I'm having a bit of soup for lunch. I've eaten a lot of soup lately.

Mama Snee's Recipe Corner: Zen Bowl
This is my homemade version of a dish offered by a delightful restaurant in my neighborhood. In fact, they call it the Zen Bowl, and I'm making no bones about this being a direct rip-off of that dish.

Sadly, the restaurant is closing, which is a shame because it always seemed packed and the menu was really something. Like a grilled cheese on focaccia with herbed cream cheese, cheddar, and tomato. But I guess when you only serve meals that end in -unch and none that end in -inner, you may not make the money you dreamed of in the beginning. So you might close. I'm just sayin'.

No measurements, as usual. I am a "wing it" cook, for sure.

You need:

• Whatever veggies you have around. I had:
• Yellow Pepper
• Broccoli
• Onion
• Carrots
• corn (highly recommended for this dish)
• 1/2 can black beans
• brown rice
• extra firm tofu (we bought Amaya this time, which is more expensive but firmer than morinu extra firm
• tamari
• butter

1. Saute cubed tofu in tamari and butter over med-high heat. Saute until there's not much liquid left in the pan, or until it starts to look like it might burn.
2. Saute veggies in tamari and butter. Add beans. Keep heating.
3. Make rice according to directions
4. Mix up and eat.

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I should not have left the house today. So far I have had so many brain misfires (getting turned around in my own neighborhood, driving away from daycare with Bird's lunch in my car, forgot to wear a bra, soup issues) that I'm not sure I should be allowed to drive myself home.

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Bird likes tofu! She eats it with her little pinscer fingers like it's going out of damn style.
And this morning, being around my sweet sweet sweetness was like having my raw nerves run across a cheese grater. The whining. THE WHINING. The clinging, the climbing, the whining. The fact that after 14 hours of labor and an emergency c-section, she wants nothing to do with me this morning. She wants Daddy to snuggle her while he's up to his ears in lunch preparation. Forty long weeks of summertime incubation, fourteen hours of turning my body inside out, and emergency major abdominal surgery just to get her little body out into the air of the earth, and she bats me away so she can hang around the neck of the man who watched the Price is Right and ESPN during the whole ordeal.

Okay, that's not fair to A, at all. He is the MOST wonderful Dad. And he only watched the Price is Right when I begged him to find something on the damn television while I slipped in and out of sleep during the long stretch of the labor, thank-you epidural.*

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I let Bird watch American Idol. Because I want to watch American Idol. And usually by 7:00, she's kind of sleepy and ready to lay on the floor and kick her feet up in the air and clap for the "bebehs" (babies) singing their poor, generally untalented hearts out. And I saw a classic case of frontbutt on Tuesday. American Idol Frontbutt.

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Parents (mine) coming in tonight to stay for the weekend. I am so ready to see them. There are certainly more than a few times I wish we lived right down the street.

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Apparently Bird's daycare needs a note from our pediatrician saying that she can't eat meat. Or doesn't eat meat. Or that it's okay (duh) that she doesn't eat meat. I'm not even sure, all I know is that I got stopped in the parking lot by her caregiver who informed me that being vegetarian must be proven and documented and blessed by a member of the medical community. Is it that weird to have a veggie kid? So weird that we have to treat it like a deadly food allergy?

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I wish I could tell you about the conversation I'm overhearing right now. I WISH. It's more interesting than what I'm about to tell you, which is how I like to eat my soup so that the bread:soup ratio is completely equal for every bite, and how I have a system for that. Much more interesting. But I'm at work, and this is the internet. So I will show some restraint and not be dumb about it.



*Actually, I still have questions about that epidural and the long stretch of labor and their relationship. But that's a chat for another day.