A little bit of this, a little bit of that…

It’s a day for miscellany.

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I’m loving that Aldi has the least-packaged organic bananas I’ve ever come across. Most of the time, organic bananas come in bags (as do Aldi’s non-organic bananas), but these just have some tape around them.

Often, organic produce has more packaging than conventional produce, which is annoying and sort of contradictory. Why use fewer chemicals in growing the food and then put it in packaging that required lots of chemicals to produce?

So. Yay for less-packaged organic produce.

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Speaking of Aldi, I’ve found almond butter and organic honey at my store recently.

And I also really like the organic marinara sauce they’ve been carrying of late.

(For the record, I am aware that organic honey is a little bit controversial, and I think the healthiest way to buy honey is from a small, local beekeeper. But I prefer not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and so I’d say that organic commercial honey is probably preferable to conventional commercial honey. Also, I am just generally happy to see more organic items showing up at Aldi.)
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I made a batch of chicken tacos the other night, to use up some cilantro.

Cilantro stems have a lot of good cilantro flavor, by the way, and for an application like this, where it’s all getting blended up, it woks great to add them along with the leaves.

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Speaking of dinner, I also made some fish cakes last week, except we ate them as sandwiches this time around.

Which is not really as healthy as eating them without buns, but it’s nice to do something a little different every now and then.

If you don’t generally like fish, you should really give this recipe a try…I don’t usually like eating fish, but I really honestly do love fish cakes.
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On a non-food note: I really, really enjoyed The Winter of Our Disconnect.

Maushart is hilarious in an understated sort of way, and it was fascinating to read about what it was like for her and her three teenagers to go for six months with no technology at home (no internet, cell phone, TV, Ipod, etc.) The benefits and changes she and her kids experienced were pretty amazing, and the book wasn’t preachy at all.

We’re quite careful about limiting our kids’ screen time here at Chez FG, and reading this book made me feel really confident that we’re making the right choice.

And it inspired me to be more mindful of my own screen time, so I’ve implemented some changes to help me be less wired.

Oh, and this also made me positive (again!) that a smart phone is not for me.
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I haven’t spent tons of time on the computer of late, simply because I’ve been bonding with my paintbrushes.

In the kitchen, I’ve been busy painting all of the trim (underneath the cabinets, around the doorways), because once the new white cabinets went in, the trim suddenly looked very dingy.

See?

The trim is all done now, and the dings and gouges in the kitchen walls have been spackled, so now all that’s left is to paint the kitchen walls. I think I’ll be done within 24 hours. Woo!

I’ve also been working on picking out a color for Lisey’s room. Thank goodness for the teeny cans of paint you can buy…it’s so lovely to be able to try out a color on a wall for only a few dollars.

Our first try (Behr Prelude) was a little too gray for her taste, so we’re going to give a slightly more blue shade a shot now.

(the paint in this photo is the Prelude shade.)

I’ll be back tomorrow with a giveaway from Third Day Naturals, so don’t forget to stop by.

Have a lovely Monday!
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Joshua’s 365 post: Swerve and Skid