capers and look like they'd be fun to shoot out of a pea-shooter.

They were. Ha!

I won't bore you with the details, but let me say this: I have renamed this dish "The $30 Dinner". That's because I didn't have most of the stuff needed to make it (big surprise) and had to buy it all. All I can say is that I'd better end up liking this stuff because I'll have to make a lot of it to use all of these weird things up!

"Healthy brown rice, mung beans, lots of water, boil for 45 minutes, being careful to stir often as the mung beans burn easily." Note to self: anytime a recipe requires you to "skim the scum off the top as needed"....run screaming. I skimmed, I prevailed. Add black pepper, cayenne, cumin, coriander, celery seed, crushed garlic, turmeric...turmeric?? What in the world is that? I figured it out quickly. Why don't they just rename it "dye everything yellow"? I'm not kidding, it even stained my dark blue plastic spoon a really disgusting shade of green! I think I'll cut back on that next time. Add frozen stir fry vegetables and grilled chicken strips. Keep cooking. "Season to taste with soy sauce and other spices." No kidding, that stuff was bland! I threw in some Texas Pete hot sauce and then all was well in the world. I don't think I'd want to eat it every day, but it was OK. I'll keep looking for something else to do with my Mung Beans. Or not.

That's it for this week. Have a great day!
Amy and the girls