I'm sore

My arms are so sore from lifting yesterday that these letters I'm addressing for work are barely legible. I ran 3.5 miles in 34 minutes yesterday, and my knee felt fine until I hopped on the spin bike. My right knee had a sharp pain on the left side in about the middle of my knee cap. Here:

(This is the transition area of the 3rd Annual Tri It Out Triathlon. I got a flat shortly after this picture)

This is not where it usually hurts. It usually hurts here:

This is what you look like when you go to Hawaii in April when you live in Bellingham. Wear sunscreen. Or you will end up looking like this:

I was miserable. Then you end up looking like this:

If you look closely, you can see my back peeling off.

Well, that was kind of a tangent. Anyway, my knee hurts in a new place. I need to get back on the icing/stretching bandwagon, but I've been focusing on my back, and leg stretching has kind of been ignored.

I threw together dinner last night, and it came out so delicious I thought that I'd share the recipe.

Curry Veggies with Garlic Naan

Ingredients:

• Garlic Naan from Trader Joe's (or you could make your own)
• 1/2 cup non-fat yogurt (I like Fage, but it's kind of pricey)
• 1 tsp curry powder (use more or less depending on preference)
• Garlic powder to taste
• 1 tbsp ginger paste
• 1 cup frozen broccoli
• 1/2 cup frozen artichokes

1. Steam or saute veggies (I used broccoli and artichokes because those were in the front of my freezer) to the point that you like them cooked.
2. Mix yogurt, curry powder, ginger, and garlic in a bowl large enough to hold all of your veggies. Taste it, and adjust spices to taste.
3. Cook frozen Naan bread. I actually just jam it into my toaster and flip halfway through. Not sure if that is in the directions.
4. When your veggies are done, drain and add to the yogurt mixture and stir so the veggies are evenly coated. I put the bowl in the microwave for about 30 seconds, just to make sure it's heated evenly.
5. Enjoy!

I don't have any pictures of this delicious concoction, so here is a picture of some dude's high fashion jeans that we spotted in the Beaver.

This will change your life.

I know I'm a little late to the game with this one, but now that I have a blender, I am obsessed with Frozen Banana "Ice Cream".

I love it. I want to eat it constantly. I sit at work, and wish I had a blender here. Here's my favorite way to do it"

1 frozen banana (I peel and cut my banana into 1 inch chunks before I freeze it)

1/4 c almond milk

1 tsp agave nectar

4 or 5 frozen mango chunks

Put all ingredients into blender, and blend until ice cream consistency. Enjoy!

P.S. Once Jodi Christ Superstar thought that Gwen Stefani was spelling "bananas" wrong in this song. She was worried about children who would grow up not knowing how to spell "bananas". Then Fergie came along, and a whole generation of children don't know how to spell "tasty".

I want to eat these forever

I was thinking the other day about how much I miss PCC in Seattle. Especially their bulk section and deli.

My two favorite things in the bulk section at PCC are wasabi peas

and curried cashews

Picture from here.

My friends Katie, Carin, Nira and I had planned a girls' evening for last night, and I was in charge of bringing tomato soup. In order to procure the best soup possible, I decided to forgo my usual trip to the Gross Out and head to the more upscale Raley's.

I even went to the good Raley's at the Y.(Sidenote: if you are ever in Tahoe and are confused because people are referring to the "Y", don't worry. You're not crazy the "Y" is not actually a Y, and is, in fact, just a normal "T" intersection.) This Raley's has a pretty good bulk section, and, lo and behold, they even had Curried Cashews!

I was so excited...then I noticed that the Curried Cashews were $11.99 a pound, while plain cashews were $5.99 a pound. Hmmm...

I bought the plain cashews, and searched for a recipe. I couldn't find one that I thought sounded exactly right, so I combined several, and here's what I came up with:

Roasted Curry Cashews:

2 cups cashews (I used plain ones, but if you buy roasted & salted ones, just skip Step 1)

2-3 tbsp curry powder, depending how strong you want them

3ish tbsp olive oil

1.5 tsp sea salt

dash cayenne pepper

1. Heat oven to 350. Roast cashew pieces in a tray for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Watch carefully because they can burn.

2. While cashews are roasting, mix olive oil, curry powder, salt, and cayenne pepper. I heated the mixture in the microwave for about 90 seconds, but you could also do this in a pot on the stove. This makes the mixture a little easier to pour.

3. Take the roasted cashews out of the oven, pour the curry mixture over the cashews, and mix so the nuts are pretty evenly coated. I did this in the pan I was using for roasting, because it had sides, but if you're using a cookie sheet, you might want to do this in a bowl so the nuts don't escape. Spread the cashews around so they're in a pretty thin layer.

4. Return the cashews to the 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. The cashews should look brown and kind of shiny when they're done.

Let cool to the point that you can eat them without burning your mouth and enjoy!

I'm excited to try this recipe with other spices, like cracked pepper or rosemary or maybe even cinnamon and sugar.

Is it spring where you are yet? I though spring was maybe beginning to arrive, but we got about 6 inches of snow in the last 10 hours. This is what it looks like in my neighborhood right now:

Sometimes your body wants to run...

And sometimes your body wants to eat soup, drink beer, and watch Buffy on Netflix.

Tonight was option #2

Beer: Boulder Brewing Company, Flashback India-Style Brown Ale (two thumbs up, and only $14 for a 12 pack at the Gross Out).

Buffy: Season 1 (I'm watching from the beginning)

Soup: Lentil Curry Spinach Potato Onion Garlic (I need catchier names for my soups)

Ingredients:

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion

1 tbsp minced garlic

1.5 cups potatoes chopped into 1 inch cubes

1.5 cups lentils

1.5 tbsp curry powder

7 cups water

1 tsp sea salt

3-4 cups spinach chopped

1. Drink some beer (or wine or coffee or hot chocolate or other delicious beverage0.

2. Heat up olive oil and saute garlic and onion on medium until "golden" (or yellow, which is less appetizing) into big pot with a lid.

3. Meanwhile cook potatoes (I used 3 small russets) for about 2.5 minutes in the microwave. Chop into 1 inch chunks and toss into pot.

4. Cook the veggies for another 5 minutes or so.

5. Add the water (or broth, if you wish, and I imagine you could use dairy if you wanted a creamier soup) and lentils and heat to a boil.

6. Reduce to simmer and add curry powder and salt.

7. Let simmer until lentils are thoroughly cooked. (35 ish minutes)

8. Don't forget to continue to drink your beverage of choice.

9. When lentils are cooked through, taste, and add more seasoning to taste.

10. Add spinach. Let simmer for another 10 minutes or so.

11. Enjoy! Maybe with another beverage.

Now, imagine that I am a responsible blogger and I took pictures of this process and the delicious result.

Snowstorm benefits

1. I get to work from home. This means I cracked a work from home lunch beer at exactly 12:01.

2. I get to make my Save Servce! calls from home. Don't cancel AmeriCorps!

3. Watching the pup porpoise through snow drifts bigger than she is.

4. Since I flaked on going grocery shopping before it hit, I am being creative with my cooking. I made a version of this recipe, from Melissa Nibbles, except I used rice instead of pasta and my frozen vegetable mix is 90% carrots because I had already picked out all of the broccoli and cauliflower and added some garbanzo beans. It was delicious, filling, and I have leftovers. Those are my three main requirements for cooking.

5. When the snow finally stops, snowboarding will be super fun!

Awesome day! And a recipe.

I love that the sun is just starting to set when I get off work now! It makes me so happy. The sun setting behind the mountains has been so gorgeous the last couple of days. It makes me sad that I lost my camera charger and have been unable to take any pictures. Imagine something like this.

Then when I came home, there was a mysterious package on my porch! The box had a perishable sticker and a return address label of a toffee company, so I was pretty excited to open it. I tore into it as quickly as I could manage, and I was stoked to see that Dan's parents had sent me some of Brandini Toffee. We'd eaten a ton of it when I was in Palm Springs over Thanksgiving, and it's super good. The best part is the business was started by two best friends in high school to raise money for a trip to Italy, and now their younger sisters run the business while they're in college. They also use alternative energy to run their company!

It was an all-round good food day in my life. We had a welcome potluck for our new intern, and there was so much delicious, delicious food. There was curry soup, homemade potato salad, lasagna, spinach salad, hummus, cookies, brownies, cupcakes...the list goes on and on.

I had originally considered making polenta, but, since I have never made it before, I decided to go with something I make all the time: brussel sprouts. I was a little worried about how they'd go over, because some people seem to really hate brussel sprouts. But I thought if that happens, more for me! However, everyone seemed to like them. In fact, someone told me that I should always bring them to all potlucks, forever, no matter what the potluck theme is . Success!

I thought I'd share the recipe, if anyone was interested.

Ingredients:

Brussel sprouts

Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Pepper

For the potluck, I used a whole bag of brussel sprouts, but if I'm cooking for myself, I use 6 - 10 depending on size/how hungry I am.

1. Heat 1 - 2 tbsp olive oil in pot or pan with lid over medium low.

2. Cut off the end of the brussel sprouts and cut them in half.

3. Add brussel sprouts to pan, drizzle a little olive oil, and stir with a fork so they're lightly coated.

4. Add a pinch of salt and cracked pepper to taste.

4. Put on lid and let brussel sprouts cook until you can stick a fork through the big ones easily, stirring every couple minutes, so they all get time on the bottom. This will take usually take 8+ minutes, depending on temp and number of brussel sprouts.

5. For the last 30 seconds or so, turn the heat up to medium and stir so they sear a little bit.

6. Enjoy! They're best directly out of the pan, but they're also good refrigerated and served cold. I've never tried reheating them, so I'm not sure how well they reheat.

Sick. And a recipe.

Someone breathed his germs all over me this weekend, and now I feel like I have a cold coming on. Despite a valiant effort during undergrad to fight off illness with the disinfecting power of vodka and dancing, I now realize that this method doesn’t really work.

Now I usually try to beat back oncoming illness with lots of water, vitamin C (Placebo? Probably. But I love oranges, so whatever), hot beverages like tea or hot water with ginger, lemon juice, and honey, and, most importantly, soup.

I have a couple of go-to recipes that I usually make, but I didn’t have all of the necessary ingredients. After spin today, I was in no sort of mood to go to the grocery store, so I just threw this one together from stuff I found in my pantry. It turned out pretty good, so I thought that I should document my soup recipe.

Ingredients:

1.5 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp garlic paste (you can also use minced garlic)

2 small onions

3 medium carrots

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 can black beans

1 can kidney beans

Salt, pepper, oregano, and chili powder to taste

Add the olive oil and garlic (The garlic measurement is pretty much an estimation. I just kind of plopped it in there.) to a pot (I used 4 quart) over medium heat. While the olive oil heats up, chop the carrots and onions into chunks and add to pot. Add a teaspoon of water and put on the lid. Let the veggies cook until you can easily stick a fork through the carrots, stirring every few minutes. When the veggies are cooked, add the beans and tomatoes (including the liquids), 2 cans of water, and the spices to taste. Turn up the heat to high and bring to a boil. Once the soup is boiling, turn it down to where the soup is simmering. Let it simmer at least 20 minutes, up to an hour if you have time.

Voila! Delicious soup. Serve and enjoy!

Nutrition facts (1 serving = ~2 cups):

194 calories, 3.2 g fat, 0.4 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 200 mg sodium, 15 g fiber, 8.4 g protein