Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Twenty (Dinner Fare)

We did a 5 hour one way trip (with a quick overnight) with two travel weary children, a quiet Grandma, and car packed with luggage and Spelt Right bagels.

We journeyed to Bennington, Vermont in order to attend a celebration to top all others honoring our friends the Goodriches, who lost their son, Peter, in 9/11, and took this horrific event as an opportunity to change the world working toward peace. They are inspiring beyond words as they work to educate the world on the roots of misunderstanding and hatred and personally "adopt" children from Afghanistan in an effort to create a peaceful world. http://www.goodrichfoundation.org/ (If you are able, this organization is worth a donation. Real people! Real results!)

I am one of the lucky beneficiaries of the Goodriches' passion and compassion long before the tragic events of 9/11 revealed to the world Don and Sal's beauty and benevolence. They were my guardian angels who encouraged me to go to college and then to law school. With my own parents very unfamiliar with the college application process, Don and Sally guided me along as they drove me through New England, with their young sons Peter and Foster in tow, visiting college after college, until I landed at Bates, where Peter also eventually attended. Bates now is also a beneficiary of their good works.

Arrived home Sunday with no plan for dinner, an unthawed turkey, little ambition, and a hungry family. Although I was quite touched by the weekend, I was quite exhausted by the trip and dinner was not what I would have chosen as my first deed. But, the kids were hungry....

Thank goodness I learned how to sweat vegetables the other day.

Dinner: Brown rice (first sauteed the rice with garlic and EVOO and then added the water), eggplant, zucchini, and mushrooms (sweated -see earlier post for details on "how to", and then topped with EVOO mixed with garlic and salt paste), potatoes diced into small cubes and roasted in oven with EVOO, salt and pepper, homemade yogurt from Live Well Cafe in Kennebunk, salad made with chopped tomatoes, a rinsed can of organic garbanzo beans, chopped parsley, mint (optiona;), fresh lemon, EVOO, salt and pepper to taste. Fried eggs.

Lots of EVOO today.

See picture for way to serve. It worked, family went to bed satisfied. My plans tomorrow? Grocery shopping. My creativity for near empty cupboards and fridge is waning.