the christian left

I think I may have swallowed a volleyball.  What do you think?

Maybe that one’s a little exaggerated due to the twist of taking my own photo.  What about here?

That was just to show you how lardy the thighs are anymore.  And here it is from the front.  Notice that my waist is completely gone in order to house the volleyball.

So the belly is officially large.  I can’t wear my maternity clothes well, though.  It turns out they are too big.  My regular clothes, well, that’s not happening either.  I cried when I put on those jeans today.  They went on, but it was a hideous affair.  So I had to wear some too-big jeans from a different pregnancy.

I’m tired of being inbetween, but I want to stay as small as possible.  I can’t imagine having to explain my belly, but often at the Y I have to tell the other people that I am indeed pregnant, not addicted to fast food.  It would help if I weren’t packing on the weight in the thighs.  It would seem that although I began this pregnancy at a higher weight than the last one, I was smaller in space that I occupied.  I wouldn’t have guessed that.  But it’s true.  I am off to shop this weekend, and hopefully it will end with a few spoils.

I promise, I do cook.  Not as often as usual, and I’m not as complicated in the kitchen as I am when I’m not growing life in my belly.  In fact, it’s gotten to where I feel good, but I am tired so quickly by every little activity.  It takes twice as long to do a simple thing.  On the other hand, this is the easiest pregnancy I have ever experienced.  Lots of sickness, but relative comfort, considering.  Probably thanks to all the swimming!

Anyway, back to the kitchen.  We’ll hit a few things from way back.

Twice-gingered tempeh lettuce wraps.  Sometimes you want something like PF Chang’s, but you don’t want to wait three hours for a table or pay lots of  money to listen to your kids cry and all during your meal.  So, I was reading up on the Tofurky site about their tempeh recipes since I’ve been really enjoying tempeh so much.  (I’m not a huge tofu fan, and for a vegetarian married to a vegan, you’ve gotta like at least one!)  I modified the recipe a bit to fit (what I had) our tastes, and here it is.  It’s pretty easy, it just requires a good bit of chopping.  It’s been tested on company and it was approved.  The kids aren’t too interested in stuff like this, but it’s a fantastic grownup dish.

Chickpea avocado tacos with kidney beans and spanish rice.  These recipes came straight from Vegetarian Times, and I strongly approve of the quickness.  This entire meal was assembled in less than 30 minutes, start to finish, including chopping things up.  That’s so great when you’re hungry and ready to go like RIGHT THEN.  These tacos are a fantastic warm weather dish, they are served either room temp or cold, and they taste as fresh as they look.  The rice, I didn’t like it too well.  I would have preferred plain brown rice instead of the spice mix in these.  B liked it, though, so I was glad that I had made something a tad more noteworthy than plain rice, I guess.

Every day vegetable soup.  This is one of the easiest things to make — I don’t really have a recipe, it’s just something I pull together pretty frequently.  It’s nice to have a superhealthy soup on hand for lunches or quick dinners.  I use basically whatever I have on hand, and it has worked beautifully every time I have made it.  For like the 100th time.    I’m sure my family is sick of it, but it tastes good with some bread and some parmesan cheese on top of it.  Or even with a dash of Louisiana hot sauce.  Yum.

Vegan cracker barrel?  You bet.  You can take the animal products out of the diet, but there are tastes that a Southerner must have.  Must.  So, the celebrated chickpea cutlets from the Veganomicon really are fantastic.  I baked them this time, and I really enjoyed the consistency.  It really is almost “meaty” and very, very healthy.  Of course you can round it off with green beans and mashed potatoes and have your country meal.  Tonight, I did  the mashed potato thing, but I also did green beans and carrots, as well as biscuits and sweet tea.  I can feel the hint of warmth in the air that makes me want to eat the way my grandmother cooked.

So, I do still cook.  I just neglect things.  Like updating pics and posting blog entries, etc.  But we still eat.

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my mommy’s house, originally uploaded by laceyb.

Here’s some food for thought… I’ll blog about some actual food later. I was told that this is a drawing of my house.