Falafel and sauteed chard

I love greens. Particularly kale. I can tolerate collard greens if cooked long enough. But chard...I really want to like chard, but have had a hard time falling in love with it. Until this recipe. It was the first recipe that came up when I googled "chard recipes". Gotta leave it to allrecipes.com.

I did, of course, slightly healthify it, as I normally do. I cut the butter and oil in half (I mean...1/4 c. of fat? Really?) Maybe even cut it a little more. It was easy and delicious, and my son who yelled "I don't like it" ate it right up after he actually tasted it.

I also made my favorite falafel from Vegan with a Vengeance. Except I used cilantro instead of parsley. Yesterday, I went into the "garden" (I use the term lightly) to pick some parsley and found it...completely gone. I've been using this parsley plant for a couple of years now. But the stupid gopher who found its way to our yard this year ate the whole darned plant. We are going to try to kill the gopher (sorry) and increase the height of our square-foot garden containers to quite a bit taller.

We put the falafel on tortillas (because we have them) and TJ's tzatziki sauce. I prefer making it, but I only have so much time. The other picture is leftover stir-fry from earlier in the week. Mom-sized portion (with sriracha) and kid-sized portion.

Today was also the local Earth Day celebration. We walked to it (yay for us! 2 miles! The 5 year old complained about having to walk the WHOLE WAY). Spent a lot of money on lemonade and food. I waited 20 minutes for a vegan Jamaican wrap. They had a long line and a single person cooking. But it was real food and quite tasty. Lettuce, greens, mango, gardein, carrots, avocado, vegan ranch, green onions, and black beans. Side of fried plantains (three pieces).

While I waited I bought a smoothie bowl from Backyard Bowls (conveniently next door). Blended bananas and acai, topped with organic granola, and sliced bananas, blueberries, and strawberries. VERY good. The kid size was $5 and was HUGE - enough for me and my spouse. My kid was too busy with pizza and lemonade. Good thing I got him to eat the chard.

I got a little less complaint on the walk home. I did give him a piggy-back ride for 2 blocks, and our neighbor caught us at the bottom of the hill and gave us a ride the last 0.3 miles up hill. He's going to sleep well tonight!