Green Options

Thank you Citizenpup for sponsoring our Green Lunch Giveway, and congratulations to Sonya of Sanity is for Those Without Children (love the name!) for winning.  Sonya wrote, “My kids love edamame and lots of veggies!”  My kids love edamame too, and I promise to grow the beans in my garden next year. If you do buy edamame, shop carefully to avoid beans [...]

Chicago’s health commissioner recently urged Windy City denizens to give up meat for the entire month of January, in a bid to improve locals’ health. Getting residents of Chicago—a city famed for its sausages—to go vegetarian for a month, or even a week, may seem like a tall order. Heck, I’m a vegetarian-leaning omnivore and it seems a bit challenging even for me!

However, the guy’s got a point.

“Mommy,” said my child at dinner, lima bean poised on fork, “I like M&Ms.” She then pops the lima bean into her mouth and eats it.

“M&Ms?” I replied. “Oh, not me, I like peas. Are you going to eat that one?” I take a pea off her mixed vegetable stack. This is not 100 percent accurate, I don’t like peas better than chocolate, but I can fake it for the greater good here. It’s a lot less of a lie than hiding spinach in brownies.

Internally, I am fuming, again, at her teacher, who just yesterday sent my child home with disgusting “Nerdz.” I never taught my child the brand name for M&Ms. She knows dark chocolate, but not that.

Across the table, the Kid is frowning. “That’s not an M&M,” she said. And, I finally realize what she’s talking about. “Oh! Edamame!” Duh, Mommy, her favorite veggie. Once, as we were driving, she even handed me up a half-eaten, soggy chocolate cupcake (store bought) and asked if I would make her edamame when we got home. I nearly swerved off the road. But, she was right, the cupcake was pretty nasty, even before it became a soggy mess. It’s amazing what a Mom will reach out her hand for and retrieve from the backseat.

“Yes! Can I have some edmummee?”

“Sure, Honey.” Whew. Am I going to tell her the truth of what M&Ms really are? Not a chance. I am sure somebody will do that for me soon enough — probably at school.

The Lunch Box recipe — “Soyccatash” after the jump.