Reboot Day 6

There's a certain connection people use between human mothers, and mother bears. I believe it is along the lines of never getting between the two. We all know that mama bears get pretty ticked if you're found near their cub, but get between the two and let's just say you better hope you have a friend with you who runs slower. The same can be said about a human mom though. We're nice and pleasant people, but we're rather protective of our cub..er..kids as well.  If we don't know you, and you get too close to them, we're gonna bristle.  Block our view of them and it's go time.  This is natures way of ensuring their survival.

The problem comes when it's our own survival at stake, or at least seems to be at stake. Take for instance, oh, let's say hunger. We all know we need to eat to live, right? Normally we mom's tend to make sure our own kids are all well and good and fed and full and taken care of and resting or playing somewhere nice and safe before we look toward ourselves.  Through the course of a normal work week this isn't so difficult to do when you have older ones who don't demand diapers and feedings. There's schedules and time frames and order mostly.  Then the weekend hits. Suddenly there are kids at your elbow every moment.  There's yelling to quiet down, and screaming to tend to, and fighting to break up, and food being requested, and boo-boo's to take care of, and on and on and on. Suddenly before you know it, your stomach is growling quite loudly and you realize it's been doing so for about 2 hours now but it's been laid on the back burner of your brain as "eventually get to it" in favor of making sure your 5 year old isn't quietly cutting his 7 year old sisters hair while she plays on the Wii that she stole away from the 12 year old who was in the kitchen, sifting through the 5 year olds candy stash.  You need food, and you need it now.

As you run to the kitchen to seek out what is on the list for your Reboot, its like the moment you touch food, your kids just know.  They know you are down there handling food. Everything else is completely forgotten in the awareness that they require sustenance right this second! Good gravy if they have to wait any longer they ARE GOING TO DIE!! Never mind that they just ate fruit cocktail, a peanut butter and nutella sandwich, and had 2 cookies for dessert 30 minutes ago, if they don't have soup and grilled cheese in the next 10 seconds, mountains will crumble into the sea! The deserts will drown in rain which will cause mass flooding in areas not meant to flood! The oceans will overflow and THE WORLD WILL BE AT AN END AS WE KNOW IT! That's the moment they all pile into the kitchen between you and your goal and howl about it all.

And something in you snaps.

Human mama literally becomes bear mama. Fur sprouts from all over and our teeth grow and claws come out and we growl our anger as offspring come between us and our cubs! I mean food! Obviously no one else see's this as it's all in our head, but that's just because we're so desperate for food we begin hallucinating.

So this is how my weekend has gone, all the way through today because today was a holiday from school. I have forgotten a few meals and I will honestly say there were a few times when I really wondered if maybe my kids weren't going to make it through till evening....
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Breakfast at 10am
Very Berry Mango Blend
1/2 cup Strawberries
1/2 cup Blueberries
1/2 cup Raspberries
1/2 cup Blackberries
1/2 Mango
1/2 Avocado
4 oz unsweetened coconut water
1/2 cup crushed ice or ice cubes (if using fresh fruit)
 
Add all ingredients to blender and set to liquefy
 
Calories: 380 kcal
Protein: 5 g
Fiber: 20 g

Very good, and it didn't make so much that I never got it all down. In fact, I got about 90% down which is way more than I can say for any of the other juices thus far.  I had mango too! Kroger more than made up for their lack of it before by selling crates of 6 mangos for $4.  I bought 2 with the intentions of juicing them for my kids who also happen to loooooove mango. The interesting thing about this one was the avocado. You couldn't taste it, but you could feel it. If you've ever eaten an avocado, you know that have that sort of oily texture to them? This drink had that through and through, but it didn't effect the flavor which made me happy, happy. 
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Mid-Morning Juice at never
Gazpacho Juice
4 Plum Tomatoes
1 large Cucumber
2 stalks Celery
1 Red Bell Pepper
1/4 small Red Onion
2 cups Parsley, leaves and stems, roughly chopped and packed into the measuring cup
1 Lime
 
Calories: 216
Protein: 11 g
Fiber: 1 g

I think at this point I was sending a 5 year old to his room for hitting his 12 year old sister for not "making him a sammich"!

Good luck with that boy child.
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Lunch at 2pm
Guacamole & Salsa Dip for Veggies (double to make extra for Day 7)
Dip Celery, Cucumber, Carrots, Peppers, Jicama
Make Yucca “chips” to dip (peel and cut Yucca root into circles, spray with olive oil add salt and pepper, bake at 450 for 30 minutes until crisp)
1 Yucca makes 4 servings use, 1/2 Yucca for Lunch Day 6 & the other half for Day 7
 
Per serving: Calories: 200 kcal
Protein: 1.5 g
Fiber: 2 g
 
Salsa:
3 Tomatoes, chopped
1 small Onion chopped
1 Jalepeno Pepper (optional) seeded and finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped Cilantro
1 Tbsp. Lime Juice
1/8 teaspoon Salt
Combine all ingredients and toss – you can also throw tomato, onion and jalepeno pepper into a food processor before mixing with lime juice
Makes 6 servings.
 
Per Serving:
Calories: 20 kcal
Protein: .3 g
Fiber: .3 g
 
Guacamole (half for Day 6, half for Day 7)
2 Avocados
2 Tbsp Lime Juice
1/8 teaspoon Fresh Ground Pepper
1/8 teaspoon Chipotle Chili Powder
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1 clove Garlic, minced
Scoop avocadoes into a bowl – mash with a potato masher or place into food processor and puree all ingredients.
Makes 6 servings.
 
Per serving:
Calories: 100 kcal
Protein: .3 g
Fiber: 2 g

Please note that the last time I ate before this was juice at 10 am. After shooing my children out of the kitchen, my hubby came in to talk to me.  It's not that I wasn't interested in what he was saying about wolverines that made me answer "Mmhm.." to every thing he said, but more the fact that I was fully and completely focused on getting food in my belly right now! It didn't help that I had to look up how the heck to work with a yucca since it was another new thing for me.  It also didn't help that I had to cut it up evenly and spent another 15 minutes trying to figure out how to put the cuisinart together to get it to do that. It ALSO didn't help that the buggers had to bake for 30 minutes before I could eat them. 

As it turns out they only needed about 10 minutes really.  I figured that out 5 minutes later, after they were all blackened around the outside edges. At that point I was ready to throw in the towel from sheer exhaustion at lack of food.

Makin guac. Om nom nom.

 Just a little crispy there...

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Afternoon snack at 4pm

Kale Chips (double to make extra for Day 7)
8-10 leaves kale – Lacinato/dinosaur kale is great but any variety works
Spray with olive oil, add pepper, sea or celtic salt
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes until crisp. Check at 10 minutes.
 

Calories: 34
Protein: 2 g
Fiber: 2 g 

These are both weird and wonderful. They turn out so light and crispy it's like eating...well...I don't even know what. They're just really light and crispy.  I can't say they were delicious, or that you could could dip them in anything, but they did satisfy that desire to crunch on chips, and the flavor wasn't too terribly bad either.

 

 Who needs spray olive oil when you have zip top bags?

 Looks are deceiving here.

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Dinner at 5:30 pm

Apple, Parsnips and Sweet Potatoes (makes enough for lunch Day 7)
4 Parsnips, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
2 medium Sweet Potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
1 small Onion, sliced
2 Apples (try fuji or gala) cored and diced
2 cloves Garlic
Black pepper to taste
 

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Place sweet potatoes, parsnips and apples with garlic and onions in a covered baking dish and spray with olive oil, add pepper to taste.
Roast for 40-50 minutes until tender.
Makes 4 servings
 

Per serving:
Calories: 219
Protein: 3.5 g
Fiber: 1 g
 

Reboot Green Salad with dressing of your choice
Calories: 278
Protein: 3.5 g
Fiber: 9 g  

I realized at 4:30 that my kids had Awana tonight and we had to leave at 6. Good thing I checked dinner cause this took an hour to cook so fast as I could I prepped everything so I could get it done and down in time to run out the door.  Tossed the salad idea in favor of making to Awana in time.  My parsnips were HUGE. I'm talking mutant huge. I only bought 3 and then only cooked 2.  I did 1.5 sweet potatoes and only about 1/2 an onion, as well as 1.5 apples.  I'm so sad I didn't do it all.  This turned out delightful, and my hubby had some too.  I managed to horde the rest of it for tomorrow as instructed before he ate it all.

  From this.....

To this!

The pictures really don't do it justice. The onions caramelized, the apples got nice and soft and sweet, the sweet potatoes and parsnips were done perfectly..it was a masterpiece! I scarfed down what I could as quick as I could  while simultaneously getting my kids to do the same with their dinner so we could leave in time. At 6pm I realized we didn't have to leave till 6:30. 

I'm so glad school is back in session tomorrow.