Josie's First GNO and More Pasta

Josie went to her first Girl's Night Out for a local natural parenting group I've been a part of for over seven years. It was supposed to be cards at a friend's house, but we never played cards. We had fun chatting about everything you can imagine and some things you probably shouldn't imagine until after 2am. My little party girl slept through a lot of it, but I hope she finds a great group of supportive women when she is a mom. It is nice to be able to be friends with a people who have some similar parenting philosophies, but all sorts of different ways of going about making them work for their own families. I learn so much from each person in the group even when we adamantly disagree or maybe especially when we disagree.

Since I had a long day yesterday and then had my third night in a row with something to do after dinner, I quickly made one of Rob's favorite meals. Pasta with Emse Sauce, peas, and garlic bread topping. This picture is of a dinner we had weeks ago, but it looked pretty similar except for a different type of whole wheat pasta. I wanted to make broccoli with the past the first time, but didn't have any, but the peas were so good with it I can't imagine having anything else. Everyone totally enjoys this.

This evening I was rushed for time again and Parker's friend Kaila was over and Rob was going out with friends so I made bean burgers on whole wheat buns, tomato soup with garlic bread crumbles, and fresh mango. No pictures because I thought it was going to bomb, but everyone seemed to like it, even Kaila. Now I wish I could remember how I made the burgers. It was something like this: 2 cans of black beans, 1 can of pinto beans, 1 cup rolled oats, 1/2 to 1 cup of vital wheat gluten, 1/2 to 1 cup of bread crumbs, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp or more of chili powder (just dumped it in), and sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. When it was the right consistency I made it into patties and fried them in olive oil. The kids had mustard and kalamata olives on theirs (they put olives on almost anything). We didn't have pickles and avocado which they requested, but they ate it all up anyway.