There’s no way to sugar coat this: we didn’t have very many vegetables during this trip. Overall, we probably had more while we were in Chile, but in Uruguay and Argentina, we had very little other than the vegetables we proactively ate during breakfast at our hotel. Kaia was also seemingly on a vegetable strike: she didn’t eat almost any vegetable offered to her nearly the entire trip, and especially in Argentina. She ate lots of pasta… perhaps too much pasta, and a good amount of meat, but no greens were in sight almost at all. So I wanted to make sure we took care of that when we got back.

Today, I spent most of the day defrosting food and cooking vegetables. It was clear right away that even Kaia missed her vegetables: she ate multiple servings of each type almost right away, and she seemed to reject something she usually loves: sticky rice (Chinese and Vietnamese). Who knows — maybe her body was telling her to reject the sticky rice because she had already had her carb fill in South America. Either way, I was quite satisfied not only to be eating and cooking vegetables again, but also to see that my toddler wanted them, as well.

I’ve also been preparing my defrosted white beans to make white bean pesto soup, and some dal, which is always a comforting, healthy, and nutritious meal after a heavy eating trip. We’re definitely going to get in our legumes and veggies this week!