DJ Zalad with baked falafel...

I know, funny name for a salad.  

I was making a salad a while back when I realized that DJ Khaled liked one of my posts and from that point on, all of our salads are DJ Zalads.  Makes sense to me.

We never get sick of salads, especially when it is 90+ degrees outside.  This one is loaded with all kinds of goodness and so filling.

You can make your own falafel (which is so easy) or pickup a premade variety, no judgement.

Good & Gather has premade frozen falafel with tahini sauce for $4 at Target, and they are delicious!

Homemade vegan Tzatziki sauce.  I love this sauce so much, I can eat it for breakfast.  So easy to make.  The trick is to make sure to get as much water out of the cucumbers as possible.  

Whatcha need/whatcha do:  One cucumber, grate the cucumber on a flour sack cloth or paper towels and press out the water. ~You can also cube the cucumbers in really small pieces.  Add the cucumber to a bowl then add 1-1/2 cups of Silk plain almond milk yogurt.  Toss in 2 Tsp garlic, 2 Tsp lemon juice, 1/4 cup (or more) dill, 1 Tsp of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.  You can also add chopped red (purple) onion.  Mix it up and refrigerate.  Please do not use plastic wrap, it is literal crap! 

Vegan feta cheese by Violife is 100% fire!

We love to roast chickpeas. 

Whatcha need/whatcha do:  If you are using dry chickpeas, soak them overnight.  For canned chickpeas, go with 2 cans, rinse, and drain extra water.  Put the chickpeas in a baking pan, drizzle with olive oil, pink Himalayan salt, pepper, garlic, onion, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a splash of lemon.  Roast for about 20 minutes.

What now:  Fill up a bowl or plate with any kind of lettuce or mixed greens you prefer and start adding your toppings.  The DJ Zalad pictured has mixed green, iceberg, falafel, feta, roasted chickpeas, red (purple) onions, cherry tomatoes, and a lot of Tzatziki sauce with a few mini-GF Greek pitas. Fini!

MANGEONS!!

C19 received all A's for the classes she has been working on during the summer. This kid is amazing.......

Record high temps of 111 degrees in California today. I hope it cools down before we get there....

Highest temp since 1939 with was 109.

Why not college classes during the summer........

So proud of C18.

She finished her first year of college with straight A's and made it on the President's list.

Yep, my little homeschooler.

We already had a fairly busy summer planned with the acting gigs, concerts, birthday parties, hopefully a quick trip out of town at the end of July, as well as babysitting and pet sitting for half the people living in our complex.  They are lining up jobs left and right.

But even with all of that, C18 has decided to take classes during the summer.  She is a college rockstar!

I know summer classes are not for everyone.  Some people are not cut out for college at all and fail miserably while they are in college, drop courses, fail courses, change majors, and/or relocate as an
excuse to start over at another college but luckily C18 is not like that.

There are so many benefits of summer school and if you are taking online classes, the benefits are even greater!

By just taking two courses over the summer, C18 can graduate a semester early.  There are usually fewer students.  The classes are shorter in term.  There are no gaps in learning/routine which keeps your brain going.  In general you will have more access to professors since the classes are smaller and you can get some of the gen ed classes out of the way.  Summer school is also great for anyone who needs to catch up.  I cannot find one single reason not to take summer classes, especially online, even with a busy schedule like C18 already has in place.

Here are a few links that I found about college during the summer.
50 Best
College Parent Central
Reddit best classes
Unigo

Summer dinner, no problem..........

This was supposed to be a quinoa salad bowl but I was over ambitious making mine so it is now an official quinoa salad plate.


Organic baby kale
lettuce
cannelloni beans
garbanzo beans
cucumbers-cubed
green olives
black olives
quinoa-cooked and cooled
lemon
vegetarian protein-chopped
salt
pepper
lemon
You can also add cherry tomatoes, any kind of peppers, carrots, or anything you like.

Tzatziki-dill sauce (one English cucumber peeled and shredded, two cups greek yogurt (dairy-free preferred), garlic, 1/2 dill, juice from one lemon, salt and pepper.  Throw in a bowl stir, done,

Pile it into a bowl, or plate, top with Tzatziki-dill dressing, done.  So good on hot summer days.

This was so delicious!!!!!!!!!!

Me and my crew have been working our way through our many vegetarian cookbooks and Pinterest for new foods to try, especially light foods since the heat in Georgia is unrelenting.  Tonight we made this, and it was fabulous!!

This is a quinoa, feta, and veggie wrap with avocado/cilantro yogurt dressing.

Here is what is in it.  Cooked quinoa then let it cool down,
lettuce or spinach, black olives,
shredded carrots, avocado, tomatoes,
and the dressing.  You also need tortillas.

You could shred the lettuce if you prefer, we just liked the bigger pieces.

Fill it up! 

Roll it up, done!

This was seriously delicious and great for hot weather days.

Makin' it! Summer vegetable tian.

Image from Budget Bytes.

I found this amazing-looking veggie recipe, and we are going to give it a try.  I will probably substitute out the dairy cheese with vegan cheese by Daiya.  Other than that, we are good to go.

This recipe and photo are found at Budget Bytes.

summer vegetable tian

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil $0.11
• 1 medium yellow onion $0.70
• 1 tsp minced garlic $0.08
• 1 medium zucchini $0.71
• 1 medium yellow squash $0.85
• 1 medium potato $0.91
• 1 medium tomato $1.65
• 1 tsp dried thyme $0.05
• to taste salt & pepper $0.05
• 1 cup shredded Italian cheese $1.49

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Saute both in a skillet with olive oil until softened (about five minutes).
2. While the onion and garlic are sauteing, thinly slice the rest of the vegetables.
3. Spray the inside of an 8×8 square or round baking dish with non-stick spray. Spread the softened onion and garlic in the bottom of the dish. Place the thinly sliced vegetables in the baking dish vertically, in an alternating pattern. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper, and thyme.
4. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, top with cheese and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown.

HAPPY SUMMER EATING!

Summer study of bugs and insects.

We are currently taking a look at bugs and insects.  It just seems like a summery thing.  We learned that there is a difference between a bug and an insect.  Bugs are a type of insect but not all insects are considered true bugs.  Here is an except from eHow explaining the difference between a true bug and an insect.  

"True bugs" have a mouth that is shaped like a straw or needle, which is called a stylet or rostrum. They also have a very specific membranous wing, which is thick and darkly colored where it connects to the body, but becomes thin and almost transparent toward its end. Insects that do not have a rostrum mouth or membranous wings, such as ants, termites, butterflies, mosquitoes, fleas and lice (just to name a few) would not be considered "true bugs" as they do not have one or both of these features.  (From eHow)

According to Wikipedia,  insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae.

Are you confused yet?

Here are a few of the learning tools we used and a few pictures of both bugs and insects from our yard.

This is some of our buggy stuff.

It looks like this guy did not do too well.  We could not find the rest of him.

Is this a bug or an insect?

This is, I believe, a hummingbird moth.  It looks like a bumblebee but acts like a hummingbird.  (You can click on the picture to enlarge it, I think.)

Another shot of the hummingbird moth.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails.

The bugs in the above picture and the last 2 pictures are courtesy of my husband.  He found out we were studying bugs and insects and dug up a few surprises for us by the garden.

An exoskeleton is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body.  (Wikipedia)

These are grubby!

Well, we are officially all bugged out!  I had to go with bugged out because insected out made no sense!