Organic or not?

Yes, I know it's important to eat organic fruits and vegetables. But, it's also important to pay our rent, so sometimes we stick with conventional produce. My goal for this month is to see how much we spend on food and if we have a surplus at the end of the month, we'll go organic next time. I've seen about a dozen renditions of "The Dirty Dozen" (the food you should always buy organic) and I have no idea which one is accurate. That will be some of my research before next month!

This morning was "back to reality" day...and I woke up late. Perfecto! For breakfast I had coffee with the somewhat crappy creamer and one of the pumpkin doughnut muffin things (after making 3 dozen yesterday, there were only THREE leftover this morning!)

After dropping Isaac off at school, Esther and I went to Trader Joe's (yes, I'm obsessed with TJ) for basic stuff, and to Whole Foods for our "special" items. One of the things we bought at Whole Foods was coconut milk yogurt. It's the best non-dairy yogurt I've had, but at $2 for the small container (and a lot of sugar) it's something I try to limit. It's really good with gluten-free granola, from TJ, of course.

For lunch I had some soup from last night and a spinach salad (and a mini Kit Kat...and now they are gone so I can move on with my life!) Esther had the other pumpkin muffin thingies, a piece of bread, and 800 gallons of almond milk. She's on a liquid diet, I guess.

During nap time, I made this bean and corn salad/dip that I found on my friend Jen's blog. (You should read the whole thing...she is amazing and honest and hilarious and real.) This dish is so easy and SO good...perfect for a summer potluck. I usually add more beans and use green onions instead of red, and today I used lemon instead of lime because I had a bunch of lemons in the fridge for some reason. It tastes better with lime, but lemon was still good. I've made this with rice before and you could also add chicken.

Kyle and I had ours with collard green leaves as wraps and the kids had tortillas. I also made some guacamole because guacamole is awesome. And if you're having guacamole, you have to have tortilla chips!

My friend Carolyn (who used to be my boss and is now just my hero) sent me a recipe for "peanut butter balls" so I decided to make some for dessert and for snacking. Here's her recipe:

1 c oats

1/2 c peanut butter

1/3 c honey

1/2 c flax seed meal

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all this in a food processor and refrigerate for about 15 mins. Form into balls and store in fridge. 

I don't have a food processor, so I just mixed everything in a bowl and they turned out great! I used quick cooking oats, so it might be too "oaty" if you use regular rolled oats. You could also add craisins, chocolate chips, or whatever sounds good. After I made these, another friend posted this recipe. I guess this is what the cool kids are snacking on!

Today's lesson is that the cook at the raw restaurant must have attended some kind of collard green wrapping seminar. Ours burst open with the first bite, but they definitely hold up better than lettuce leaves!