Before you even ask, the hubby wasn't home when I made these. I tried talking to him about this idea, and he turned up his nose at it. This was a bit much for him. He'll do things without meat... but try to give him something instead of meat and it's an immediate shut down.

However, these are delicious. I'm pretty sure they could easily be made vegan, too. Just leave out the cheese and use an egg substitute.

These aren't that time consuming. But when you have a toddler who's afraid of the food processor... it gets a bit interesting.

Ingredients:

- 1.5 cans (15 oz each) Bush's Cannellini Beans

- 1 green (or red) pepper
- 1/2 onion (white, yellow, red-- your preference)
- 1/4 C chopped parsley
- 2 tsp oregano
- 1 egg
- 3/4 C breadcrumbs
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper

Your favorite Marinara
Parmesan Cheese, if you want it
Favorite Type of Pasta

Directions:

- Combine your beans, pepper, and onion in your food processor. Pulse until well combined, but not completely pureed. You want them to be somewhat course. Not like whole-beans-course, but bean-pepper-onion-pieces course.

- Move the mix to a bowl and add your spices, egg, and breadcrumbs. Stir until well combined, but don't kill the mix. You are making "meatballs" after all.

- Scoop the mix (about 2 tablespoons for each one) and round them out. Place them on a baking sheet and lightly coat with cooking spray (optional). *Note: As you can tell, I did not take the time to round mine out because Michael was about ready to kill me for taking so long preparing these. Don't let it fool you! I'm sure they are easily made "pretty" (aka to look more "meat-like").

- Bake until they are ever so slightly golden brown, about 18 to 20 minutes.

- While they are cooking, heat your marinara in a large saucepan. When they are finished cooking, add the "meatballs" to the pan and stir gently so they are coated with sauce. Cover and let it simmer for another five to ten minutes, stirring occasionally.*This recipe makes around 30 "meatballs"... I was just preparing a single serving for myself with the sauce. And I actually only ate half of what is shown-- they are VERY filling!*

- Serve with your favorite pasta and *optional* Parmesan cheese.

Michael actually really liked these! They did do a bit of a number on his belly, but nothing that made him cry like he was hurting... it was just noisy... if you know what I mean!


Check out the original recipe at: Cookin' Canuck.

OK, so I'm a little late on the end of daylight savings time post.

We've been adjusting to this time change. It used to be no big deal. In fact, I wasn't one of those people that worshiped the weekend "falling back" came around. Why? Because I was (and ultimately still am) a morning person. My internal clock went off around 6:30am, so when daylight savings time ended, I would go to 5:30am until my clock reset.

I didn't think I was going to have that problem this year, since we typically don't roll out of bed until 7:30am with Michael. 6:30am didn't seem like too big of a deal. I figured it would take a few days and Michael would readjust to his usual morning schedule.

Boy was I wrong.

For whatever reason, Sunday morning came and Michael woke up at 5:30am. Ummm... what? I didn't understand. He didn't go to bed until 9pm the night before. I'm assuming this had more to do with his teething than with daylight savings time, but it still just happened to fall on the day the time change came around.

Then Monday he woke up at 4:30am.

Then Tuesday he woke up at five.

Monday and Tuesday he also took his afternoon naps way later than usual, and wouldn't take them lying down. In fact, we had to turn on a show/movie and he would sit in my lap until he finally laid back on me and fell asleep. In which case I stayed where I was, enjoying the time to relax myself.

Finally by Wednesday we were to just before six, yesterday we were at just before seven, and again today we were at 6:45am. Not bad. I'll take it.

The first couple days were rough. We ended up changing our morning routine around completely by just getting up and watching a movie. Michael didn't seem to want to do much else, but he certainly didn't want to lay in bed. He wanted to be up.

One thing that came into play this week, though, was a true night time routine. This is something we had been struggling with FOREVER. I tried setting a routine to stick to, but it only seemed to make Michael want to stay up later. He wouldn't go to sleep until between nine and ten at night.

We are at eight, exactly. Except last night when he was super grumpy (thanks to not napping) and went to bed at seven. But, for the entire week he's starting rubbing his eyes and acting grumpy around 7:30pm, so we'd crawl into bed and it would take precisely 30 minutes before he was completely asleep. I'm loving it. I'm really hoping this development sticks around, because it means I get some time in the evenings to get things done/relax/spend time with the hubby (when he's not working, that is).

How did your family do with the end to daylight savings time? Have a happy weekend!