Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

How To Love On Someone From 900 Miles Away

25 November 2011 by Elizabeth in Food

I’ve been subjected to some sort of Divine joke.

No, really.

I’ve met the love of my life, my other half, my soul mate, the man who is all the gushy things that I didn’t really believe in.  And for this, I am grateful. Astonished might be a better word, or maybe freaked-the-f-out.

Grateful.

Part of this joke is that, despite my firm vow never to deal with long-distance relations lasting longer than 3 weeks, he is not here right now.  The total time we will be apart will be between 7 and 9 weeks; in the three weeks that have passed so far, I have made a total jealous, immature ass of myself twice.

However, as another part of this joke I get to learn how to love on him from more than 900 miles away while difficult things are going on in his life.  I am a pro at lavishing love on people from within a few dozen miles, but 900 is tough.  Every day I’m facing down the reminders of my failures during my last long-distance endeavors (my heart barely lasted 3 weeks, despite our history…but I made myself stick it out for almost 20 before I told him. Can I get partial credit for being 12 years younger than I am now?) and hoping that I am a wiser, stronger person who can really be dedicated to this amazing love that has found me.

So I am loving on him with nearly every possible form of electronic communications.  I love on him all day with text messages, I try to stifle my desperate (immature, jealous) longings for him in the e-mails that I send a few times a week, and at night I gladly suffer the staticky tin-can hell of his skype-iphone torture or, more joyfully, spend as many starry-eyed minutes as I can gazing at him through the glory of video chat.

But I’m always one to try to outdo myself, and it is the holiday season, after all (though, isn’t it always some holiday season in the states now?  I mean, really), so last week I blew my budget at the grocery store and got to cooking for him. This is the point at which I should have checked customs requirements for the place where he finds himself these days, but the heart cares not for such bureaucracies.

I had already composed the contents of the box while visiting my best friend a week or two prior:

  • margarita truffles (procedure below)
  • caramel corn with sea salt, almonds, and cacao nibs (a mod of Guas’s recipe as published here – sub in chopped almonds for the peanuts, add about 1/2 cup cacao nibs, salt the caramel with about 1 T of sea salt or more, to taste)
  • Abuelita-dusted marshmallows (this recipe, using the vanilla bean option, and adding to the coating 1/2 tablet of Abuelita that I powdered using a grater)
  • World Peace cookies (they did not make it into the cooking schedule, but that is good given the customs issues!)

First, I made some lime sea salt: spread a layer of good sea salt (just like Ina would say!) – I used Maldon – on parchment and sprinkle with the zest of 1 lime and the juice of 1/2 lime (about 3 teaspoons, tops).  I don’t know how much salt I started with, about enough to cover 2/3 of a 1/4 sheet pan, so maybe 1/3 cup?  I made too much, for reference, but this ish is good. Mix it all together with your fingertips and leave it to dry for at least an hour.  I put mine under the light breeze of a ceiling fan because I am impatient as f*ck.

Next, I made the ganache for the above truffles so that it would have time to set. About 2 cups of chopped 60% chocolate (I used El Rey but I found it a little grainy in the coating) met up with 1/3 cup+ of excellent tequila, a splash of grand marnier, and about 3/4 cup of hot cream; they were all combined and went into the refrigerator to get their act together. This made a pretty loose ganache, but I like a creamy truffle.

Then, like a wizard, I put the gelatin in the Kitchen Aid to set up, popped  10 18 – whoops – cups of corn on the stove, and cooked the marshmallow and caramel syrups simultaneously while forgetting that I had only one candy thermometer.

We made it through that minor setback with only a small caramel burn on my chin from taste-testing. You’ll see that look on the runways for fall ready-to-wear soon, I guarantee.

I whipped up the marshmallows with the syrup and the egg white addition, put the caramel corn in the oven to set, marveled at the fact that everything came out well on my first attempt at making both the caramel corn (though, God knows, I have eaten enough of the original version at Ceiba!) and the marshmallows, and rolled up my sleeves to roll the truffles in the dining room since, due to my poor planning, there was now a hot oven in the kitchen.  I may have had to set the ganache balls on a sheet pan on some ice packs to keep them from becoming creamy margarita puddles while I was rolling them.

One cup of tempered dark chocolate, some very messy hands and the obligatory chocolate handprints on every appliance, and two ruined white t-shirts later (whatwasIthinkingseriously, I have made truffles more than a dozen times and I always do that), the truffles were all coated and sprinkled with the gorgeous, slightly greenish, lime salt.

Proudly, I sampled and packaged everything the next morning before work. (The truffles, if made as described, are a touch too strong to be sampled before going to work, mmmmk?)  A crisp white candy box with cling wrap to protect the marshmallows, striped candy boxes and bright red cups in which the truffles nestled snugly, and bags for the caramel corn, all tied with white ribbon and labeled with silver cards. I wrote a lovey-dovey note card and bundled up a few fall leaves that I had brought him from the east coast, and all went off to FedEx.

We’ll put aside the fact that the package was delivered to his city Monday but still hasn’t been released from customs.

That is my first attempt at loving on him more from 900 miles away. I know he knows how I feel but, like…does he know, you know? (See, this is why I can’t do long-distance relationships: my brain never. stops. asking. questions.) The next attempt will be far less edible and much more inclined to be delivered on the first try, without making the poor man fill out a sheaf of paperwork.

(Sorry about that part, babe, I love you.)

Smoothies: 5 Pro Tips

19 June 2011 by Elizabeth in Food

The kale smoothie seems to have had its moment (don’t get me wrong, I’m still guzzling that shiz), and now that it’s summer it seems that there are lots of questions about smoothies.

That, my friends, is just the kind of low-hanging (frozen) fruit that could bring me back to this blog! Especially when the other options include cleaning up after my cat’s father’s day “gift” and washing two loads of dishes!

Ze Smoothie Tips (pronounced TEEPS)

1. It ain’t no thang if you don’t have a blender powerful enough to blend an iphone. I bought my $25 Black & Decker at the grocery store.  It won my heart because it has a glass jar – it won’t stain the next time I make tomato sauce or carrot soup, and it won’t warp in the dishwasher.

2. You could freeze your fruit (or use frozen fruit), and if you do, you should wash, pare, and chop it before you freeze it (but plan to use it soon – this is the trade-off of chopping things to usable sizes before freezing them).  I don’t, because I…

3. Add ice cubes!  I was convinced I couldn’t, because I didn’t have the blender featured in tip #1.  Good ol’ B&D chomps ‘em like a pro, creating a thick, frosty concoction of deliciousness.

4. Add powdery ingredients (protein, supplements, cocoa powder, whatever) while the blender is running, AFTER all of the other ingredients are pretty smooth.  I take the little insert out of my blender lid and pour protein powder in through the inconvenient rectangular hole – works like a champ.  This will keep you from having clumpy, weird smoothies!

(Don’t take your blender lid itself off while blending.  (Duh.))

5. Don’t put the kitchen sink in there with your ice cubes and protein powder – the more ingredients you add, the more likely you are to end up with a muddy-looking and -tasting drink.

My basic smoothie formula (serves 1):

  • 3/4 cup liquid (water, iced green or herbal tea, iced coffee, milk from cows, almonds, or coconuts, juice)
  • 1/3 cup chopped mix-ins (fresh herbs, berries, pineapple, kiwi, mango, peaches and other stone fruit, banana, raw or steamed veggies – fruits and vegetables, get the idea?)
  • 3 ice cubes

Optional: add 1/4 cup cottage cheese (yes, really) to the mix, or a scoop of protein powder (see step 4)

For example(s):

  • Iced green tea, pineapple and strawberries, cottage cheese, ice
  • Iced coffee, banana, vanilla protein powder, ice
  • Coconut milk, pineapple, mango, and kiwi, ice
  • Red zinger iced tea with a splash of limeade, mango, blueberries and strawberries, ice
  • Iced green tea, steamed sweet potato, pineapple, cottage cheese, ice
  • Water, pineapple, 1/2 jalapeno, cucumber, ice
  • Iced green tea, pineapple, peaches, basil, ice

I’ve become partial to the water-based smoothies this summer – they taste cleaner and seem more refreshing than the heavy yogurt- and nut butter-based smoothies.  (I can’t get into adding almond butter to my smoothies, try as I might…it leaves an oily film on the top that grosses me out.)  I’ve also blended up several of these combinations and frozen them as homemade popsicles.  You could even get fancy and layer them with yogurt to make a light parfait.

I will leave you there, before I tell the story of the rough afternoon last week during which my boyfriend confused “frappé” and “parfait” was SURE HE WAS RIGHT (heh) that the layered thing at Starbucks was NOT A PARFAIT.  No need to get testy about these things, you know?  We’ve got plenty of first world problems to worry about.

(Not) Buying a Juicer

17 March 2011 by Elizabeth in Finance, Food

The Whole Foods near me redid their juice bar long about a year ago, and I have restrained myself from pouring my paycheck into their coffers…until this week.

See, they have this juice that has red peppers and cilantro and jalapeno with cucumber and celery, and I am in love.

(There would be a picture of a green juice here if I were less selfish with my juice guzzling.)

Practical me says, “$4.75 can’ t possibly be a reasonable price for a juice. I should buy a juicer and save money!”

But practical me watched as the juicer swallowed up two cucumbers, two stalks of celery, a whole red pepper, half a jalapeno, and handfuls of cilantro.

And practical me did what practical me does and ran the numbers.

The Numbers

(a tiny, blog-friendly cost benefit analysis)



2 cucumbers 2


2 stalks celery 0.25


.5 jalapeno 0.05


1 red pepper 1


parsley 0.5


cilantro 0.5
Pre-Made Juice 4.75 Ingredients for one homemade juice 4.3

The Whole Foods juice costs a whopping 0.45 more than my homemade juice would. (Must be nice to buy organic produce without the huge markup – I am sure their costs are way lower than my retail costs, but alas I am not a grocery store.)

The juicer costs $220.  I could definitely buy a cheaper juicer, but I want a masticating juicer.   I have owned several varieties of cheaper juicers, including the popular:

  • Leaky McLeakerson
  • Cleaning this juicer basket proves that Satan exists
  • Seriously, an apple only produces a teaspoon of juice?
  • Why don’t you come over here and crank the wheatgrass through for an hour??

So anyhow, any future juicers will be of the nutrition-preserving, thoroughly-extracting, non-wall-staining, masticating variety.

After one more calculation (cost of the juicer ÷ the difference in cost-per-juice, for those playing along at home), I saw that it would take me 488.89 juices until the difference in cost-per-juice paid for the price of the juicer.  After 489 juices, my juicer would be “paid for” and I’d finally be seeing the cost savings from having purchased my own juicer!

In other words, if I were to juice 3 times a week without fail, I would break even in 3.13 years.  If the juicer lasts that long.

Let alone my juice motivation.

The Non-Numbers

Pros of the juice bar:

  • I don’t have to wash any produce (or a juicer
  • The industrial juicer is way more powerful than the $220 home model I’ve scoped out
  • I can change my mind about my juice and not have to go buy ingredients

And the cons:

  • I don’t have total control over what goes in my juice
  • It’s not actually in my house (though it is within a 2 minute drive or a 10 minute walk)

The Final-ish Outcome

There is no way I will juice three times a week for the next 3 years.  I’d like to think that will happen, but I look back at the past few months of working late late late when I haven’t even been making time for 20 minute workouts and know that life will still get in the way for me for a long while.

When this project that has been keeping me chained to my desk is done (in two weeks, PRAISE BE) there will be another project, and in a few months there will be the whirlwind of fall and winter holidays (not to mention a dearth of fresh, local produce – those cucumbers will rocket up in price, for example).

Bottom line: there’s no significant cost savings, and the opportunity cost of taking so much freaking time to juice, wash a juicer, etc. might cost me my job, because it’s hard enough to be on time when I’ve been up working past the first round of House Hunters International reruns.  No juicer for me unless I move away from convenient juice bar access!

But I want more cost benefit analyses!

I might not think a $220 juicer is a good value, but I might soon drop $$$ on a personal trainer for the next few months.

I’m not crazy; $1200 of personal training is just more worth it than the $220 juicer because….

There are certain fitness goals that I have been trying to achieve, with varying degrees of effort and consistency, for the past 10 years.  10 years.  More than 1/3 of my life.

Clearly, I am not going to get there – and stay there – on my own.  I have accepted that, superhuman as I am, I have a finite amount of discipline.  I can’t be:

  • awesome at work with extended hours AND
  • awesome at eating superhealthy foods even when 2.5 meals have to be packed for work AND
  • awesome at keeping on top of financial goals AND
  • awesome at being a girlfriend and friend (maybe semi-awesome at being a friend, sorry y’all) AND
  • awesome at keeping the house clean AND
  • still have the motivation and energy to get myself into the gym the way I need to right now.

I know it will be up to me to maintain any results I achieve with a trainer, but I also know that once I’m over the hump with some of the goals that I have it will be nearly impossible to backslide since my previous health issues are done and gone.

So, if I meet with the trainer weekly for a $75 session for 4 months, I’ll be paying $1200 for:

  • His expertise – I have done my research and tried on my own, but I’m just not getting there, and I don’t know what to correct
  • His motivation – I am much more likely to burn myself out at this point (I’m really good at that!)
  • Accountability – I am so low on discipline that, in a very uncharacteristic scenario, I have only made it to one of my “SERIOUSLY I am working out every day this week” workouts…out of the four I should have completed so far.  25% success.

The actual CBA here is a bit trickier than the one for the juicer; I’m not a business, and results like my happiness are difficult to quantify in the same way that the juice prices can be delineated. Get ready for crazy overanalysis….

Quantifications of my happiness:

  • Happier = less stress, which means improved health, which means lower healthcare costs (hard to say by how much since it’s an assumption and I’m still young…)
  • Happier = less stress and more confidence, which means not doing things like impulse-buying dresses, shoes, etc. to cheer myself up (let’s put that down at about $1,000 per year, and we’ll pretend like that’s not grossly below the actual number)
  • Happier = less stress, which means that my relationships will be stronger (and that we won’t end up spending $30 over our takeout budget every week because who would want to cook for you anyway?!, a yearly savings of $1562)
  • Happier = more confidence, which means that new doors might be open to me (potential future career moves, friendships that lead to more happiness, etc.)
  • Happier = more confidence, which means living my best, most authentic life

Now, it’s not like I’m a teeth-gnashing, miserable stressball; my life is pretty great as far as I’m concerned.  I am, however, focusing on improving my happiness and confidence because are the weakest, highest-risk areas of my life right now, they are completely my responsibility, and they are what will shape so much of my future.

Also, I doubt that I’m going to find a magic bullet for my specific fitness/health goals that I haven’t been able to reach for 10 years on my own.

Zo, ze numbers:

For one year…



Retail Therapy
1000


Take-Out overage
1562


Missed Opportunities ???
Personal Training (4 months)
1200 Total Cost
2562

And for 10 years?  I am not going to write the gigantic numbers down, but…you get the idea. I could capture more of the intangibles with quality scores, but the basic finance is compelling on its own.

It’s not foolproof, but with a potential savings of 1362 this year and the full 2500 in upcoming years, it’s a no-brainer financially.  Personally, it’s been a no-brainer for a long time, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I can’t be perfect at everything all the time.  (Only most things most of the time.) (Kidding.)

So, that’s my fun with cost benefit analyses for the day. Maybe I’ll post the one that explains why I don’t own a car next!

Angry Baking

18 January 2011 by Elizabeth in Food

Sometimes, one might find oneself drinking rum out of a measuring cup…

…even if one has used that measuring cup to measure applesauce before the rum.

And one might make some overly salty buttercream frosting with cocoa that requires a lot of tasting directly from the bowl even though it doesn’t taste particularly good, under the guise of “checking to see if it’s good.”  It’s not good.

If you add enough rum, it gets better.

And these ugly, angry, chocolate-rum muffin-cakes that one stirred together with only ratios, sans recipes, might be in the oven.  They might never be fully baked, but it will be okay because they are vegan and therefore won’t kill you as easily.  Plus, they contain so much rum that pretty much nothing bad could happen to you as a result of consuming one.  These are the ugly cakes you want when you are shipwrecked.

This is angry baking.  Angry nights when you don’t want to use your fancy expensive camera and your art school degree to photograph your ugly, angry snack food that you don’t even want to EAT now that you’ve made it.  Nights when you are trying not to be nice and tell someone what you think of them and their liar-liar-liarness and their endless mooching.  Nights when you would like to call your family, not to check in but to tell them that THEY ARE RUINING THEIR LIVES and most of all you are glad you escaped their endless maze of mistakes.

Baking is particularly well-suited to angry cooking.  Baked goods don’t fight back by sputtering up in your face like blurping polenta or sauces and soups.  They’re pretty tough to burn, even tougher to ruin – the overbaked can find a home in a bread pudding or atop ice cream, the underbaked…well, put them back in and finish baking them, and the strangely flavored can be fixed with an endless array of toppings.  You can bake by stirring a bunch of things in a bowl until they’re of a batter-ish consistency and putting them in a (buttered and probably floured, for God’s sake) pan, then putting the pan in a 350º oven until the proverbial inserted toothpick comes out clean, and you will end up with SOMETHING.

Just watch.  I might make a lemon anise cream and fill these ugly cakes with it BEFORE I top them with the unintentionally salty frosting.

Oh, I might.

And while you are angrily stirring, you might forget some of the annoyances of the day – the endless parade of grammatical errors inflicted upon your poor ears and eyes, the lying and swindling and disappointments (OH, THE DISAPPOINTMENTS), the dashed-ish dreams and the doors that seem to be closing, closing, closing.

You might even consider forgiving someone for their abhorrent acts.  But then you will remove the angry muffin-cakes from the oven…

…and even a smear of rummy frosting won’t fix the horror that is this ugly, tiny, most, chocolatey, chia-studded muffin-cake.

And so you will renew your grudges all over again, in a heap of selfish self-pity.  While pitying, you may contemplate the sorrows of those who truly have a worse lot in life than you do – the hungry, the sick, the poor, the disadvantaged, the third world children in commercials who have neither water to drink nor food to eat; you may then dismiss their concerns as entirely IRRELEVANT to the pity at hand, because PLENTY of people feel sorry for those people and want to help them but no one, NO ONE feels sorry for you.

And you may or may not go order yourself something from 1 800 flowers.com because you are just that selfish tonight, and because the flowers are better for you than the rum you may or may not have been guzzling.  With milk and Kahlua.  Don’t judge.

Or, if you must judge, take pity on me and my ugly, angry cakes.

(PS – Angry baking may not really help anything, but sometimes even a little bit of catharsis goes a long way.  As does a 4 mile run on the treadmill, even if you weren’t supposed to run two days back to back. Plus, if you make healthy goo like these mufin-cakes – they are mostly chia, flax, raw cacao powder, and …rum – you won’t worry about scarfing a few while blogging.)

Feeling Like Blogging

11 July 2010 by Elizabeth in Food

Well.

It has certainly been a while.  I have been busy committing the most egregious blogger sin: writing posts, then leaving them in a draft state while I “think things over”.

As if I needed to edit that recipe just one more time.

F.

So.  I’m just doing this, because I’d like to.  And there are things going on in my personal life that make this little sphere of food and fitness so very appealing.  Is it unhealthy if you use healthiness as an escape?

Don’t tell me yes.  It’s only one blog post.

I had people in town this weekend.  Family-type people.  So I made snacks:

apps

  • Watermelon chunks, wrapped in jamaican sorrel and topped with goat cheese and mint chiffonade.
  • Caprese skewers with fresh cherry tomatoes, ciliegine mozzarella, basil from my balcony garden, and a tiny snippet of crispy, salty tempeh bacon.  (You could also use raw eggplant bacon.)
  • Hot peppers stuffed with neufchatel and mozzarella cheese, garlic, and herbs from my balcony.
  • Figs, broiled with a touch of sugar and a sprinkle of truffle salt.

I didn’t make the olives or the almonds, sorry.

I also made dessert, but my mother thought it looked like frosted corks (rather than mini gluten-free vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting and fresh berries), so no photo of those. Yet.

And I made the heck out of these scones, which are adapted from a Giada recipe.  True love, y’all.

scones

Gluten-free Berry Rosemary Scones

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups gluten-free flour, plus more for dusting (I used 1 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup ground flax, 1/4 cup chia seeds, 1/4 cup buckwheat flour, and 1/4 cup garbanzo flour)
  • 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (I used half butter, half coconut oil)
  • 1 cup cold almond milk
  • 1/3 cup strawberry jam (**see step 2 below for what I do, which requires about 3/4 cup of fresh berries and 1 T of honey)

Procedure:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  2. If you’re being fancy (and I am ALWAYS being fancy), chop the berries and add them to the honey.  Mash with a fork until jam-like.
  3. Mix the flour, xanthan gum, sugar, and salt.  Cut in the butter (and/or oil – just work it in with your fingers) and mix until it resembles wet sand.
  4. Slowly pour in the almond milk until you can gather the dough into a neat ball.  Depending on the humidity and your flours, you might not use quite all of it.
  5. On a lightly floured surface, pat the dough down until it is about 1/2″ thick.  Cut using a cutter (3-4 inches) or a sharp knife; I used a knife for these triangles, but followed Giada’s original recommendation the first time to use a heart-shaped cutter.  Transfer scones to a parchment- or silpat-lined baking sheet.
  6. Using a wet finger, make a dent in the center of each scone.  Fill with a heaping 1/2 teaspoon of jam.
  7. Bake about 20 minutes or until just golden.

They’re delicious.  The leftover berry topping is fab on yogurt.

Have I been trying to cook myself out of this funk?  A little bit.  The going has been a little rough, but I’ve learned a lot about myself.  And I have miniature blueberry pies in the oven.  More on those next time; I have to go see what 387 items iTunes is downloading.  (????)

(I am perhaps a wee bit behind on everything.  Except work.  Never work.  I can’t keep working until 8 pm.  Project is almost done.)

Oh, and those corks…corkcakes…cupcakes…I’ll post them anyhow.  I made the little skewer decorations as well, thanks to some tips from the Martha.

corks

Gym Oglers

04 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food

What do you do about gym oglers??  I usually take the high road and ignore them, but this dude’s laser eyes followed me on every.single.squat (180 of them, to be precise) yesterday!  I thought that moving to a farther corner would solve things, but he was more persistent than I gave him credit for :) It didn’t help that he looked like Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation, either:

(Source)

I know y’all have a good solution for this :)

Moving right along, yesterday’s breakfast ended up being quite the use it up winner!  I mixed up the following:

use-it-up

  • Canned pumpkin
  • Goji berry trail mix
  • Cereal and granola odds and ends
  • Marmalade
  • and flax and chia (not on the use it up list :) )

Chopping the trail mix…

chopping-trailmix

…the end result:

use-it-bars

Pumpkin bars!  Sweet, nutty, and delicious, with a little crunch.  For those of you playing along at home, I had to bake this at 375 for about 30 minutes before it would solidify…originally I had thought this would turn into pancakes, but the cereal never really soaked up the moisture like I thought it would.

WB also took care of this little guy:

lone-cookie

(A sugar cookie from last June?)

Off to work…hard to get started after another long weekend, but I have a presentation to make at 10.

So far, so good 2010!

03 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food, Running

WB and I went for a mega-walk yesterday: 5.5 miles!  It included a stop at Starbucks, where I tried my first-ever green tea latte.  Not bad!  It was really bright-green…my phone was dead, so no photo :(

Our walk took us past one of my favorite stores, where I saw that this silk dressing gown I’d been wanting for a whole year was on sale.  I was too gross to go buy it on our walk, but I sped over after a shower and now it’s all mine!

gown

Dinner was a new year’s day rerun with some canned organic cranberry sauce FROM 2008 (use it up!):

jan2dinner

(Don’t worry, it was still in date.  We’re thrifty, not crazy.)

Today’s workout started with a 55 second plank.  Yep, it beat me – I gave out just 5 seconds before the timer went off.  The biggest surprise was that WB joined me – and held out for the full 60 seconds!  Humbled, I did a few sets of the abs that we do in my yoga class, then headed down to the gym for a “hill run” on the treadmill.  I’ve never tried to run hills on the treadmill before, and I think my plans were…ambitious.  I ended up doing 2 miles that included:

  • 2 short hills (5 min each)
  • 1 long hill (very steep…I ended up walking most of it)
  • 2 x 400 at 10:30 pace
  • a few miscellaneous minutes of running at 11:00 pace
  • one scary moment when the treadmill said my heart rate was only 99

I suppose I’ll just call it a fartlek day.

The rest of today holds:

  • Breakfast – it’s almost noon!
  • Cleaning
  • Cooking for the week (using up loooots of things for lunches!)
  • More quality time with the wii?
  • Coffee!!!!

An additional goal

02 January 2010 by Elizabeth in Food, Running

There’s another goal hovering over us that doesn’t quite rate “resolution” status: clean out the goshdarn pantry.

We’re not packrats in the slightest (I’m very anti-”stuff”), but we accumulate bits and pieces and odds and ends in our pantry and in the fridge (especially in the door), usually things that were purchased for a specific dish or gifts we’ve received that didn’t find their way into our regular rotation. I hate the space that it takes up, but I also hate that it keeps new, fun things from coming into the house.  So, in January (and however long it takes after that), we will be putting some strict limits on what we can buy at the grocery store and farmer’s market, and incorporating at least one “get this out of here” item into every meal.

Some of the highlights of the ingredients to be used:

  • 8 (?) jars of jam/preserves
  • Several kinds of seaweed
  • Goji berries (nothing against them, but they’ve been sitting here for too long because I can’t see them in the pantry when it’s so full)
  • Three kinds of hot chocolate mix
  • More than 100 tea bags
  • 6 kinds of cereal/granola

Nothing too gross or unusual, but lots of things that have gone onto the “do not eat” list for various reasons.  That’s the real challenge ahead of me – incorporating these things into healthy meals and snacks that we’ll actually enjoy!

To start off, we made eggs and homemade refried beans on tortilla chips for breakfast (the chips were the “use it up” food):

tortilla-eggs

Mine felt a little bit naked without salsa or hot sauce, but we can’t buy any because there’s no room in the fridge door.

I also put some orange marmalade (use it up!) in my coffee…no photo, because you really couldn’t see anything special about it :)   She couldn’t see anything special about any of it:

cat-special

After all that settled, it was off to the gym for strength (legs day) and 2.8 miles on the treadmill:

  • Warm up (.05)
  • 11:45 page (1)
  • 2 x 400m at 10:00 pace with 1.5 min rest breaks in-between (.8)
  • 2 x 400m at 11:00 pace with 1.5 min rest breaks in-between (.8)
  • Cool down (.15)

I’m trying to use my “off season” running to increase my slowest pace to 11 min/mile..doesn’t seem too far-fetched, but I only have about 6 weeks left if I’m doing the race in May that’s caught my eye.  I also read an article recently that recommended resting (or cooling down) until your heart rate was about 120, so I’m using that a guide to my rest breaks and cool down.

New Year’s Day

TOAST-nye

We mostly lounged around and played Wii games.  We ate the obligatory lucky black-eyed peas and cabbage:

nyd-dinner

(Maple-seasoned peas, cabbage braised in tomato juice, curried pumpkin soup…surprisingly, all vegan)

We also went for a “short walk”, which ended up being 5 miles.  We found one of these guys wandering in our neighborhood without a collar:

westie

He definitely didn’t seem like the outdoorsy type, so we followed him around, instructing him to go home, until it was dark and getting cold.  He was worn out, so I had to take the lace out of my shoe and make a leash for him.  Luckily, one of his neighbors saw us walking him and showed us where he lives…at least, it was his best guess :)   The doggie went right up to the door to sniff the food dish and lie down, so we figured if he was that comfortable it was a familiar house.  (We even waited another 15 minutes for his owners to get home, but no luck.)  I know I would want someone else to do the same if my cat-baby ever got loose, so I didn’t mind the extra 1.5 miles it took us to follow the dog and make our way home from his house.

Lunchtime…anyone have any healthy recipes that use a jar or two of jelly? :)

Well, hello there! It’s resolution time!

31 December 2009 by Elizabeth in Food, Ideas, Things I Love, Things I have Learned

In a syndrome all too common in the blog world, real life intervened and put this blog on pause.  I’m thankful that all the schedule disruptions were positive :)

Before I begin catching up on the last several weeks, I wanted to jump in with the present moment: new year’s eve!  It’s one of my favorite holidays, in no small part because I loooove to set goals and take the time to reflect on the directions I’m taking my life (and sometimes the directions my life is taking me!).

I learned several things about setting goals this year.  The first: one thing at a time!  (At least for big things.)  I got a lot accomplished this year that had been hanging around on my list for far too long (some of it more than two years) because I focused on one thing at a time.

Next up: have a clear vision of the future.  Not the whole future (no crystal ball in my apartment), but some sort of vision that’s at least a few hundred yards down the road.  The clearer this vision, the more memorable and motivating it is!

Finally: keep track.  Keeping track of workouts, food, and money was a habit I tried to form for several years (in keeping with my fitness and financial goals), but this was the year it finally stuck.  I don’t have a real secret for what changed, but I think the constant motivation of the blog community played no small role!

For 2009, I had one “resolution”: to live richly.  2008 was spent trying to get my feet under me and figure out my job, my relationship, and my family.  That flailing definitely laid the groundwork for my 2009 successes, but I believe I owe more to the calm created by my solo resolution.  Having just “one goal” for the year made it easy when I got stuck – whether I couldn’t make up my mind about what to eat, how to spend my money, what to do next, or what attitude to have, I could just do a simple test: does this help me live richly?

It definitely helps that it was an emotional goal, too, not a rational one…I’ve spent many years failing with rational goals, so I’m finally ready to own up to the fact that satisfaction, for me, is rarely a mental thing.  Once I accepted that, my quality of life increased almost instantly – which isn’t to say it’s been a hedonistic year.  Though I bought myself a pair of Louboutins (oh, the things you missed over the past month or so), I also doubled my net worth, got a much better job, and made good on a lot of promises to my family and around the house.  I just enjoyed it all the more because I was willing to make a life that worked for me, rather than the life I felt would logically be best.

goalsSo, for 2009, I lived richly.  I made myself a list of sub-resolutions that fell under that umbrella: use my journal/planner, prioritize, live in good health, live economically, drink more wine and eat more salad and soup, travel, keep a tidy space, enjoy everything, and slow down. And I did all of those, though the journal/planner suffered some neglect in November.  I also ran my first half marathon, ran several other races, took two glorious vacations with Wonderful Boyfriend, began eating a high raw diet, became a lot nicer to my co-workers, and ditched a lot of things that were weighing down my life (literally and spiritually).  The hardest part was definitely slowing down while still living in the moment, but it’s been well worth it.  (My need for speed comes from childhood, when I wasn’t expected to live very long so I got a jump start on lots of things…that’s a long story for another day, but hey, 28 years and I’m still here!  Suckas!) (And yeah, that’s a whole folder I keep for goals in the picture.  Don’t be jealous.)

For 2010, I’m keeping this resolution.  I plan to live richly for the rest of my life, in fact.  However, my official resolution for 2010 is even bigger than just living richly!  It is:

Nope, I can’t tell you now – for me, goals are like wishes; if you let them out of the bag too soon, there’s no way they’ll come true.  I won’t leave you completely hanging, though, because I have some subgoals that are far more concrete and shatterproof.  In 2010 I hope to:

  • Run a 5k in less than 25 minutes
  • Run a half marathon in less than 2:20
  • Do a pull-up
  • Travel to two places I’ve never been
  • Read a new book each month (I get stuck in ruts and reread my old favorites over and over)
  • Upgrade the things in my wardrobe that should no longer leave the house on my body…and get rid of them
  • Fit a sample size for an upcoming event (it’s not certain, but I have some theories :) Not jinxing this one!)
  • Save 50% of what I earn

I’ll be checking in on these goals as the year goes on – I do daily and quarterly reviews on my own, so I might as well share those in the days ahead.

I’ve been so inspired by the health/fitness/green monster blogging community this year – thank you all for everything you give every day!  (I know who my readers are ;) ) (Don’t I?) (And thanks for hanging in during my unexplained absence.  Patience is a virtue.)

And now, back to this….

nye-spread

champagne-nye

nye-cat

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Uuuugh

19 November 2009 by Elizabeth in Fitness, Food

Not feeling so hot!  At first I thought I was gluten-ed somehow on Saturday, but if that’s the case I was sicker than I’ve been from that in a long, long time.  In fact, I was sick so long (and so very, very sick) that I am wondering if there was something amiss with the tasty raw treats from the farmers’ market.  The gluten-ed symptoms (likely caused by the cheater cheater salsa that had malted barley in the flavoring) wore off after a day or so, and I was left with…well, it wasn’t good.  I didn’t eat at all yesterday, and I missed three runs and a yoga class.  In fact, I had to leave work at lunch and come home to sleep.

On the bright(er) side:

toasts

This is what I will be eating today.  Udi’s whole grain bread, toasted, with a little bit of earth balance.

Without getting into gross details, I have to say that I don’t know how I used to live with gluten!  Before I knew I was allergic, I had zero energy.  When I was 25, I had to take a nap at lunch in order to make it through a day at my full-time office job, and I would still sleep 10-11 hours every night.  I’ve always needed to own pants in a wide range of sizes, because when I get “hit” my stomach balloons up 3 or 4 sizes in a matter of hours.  I’ve really been enjoying not feeling like this!

I did get in a three mile walk last night, though part of it was a trip to the grocery store for some stomach meds.  I never take things like that, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?  (Or shallow times…my dress for next weekend’s events arrives today and I can’t wait to try it on…but my stomach needs to cooperate!)  And I did some weights this morning – more on that later.

I am off to the office, toast in hand.