Beautiful Fall Day...

I've been doing a little better with food lately.  I actually planned a menu this week, which I haven't done in probably two months.  In my first trimester of pregnancy, the thought of food gives me the gag reflex.  But my nausea has been more on and off lately, plus I've ran out of all the meals that I cooked and froze before the nausea hit.  I really want to start spending a lot less money on food.  I believe it is very possible to eat healthy and cheapily.  Whole Foods, which requires your WHOLE paycheck, is not a requirement, I don't believe, in buying healthy foods.  I think often of my dear friend, Cecelia, who is from Kenya.  I know she prepares healthy foods for her family on a very reasonable budget.  They eat a lot of foods from Kenya.  A lot of their meals center around, rice, beans, and vegetables.  Meat is occasional.  

She taught me to make Githiri, a very common, very traditional, Kenyan dish.  The first time I ate it at her house, I loved it!  But making it myself has proved to be a challenge.  But today it was a success!  It really is quite easy and I think I just made it harder in the past than it needed to be.  

Here is what's in it:  Pinto beans, soaked over night, then cooked for a couple hours on low.  Frozen corn that I simmered for about 5 minutes and then added to the cooked pinto beans.  Then I made a mixture of one small onion chopped very small, about 8 baby carrots, chopped very very small, and one tomato, chopped very small.  Then I sauted these three things for about 10 minutes in a skillet.  After that, I added them to the beans and corn, added water to just make the mixture a little saucy, and last I seasoned it with seasoned salt. I served it over white jasmine rice because I like the way it tastes better with white rice.  I know brown rice is healthier.  I figure there is enough fiber in the bean mixture that we can get away with some white rice!  Everyone in the family likes this yummy dish!  Healthy and cheap!  

I think I may go to a ethnic farmer's market and buy some large bags of beans and rice in bulk, and I will make this dish once a week, and then a big pot of black beans once a week, for starters.  I just hate spending so much money on consumables.  

We enjoyed our githiri on the deck.  It was so pretty outside today!  Steve was working from home today so he got to eat with  us, which we always enjoy.  Then I got the urge to take the kids for a nature walk, so during Benjamin's nap, I took the boys to a park we had not explored before.  

Fifth baby-so you look FIVE months pregnant, when your only three months.  :)

We all thought this suspension bridge was super cool!

 Well, all of us, except Andrew.  He was really unsure.

He finally got up the nerve and dashed across it!

The creek down below...

A super cool caterpillar the boys spotted!  For all of you nature lovers, what would you do to identify creatures like this that you find?

This tree, with all it's vines, reminded me of Hebrews 12:1....  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Take a look at that big orange spot on the rear end of this bee!  Is that really a pollen basket?  

The boys were getting brave and trying to hold a carpenter bee!

We saw several different kinds of birds in this beautiful meadow...