Come Dancing

Last night, Parker had his first public school dance. He let me take a picture of him as we locked his bike up at school.

He's so fun and goofy! It was just for the 6th graders and I assumed not much dancing would be going on. I assumed wrong. He had a great time and he said his one regret was not dancing more. He is definitely not Rob's child. I think there should be more opportunities for pre-teens to dance. He's had a great time at weddings, but really what other place do pre-drinkers get to dance? So glad he was able to experience this one and that he had a fabulous time.

The one issue with the dance was timing. Parker was at school until 4pm for Speech Club and the dance started at 5pm back at the school. He wasn't really ready for a big meal at that time and neither were the rest of us so I figured it was the perfect night to make enchiladas.

We received a bunch of tomatillos in our mini-CSA a couple weeks ago and I wasn't sure what to do with them. I decided to crack open Viva Vegan for a salsa verde recipe, but I also found a recipe for Potato Chickpea Enchiladas. I was lazy and made the salsa verde one day and then didn't have pine nuts for the creme and we didn't have corn tortillas. Last night I decided to sub cashews for the pine nuts (the recipe linked to above has cashews anyway, but I just found that link) and whole wheat tortillas for corn ones.

 I also used white northern beans instead of chickpeas, sweet potatoes for most of the potato, roasted the potatoes, onion (I used sweet instead of red), garlic, and jalapenos instead of boiling the potatoes.

The results? The best enchilada I have ever tasted. Seriously. I would make them exactly the same way again. The white beans were creamy and sort of melted into the filling, roasting really brought out the flavor of the veggies. They were quite spicy so Dema ate the filling (two helpings), Parker had his with avocado, and Josie has hers with avocado and vegan sour cream. We have plenty of salsa verde so I'm tempted to make more. Check out Terry Hope Romero's video for making her enchiladas so you can have some too.

Today was another first for Parker. We woke at 6am to head out for his first Speech competition in the vegan food desert called Effingham, IL. It does, however, have a song. Yes, they call it Effington, but it is obviously Effingham and it is on the way to Normal, IL. A little taste of the Midwest for you all.

It was a long drive for us on a Saturday morning. Thankfully my sister came over to watch Josie and Dema (they were still asleep long after we left) and loaned us her car. Parker ate a bit before we left, but none of us were really awake enough to eat. He slept most of the way and the actual competition was short and sweet. It was fun to see him and the other kids perform. He was tired and felt like he did poorly on his improvisations with his partner, but she called after we arrived home and said his entire team got ones so he felt much better. All along he's said he wasn't nervous, but I could tell when it came down to it, he was. How nice to get his first one out of the way and I hope the next one is closer and we can sleep a little later.