Slow cooker Sunday: Just throw it all in

I had a lot of butternut squash, spinach and onions left over from my Christmas dinner. I also had a bag of 17 Bean and Barley mix from Trader Joe’s (which Dennis said looks like bird seed) that I had been dying to make. The problem is that I really don’t care for soup. I mean, I do, but I’d rather have a stew or something thicker than just soup. So I thought, “what the hell?” and decided to throw everything into the Crock Pot for a leftovers version of my butternut squash risotto.

In my Crock Pot went:

• 1  1/4 cup uncooked Arborio rice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 cups organic vegetable broth
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1.5 cups butternut squash, diced
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1 cup 17 Bean and Barley mix (basically just dried beans and barley)
• Salt and pepper to taste

First, I cooked the onion and spinach in a pan for about 5 minutes, just enough to sweat the onions and wilt the spinach. Then I cooked it on high for 2.5 hours, stirred, then added 1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese. However, I should have added another cup or 2 of water since I added the beans. It was still good, but I had to add water to it when I reheated it in the microwave (which helped get it back to the risotto texture I was looking for)

 

I measured out 7 one-cup portions to store in zip lock freezer bags, and have eaten this three times already (once Sunday for dinner and twice for lunch) So I’m assuming that for about $15, I was able to get 10 meals out this. Nothing beats that.

Another good thing about this meal is that it’s full of fiber and has a ton of veggie power. This meal (one cup portion) kept me full for hours, but didn’t overstuff me.

Dennis: Whatchya got there?
Me: Risotto with a bunch of leftover stuff thrown in it.
Dennis: Hmm. Looks like baby food.

If I had put the right amount of water in it originally it wouldn’t have looked so dry. Don’t let it scare you though, it was really good!

Blast from the past…

As another decade comes to a close, I’ve reverted back to my childhood memories and came across an old obsession of mine:

I’m really dating myself here, but do you remember this? I remember when I got my first kit on my 8th birthday. I was so excited that I immediately put on my leg warmers and started twirling around my ribbon.

I never realized how much of an impact this had on my childhood. I really worked hard to get good at it too, memorizing the moves and even breaking  a sweat. My friends had different kits, so we used to swap them out and try new routines together. They even had a yoga version:

 

I remember being really motivated to exercise, although I didn’t really understand the meaning behind it. But I think the idea was great.

Wow I’m old…

Christmas lasagna

Not just any lasagna—butternut squash lasagna.

Let me just start out by saying that I hate making lasagna. Dennis makes a kick ass lasagna. Since he loves eating it I tell him if he wants it, he has to make it. 
I found this recipe a while back and have been dying to try it, so when I suggested it for Christmas dinner Dennis said, “Sure, I’ll eat butternut squash lasagna---if you make it.”

Damn. I got burned with my own philosophy.

It took me about an hour to assemble and an hour to cook (not including the sauce that took me about 2 hours to make) but it was well worth the trouble.

Butternut Squash Lasagna

I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light. You can access the original recipe here.
I basically halved the recipe. It called for 2 8x8 pans, and since there are only two of us and one small, mostly packed freezer, I decided one would be plenty.

As I was layering everything in my pan, I kept saying, “There’s no way all this stuff is going to FIT!” but it did. Be sure to put a cookie sheet underneath to catch the drippings. I didn’t do this, so halfway through I had to pull it out and clean out the oven (did I say I had to? I meant Dennis had to…)

I replaced the provolone cheese with fresh mozzarella and added some to the top with the fresh grated parmesan.
Also, I only used one 15 ounce carton of ricotta, the part skim kind.

So yeah, this was GOOD. I highly recommend this recipe. I’d never made lasagna before this, and even with my aforementioned hatred of making lasagna, I would make this again.

Merry Christmas ya’ll!

Christmas Eve-Chinese food and chocolate cookies my way

When we lived in Boston, we found out that having Chinese food for Christmas dinner is a Boston area ritual. I found this to be quite strange, but hey, every region has their own thing right?

So we decided to have Chinese for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s quick, easy, hassle free so why not right? You meet people for a reason…this can be a tradition we can make our own in honor of those who touched our lives in Boston. Miss you guys!

I will admit, I don’t usually enjoy Chinese food. When Dennis is in the mood for Chinese, I make him order from the places that offer Sushi as well. But if you ask them to steam your food for you, omit the salt, msg, and other crap that they normally use, they will;  so that’s exactly what I did. Presenting, Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, done just for me:

They didn’t have brown rice so I had to make it myself. And for a “sauce” I mixed 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar with 2 tsp sesame oil and 2 tsp low sodium soy sauce. The sesame oil gives it an awesome flavor that blends well with the salt from the soy sauce and the tang from the vinegar…and it’s much better for you than the sauce they provide for you (God only knows what’s in it)

 

Now that’s some Chinese food I can handle.

I also promised Dennis I’d make some chocolate chip cookies. I made the regular back of the Toll House chocolate chip bag recipe for him, but halved it (I ran out of butter) and then made these for myself:

The almond flour made this recipe.

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 cup white whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (I like my cookies to be slightly cake like, so omit this if you like them flat and crunchier)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened (next time I will use 1/4 cup. This was too much)
• 1/4 agave nectar (next time I will only use either the brown sugar or agave. They were too sweet for me)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. In a medium bowl and stir in flours, baking soda and salt. Beat butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add butter, agave, brown sugar, egg and vanilla; beat until smooth and creamy. With the mixer running, add the dry ingredients, beating on low speed until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Drop the dough by heaping teaspoonfuls, at least 1 inch apart, onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until firm around the edges and golden on top, about 15 minutes. Cool the cookies for 2 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

This recipe made about a dozen and a half cookies, which is perfect for me since I’ll be the only one eating them. I’ve already put half of these cookies in the freezer, so hopefully they freeze well!

I will make these again with the changes I made above in parenthesis since I wasn’t as happy with this recipe as I wanted to be, but you might like them made as above.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Who needs the gym when you’ve got snow?

Not that I could have made it to the gym with the amount of snow that I had piled on my car. Let’s just say 2 hours of digging your car out, moving it, getting stuck, pushing it out, and helping the nice people who helped you get out of their spots constitutes as some kick ass exercise for the day. Phew! I’m beat!

Oh yeah, next time you decide to try to dig your car out of a snow cover, remember to have a shovel. We couldn’t find a store in the area that had anymore shovels, so I used a bucket, another girl used the cover to a Rubbermaid tub, and another girl had a broom. We were all from upstate NY: They were from Buffalo and Rochester, so we should have known better. What were we thinking?

Needless to say, that was my workout for the day. I will very much enjoy my Sunday pizza (we found some frozen “Authentic NY Pizza Dough—made in Brooklyn” so I can’t wait to give it a shot)

But before I get into pizza making mode, I wanted to talk a little about the gym and trying to keep in shape through the winter. I don’t typically put on much weight over the winter months but I will admit that my workout schedule dwindles to one or two times a week due to many factors, with snow being the biggest one.

I don’t know about you, but when I bust my ass to shovel out a parking spot, I am not ready to give it up to the next a-hole that will come in and claim it with a garbage can or orange parking cone. Yes, this happens, especially in Boston. We had so many parking issues when we lived there and I never wanted to get home too late (hence I went straight home from work to get a spot) and I never wanted to leave once I got there. I would try to get out and walk in the snow as much as I could but then it would turn to ice, which was more dangerous than anything else. I spent a lot of time in the winter months being very depressed because I felt like a prisoner to the weather.

So when this winter rolled around, I decided I’m not going to let it get the best of me. I will work through the shorter days and the snow covered parking spots to be sure that I get my workouts in and keep myself sane.

Last week I went to the gym for 2 workouts – a Sunday long run and a mid-week sprint. Long runs on the treadmill suck, so to make it more bearable I broke it up into 2 heats, with lifting in between. I ran 5 miles first at an easy pace (9:30ish), then spent 15-20 minutes lifting and doing ab work, and then I ran 3 more miles at a quick 8:20 pace. I was trying to go for a negative split, and it really kicked my ass. I felt good until the last mile when my body started to hurt, but I pushed through it and stretched for about 10 minutes after I was done.

The problem with running on the treadmill is that I honestly feel like it hurts me more than running on the ground. I took two days off because my FOOT (arg!!) started bothering me. I haven’t had problems with my foot since the end of summer so I knew I needed to give myself a break from the treadmill for a few days.

My sprint workout was a little nicer to me. I spent 20 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes lifting, and 20 minutes on the treadmill running more of a tempo run at an 8:45 pace.

Breaking it up is key for me. I get so bored on the elliptical…20 minutes is my max. And since I know the treadmill hurts me, I won’t be able to run more than 5 miles on it. And let’s be honest, who wants to run more than that on a treadmill anyway?

Almond Flour

After HEAB received a package from a friend that contained almond flour, I immediately started asking questions about it. What exactly is it? How does it compare to regular flour? Is it good?

It’s just ground up almonds. From the research I conducted, almond ‘meal’, which is less fine than almond flour, is much easier to find in stores, and can be used in conjunction with, not as a replacement to, regular flour. Kind of like whole wheat flour, it will absorb more water and not form the same consistency as a recipe that calls for regular flour.

I decided to try making some bread with it, but what started out as a loaf of innocent pumpkin bread turned into a crazy concoction of Dark Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Spice bread.

In a bowl, I combined:

• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice
• 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie spice
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 2 very ripe mashed bananas
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 tbsp dark chocolate powder

I baked it in a Pam greased bread pan for an hour at 350* and here’s what I got:

It tastes almost like a chocolate spice muffin. The almond meal gives it more of a gritty texture than a cake texture, but I liked it. If you like sweet, add some sugar or sweetener of your choice. I didn’t add any because I thought the banana would sweeten it. I would add 2 more bananas next time I make it for the added sweetness but other than that I thought it was good. I spread some coconut oil on top. Yum!

Since it’s a short week this week, I didn’t make a Slow Cooker Sunday recipe. I have plenty in the freezer to hold me over for the next three lunches. Lucky for me I have Christmas Eve off, which is probably when I’ll be fighting the crowds to get the last of my shopping done. <sigh> If I could have trusted the roads here (and didn’t want to fight to lose the parking spot I spent 2 hours digging out of) I would have done it this weekend. Oh well. The words of a true procrastinator.

Snowed in

I’m really behind. I have a few recipes to share and a few photos of the “Blizzard of ‘09.”
We’re from upstate NY so 18 inches of snow isn’t an issue for us, but to those south of the Mason-Dixon line, it’s a big deal. I don’t even want to start getting into the insanity we experienced driving to the grocery store this morning…people stuck in the middle of the roads trying to turn into their driveways/parking lots, groups of people walking in the middle of the streets because the sidewalks were non-existent. The busses weren’t running so people were just wandering around like mad. We even got flagged down by a man who almost got hit by a car trying to walk home, so we gave him a ride.

I’ve never seen this much craziness from a snowstorm before, but I’ve always lived in the north so I guess it’s to be expected. I went for a really long walk, which was an awesome workout for my legs. Nothing was shoveled, so I spent a lot of time pushing my way through the snow. I ran through the really high parts as well.

The first picture shows I-395 in the distance. As you can see, it was empty. And the picture of me below, I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of layers I had on. It was 25 degrees out and really windy! I don’t know how I was able to move!

I had so much fun walking around in this snow. I actually met a couple walking their dog that grew up near us in upstate NY. Also, they live in our townhouse development. Sweet! I made some friends!

Recipes:

I was fumbling around and came across a recipe for cauliflower rice and thought immediately that I had to try it. What I made was the coolest version of a Chipotle’s burrito that I’ve ever had. Period.

I introduce to you the Cauliflower burrito (for the low carb people in your life)

Holy cow this was GOOD. I mean, lick your lips and stop talking while you’re eating because it’s so good good. I couldn’t believe I was eating cauliflower instead of rice. I’ve made this twice already in the past week and will definitely continue to make it again.

Click here for the recipe.

Also, for Slow Cooker Sunday I made another pot of Split Pea Soup. Check this bad boy out:

I used a combination of yellow and green lentils, as well as a carrot, onion and celery base.

Oh, and to make your life easier:

Trader Joe’s sells Mirepoix for soups. It’s so much better/easier than chopping up your own carrots, celery and onions.

Trader Joe’s also sells frozen avocados. I used them in my burritos above. You get 4 halves for $1.99. What a steal!

They don’t have as much flavor as a fresh avocado, but they’re still pretty good. I would recommend buying them just to have them in your freezer.

I’ll have more for you tomorrow including a new kick-ass pancake recipe and fun with dark chocolate. And I will also share how I’ve been making the gym more tolerable. It’s really been a crazy week!

We’re IN!

 

 

"The Runner's Rite of Spring"^®

April 11, 2010
Washington, DC
7:40 a.m.

RRCA National 10-Mile Championship

Everyone has been telling me that I have to run this race since I’ve moved to the DC area. So last week while discussing it with my coworker, we decided to look up when the registration was. Good thing we did because it happened to be the last day to register.

And not only did we have to register by the end of that day, but we still weren’t guaranteed a spot. Because this race is so popular, registrants had to win a chance to run by lottery. Since both of us really wanted to run this race,  I signed us up as a team so it would be all or nothing.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when it was confirmed this morning…we’re in!

I’m really excited to have been chosen to run this race!

Oh and my computer has been saved! Thanks to Dennis for putting in hours of work toward bringing my computer back to life. You rock Dennis.