Monday, August 08, 2005

I went to the dentist today . . .

. . . and I have a cavity. The first cavity of my life! My dentist was very sad to tell me this news, since up until now I have had what he called "perfect teeth." I have to go back on Thursday and have it filled. Bah!

Otherwise, today was a fine day. I went to the library and checked out eleven books, (4 cookbooks, 2 nonfiction books, and 5 novels) and have been parusing Nava Atlas's "The Vegetarian Family Cookbook" for most of the rest of the afternoon. (I also made a tuna sandwich. Reading cookbooks always makes me hungry!) It's a really fabulous cookbook -- offers lots of ideas for every day vegetarian recipes for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks, gives pretty complete nutritional information for all of the recipes, offers ideas for adapting recipes to make them vegan, and also offers ideas for getting picky eaters (in her cookbook she talks mostly about kids, but I think many adults could be considered "picky," too, and would need a little help adapting to a more vegetarian lifestyle!) to eat veggies, tofu, and other healthy veg fare. (Chelsea, I keep thinking of Jon when I stumble upon the "picky eaters" sections of most of the recipes!) Anyhow, it's a fantastic book, whether you are vegetarian or not, and whether you have a family or not. I think most of us could use a few tips to help incorporate more healthy foods into our diets!

The big thing for me in this cookbook was learning how to work with tofu. I may have to buy a copy of this cookbook in the not so distant future!

Should I give you my recipe for tuna salad? It's pretty basic, but pretty good. Here goes:

(For 2 servings):
1 can water-pack tuna, drained (I give the "tuna juice" to the kit-cat and he gobbles it up)
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 clove garlic, minced very fine
1 to 2 tablespoons additional chopped veggies (I like celery and bell pepper, and carrot is also good)
1 tablespoon chopped slivered almonds
salt and pepper to taste
minced fresh herbs if you have them around (parsley and basil are both nice)
squeeze of fresh lemon juice (if you have half a lemon hanging about)
1 rounded tablespoonfull low fat mayo (I hear soy mayo is actually quite good, and I may try it in the future!)

Mix it all up and stuff it into a pita, half a hollowed-out tomato, make a tuna melt, or enjoy it "old school" -- on bread with lettuce.

This is completely random, but I have read you are supposed to limit your intake of albacore tuna (the yummy, white tuna,) and if you are pregnant you aren't supposed to eat it at all. I guess since the kind of fish that that tuna comes from is so much larger than regular tunas, it has a much higher concentration of pollutants and gunk we're not supposed to ingest if we can help it. So, although it doesn't taste nearly as good, I buy regular old "light" tuna now. But I do miss the gorgeous albacore!

Happy Monday, folks!

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