Sunday. Again.

I was more or less productive today, so I only have 21 things left on my list. Not bad!

In other good news, it was a lovely day, with temperatures ranging from ten to twenty zillion degrees. Approximately.

Okay, not really, but when I drove back from the gym at 7:00pm, I passed one bank sign that said it was 100, and one that said it was 106. Mmm. Steamy. I thought I was hallucinating when I passed the first one, as I had just spent 90 minutes in a big gym with an air conditioner malfunction, doing yoga with four other clearly deranged women. I just kept telling myself that people pay big money to do yoga in 108 degree rooms, so really, I was getting a great deal. This powered me through the eight times I almost passed out.

So, I came home and made a tasty dinner to lift my spirits and get my energy back. I got a huge bunch of chard at the farmers market yesterday, and I was planning to make this recipe again, but I decided to get fancy and do my own variation.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients (measures are approximate):

• humongous bunch of swiss chard
• garlic
• 10 ounces whole wheat pasta (I used linguine)
• 2 cups (or 1 can) of cannellini beans (rinsed well if canned)
• 1 can of stewed Italian style tomatoes
• 1 cup of tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes, but you could use whatever), roasted
• 1/4 cup of white wine (dry works best)
• 1/8 cup of chicken or veggie broth
• 1/8 cup of water
• Tsp olive oil

How to cook them:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain.
2. Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium-low. Add chard, white wine, garlic and cover. Let chard wilt, about three or four minutes. Stir a few times.
3. Add beans, tomatoes, broth, water, and more garlic to taste. Cook through, about six minutes.
4. Stir into pasta, heating over low heat for a few minutes until sauce thickens.

It makes about six servings. Plenty for dinner and leftovers for Matt’s lunches.

I added some parmesan to mine. And I had a salad, too. Baby spinach, roasted red pepper vinaigrette, and parmesan. Hey, it was out.

While cooking, I enjoyed my new favorite beer, Old Cherry from New Belgium Brewing Company. Brewed with the juice of real cherries. Cherries and beer? How could it go wrong?

Okay, an hour before bed. Let’s see if I can knock anything else off my list.

Oh! I almost forgot. In the midst of my productivity, I took a break and actually wrote things about me on my About Me page. It’s like See Food: The E! True Hollywood Story.

I’m a survivor.

I rode the damn stationary bike again. It was either that or try a Bosu class, and, honestly, if I tripped and almost broke my toe just putting shorts on, I’m pretty sure it’s not in the cards for me to bounce around on half a stability ball in front of a bunch of 20 year olds in small clothing.

Anyway, I’m trying to be positive, because I got a lot done at work today, I had a halfway decent hair day (literally - the left side looked great, the right not so much), I made it through 40 minutes on the bike, and I polished off an issue of Self while I did it. I’m not a big Self fan, because it’s all about which eyeshadow is in season and women working out in bikinis and such. But, I bought it in the airport a few weeks ago because, when I travel, I really want to buy things I usually don’t like so much: weird women’s magazines and drinks from Starbucks. Anyway, so I had this magazine laying around and I feel like I learned so much about Anne Hathaway and I didn’t cry on the bike. Score one for me. No, score 80 billion for me (I need a lot of affirmation today).

Then, I did an abs class where I think I may have actually died a little bit, and came home not interested in cooking anything at all, but very much in the mood for beans. So, I had a big salad. With a lot of beans. And some tomatoes, spinach, chips, cheese, and a heaping helping of salsa that made me sneeze:

I hope you like that artistic diagonal shot. I did that for you.

I also had some more chips with cheese. Known in some cultures as “nachos.” But, these chips have flaxseed in them, so these were healthy “nachos.”

I’m still hungry, so I might go for some cereal.

Okay, I have to stop here because we’re being energy efficient and the laptop is dying.

I am clumsy.

Okay, so we had a nice little mini-honeymoon/celebration of Matt’s birth in Lawrence, which involved more food than it probably should have. Good food. But a lot. But a mini-honeymoon comes around, what, once every… month or so?

Anyway, after all the wedding/conference/birthday/Matt’s birthday/mini-honeymoon eating, I was all prepared to come back home and get back into my exercise and healthy(ish) eating routine and then I tripped while putting on some shorts yesterday afternoon and stubbed my toe so hard that I couldn’t walk for a few hours. So, being the smart and healthy person that I am, I skipped the gym and ate cake instead!

This morning I happened to notice that my toe was gray. Oops. I hobbled to work and called the doctor, who did some x-rays and things. Turns out it’s not broken! Just badly bruised! Sweet! But I can’t bend it and it looks really gross. Seriously. My doctor actually said “eww.” Needless to say, I was advised against kickboxing. I can’t exercise for 48-72 hours, and even then, I’m supposed to do the stationary bike until it fully heals. I loathe the stationary bike. I guess this is why you shouldn’t walk and put on shorts at the same time. This morning while I was getting ready for work, Matt yelled “STAND STILL,” just as a reminder.

But enough about me!

Just kidding. This whole blog is about me.

It was really hot today and we had almost no groceries, so we threw together this Mexican Pasta Salad, from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites, which I picked up for 8 bucks in Lawrence. I love all things Moosewood, and this was no exception. Light but filling and if I’d only been able to resist the cookies I had afterwards, it would have been a really healthy end to my day.

Yum.

I need to go ice my gimp toe now.

I am losing my mind.

In the five hours between now and bedtime, I need to: go to the gym and do cardio AND weights, hit the ATM, go to the drugstore to get a travel bottle of contact solution, sort through the piles of clothing I’ve been avoiding for weeks, decide which ones I’m wearing for my conference, iron them, try them on to make sure they look okay, iron them again because they’ll be wrinkled, decide whether or not I’ll feel comfortable taking a bathing suit, pack everything, run around frantically to gather handouts for my presentation, and also eat some cake.

And did I mention that I woke up at 2 this morning? This is why I hate to travel.

I’m blogging to keep from crying.

On the bright side, Matt made a delicious dinner for me so that I would have one less thing to worry about. It’s pasta with white beans and chard, from a book called Vegan Express. I added my signature vegan ingredient - cheese:

That’s one of our marriage bowls. And a plastic fork because the real ones are all dirty. Oops.

This was a really good dinner. Thanks, Matt!

I’m not taking the camera to Anaheim because 1) I’d probably lose it and 2) it’s not actually mine. Also, I don’t know that I’ll be eating anything interesting because I understand that food is so expensive there that you really can’t. So I’m packing a lot of Larabars, basically. And some Kashi bars thrown in for good measure. And instant oatmeal. So, I may actually come back part grain.

Sadly, I will have to celebrate my 25th birthday at the conference. Oh well, at least I’ll get to spend it with friends I don’t usually see. I’m sure they’ll be ready to throw down. You know how librarians are.

Or maybe you don’t. But rest assured, they really do like to throw down.

Catching up

I’m going to dispense with my usual witty commentary because I’m a little stressed and a lot tired and I’ve got to be up early for my lung tests. I’m also going to a conference later this week and I have about eleventy million things to do before I leave for sunny Southern California.

Saturday night, after a movie marathon, I used the rest of the bean salad to make a polenta casserole that turned out really well. I also made a salad, which I spun in our new salad spinner. We used our new dishes from Donna:

I also had cake.

Sunday, I went to a crazy hard class at the gym and came home starving for fajitas. And so:

Grilled chicken (in a Tapatio, honey, garlic, and paprika marinade), peppers, onions, and tomatoes. And some cheese. Mozzarella, which is not necessarily appropriate, but did not smell bad like the other cheese.

And I also had cake.

Tonight, after kickboxing, I made my first frittata in our brand new wedding skillet. Half of it got a little crispy on top. Crispy, not burned (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, MATT).

I had more than this but I started small because I was nervous:

See the crispy? It was good. It had potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and feta. I made some Ezekiel 4:9 toast to round it out.

Oh, and I also had cake. And finally, I remembered to take a picture:

You can see the peanut butter and jelly layers! We still have a lot of cake left, which is not a problem for me. We may get to freeze even more of it to enjoy on our first anniversary. Oh, and that’s a little bit of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream on the side. If you were wondering.

Posting may be sporadic for the next week (sorry, Mom). Matt’s taking me out for an early birthday dinner tomorrow, if I’m still standing after my tests. Wednesday I should be making some food, so I’ll try to post it.

Enchiladas

Wow, what an inspired post title. I bet you’re all “NOW I remember why I read this blog.”

Today was dramatic. I knew it was supposed to storm, and I went into a meeting at 9 and the sky was kind of cloudy and weird. When I got out of my meeting at 10, the sky was totally black. Seriously, I was confused about why I was working in the middle of the night (I only had one cup of coffee this morning so I wasn’t totally alert). I called Matt because it was raining really hard and I wanted him to check the new air conditioner to make sure no water was coming in. While we were on the phone, we could hear the tornado sirens, but they test them on Mondays, so no big deal.

Then, the building manager at work came on the PA and was all “THIS IS NOT A DRILL, GO TO THE FIRST FLOOR.” And so, of course, I freaked out and called Matt back and said “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. GO TO THE BATHROOM. IT IS NOT A TEST. GO TO THE BATHROOM!” The bathroom is the safest place in our apartment during a tornado, in case that wasn’t clear. Then, it turns out that they were running the tornado sirens because it was hailing so badly and they wanted people to stay away from their windows. Softball-sized hail or something ridiculous.

Right now, my entire family is saying “MOVE BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA.”

Anyway, I went to kickboxing after work and it was so hardcore that I was really afraid someone might have to scrape me up off the floor at the end. So, I was really hungry and wanted something that would fill me up. So, here are some bean and avocado enchiladas from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan:

You may not be able to tell, but they kind of fell apart. But it didn’t matter, because they were some kind of awesome. Pinto beans, mushrooms, cashews, onions, and some mashed avocado. I used much less avocado than the recipe called for (like 3/4 of one instead of two). That was a smart move, because otherwise it never would have fit in the 12 tortillas I had left. Also, it meant I had room for dessert.

Then, we went to do laundry in the basement of the house next door, and while we were loading the machine, something totally started MAKING NOISE AND MOVING in the garbage can. I can’t even begin to imagine. So, being mature and tough, I ran away and screamed “take the laundry out, TAKE IT OUT.” And then I had to wash stuff in the sink.

Luckily, I rediscovered my jar of Nutella when I was looking for pinto beans, so I turned to it for comfort in my time of stress.

And now I’m going to go read a report about Integrated Library Systems.

Jealous?

Catching up

I didn’t post last night’s dinner because I was in a bad mood. Here it is:

I’ll call it sweet shrimp stir fry. Here’s how to make it:

Cook shrimp over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes in a little olive oil. Add 1 cup beans (I used great northern b/c that’s what I had on hand - I think I’d use black beans if I did this again, though). Cook for another 3 or so minutes. Remove shrimp and set aside. Turn heat down to medium. Add sliced peppers (I used the pretty little multi-colored peppers that I always put in salads, but a red bell would also work). Cook for 2 minutes. Add mango chunks and crushed red pepper. Also toss shrimp back in. Add some lemon juice and cook for 2-3 more minutes. Serve with quinoa. Or whatever. But quinoa was particularly good with this. I think I might have put some sliced almonds or something in mine because I remember it being crunchy. But my bad mood has kind of deleted the whole day from my memory.

Today was better. I went to the gym, where I overcome foot pain and ran longer than usual on the indoor track. I’m a really slow “runner” because I have arthritis and am also a wuss. I also have asthma, so I can only “run” for a certain period of time before I feel like I’m going to pass out (3 laps). I know what you’re thinking and, yes, I was very popular as a teenager. The combination of a traditional geek disease like asthma with a chronic condition typically associated with the elderly really gave me that extra something I needed to be both loved and understood by my sensitive classmates.

Anyway, back to “running.” Today I passed someone in the runners’ lanes on the track for the first time! He was really old and had a knee brace on but I don’t care. So, that set a more upbeat tone for my day. I then did other things that are, I’m sure, equally interesting to you, like: recycling, taking a walk to the public library to try to remind myself that reading is fun even though I stopped doing it a few months ago, getting coffee on the way back home, having lunch and a snack, watching basketball, making dinner, cleaning in a frenzied state and grocery shopping.

For dinner, I made protein-packed baked pasta. Yes, I just made that up on the fly.

Matt loves baked pasta dishes, and apparently I do not make them enough for his liking, so he seemed to be more excited about this meal than he has been about anything I’ve cooked in the last four years. Here’s how it all came together:

I cooked 2 cups of dry pasta (we like a mix, so we had 1 cup of medium shells and 1 cup of whole wheat penne). Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, I mixed 1 can of diced tomatoes, about 3/4 cup of crushed tomatoes, 1 tbsp of tomato paste, 1/2 cup chickpeas, 1/3 cup of cottage cheese, garlic and crushed red pepper. I sprayed a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray, and I drained the pasta and tossed it in the dish. I then added the sauce and stirred it all up. I put about 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella on top, sprayed some aluminum foil w/ cooking spray and baked at 350 for 20 minutes covered, and 10 minutes uncovered.

Then I made a salad. It just felt right.

The chickpeas and cottage cheese add protein, which makes this a nice meatless meal. Also, the cottage cheese made it creamier.

After I went on my crazy cleaning spree and took a trip to the grocery store (where a woman tried to take my cart and then followed me around apologizing, with her four kids in tow, and where I also could not find any asparagus), I had a Fage with honey. I get to eat another one tomorrow, in honor of Easter. And because it expires then. I also had a little bit of Edy’s coffee ice cream that I bought on a whim at the grocery store. I’ve been a really big fan of coffee ice cream ever since I went to a Haagen-Dazs stand at the mall in Raleigh and asked for a small coffee (the drink) and got a small coffee (the ice cream).

Okay, I think it’s Reading Time. I checked out a few magazines in case real books don’t work out. I’ve also got a few issues of Tiny Titans and a Batgirl Showcase to fall back on.

Stuff it

I see people and restaurants make stuffed vegetables all the time - stuffed peppers of various kinds, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed zucchini, etc. And, I thought this might be a nice, softish type of thing to make for Matt and his temporary teeth. I went with stuffed green peppers because, well, they were on sale.

Here they are, fresh from the oven:

I actually had to put them back in for a little longer after this - the peppers were a little crunchier than I imagined. I really have no idea what it should be like, I’ve never eaten a stuffed pepper. I had a stuffed mushroom once at one of those free vendor parties at ALA. It was breaded and cheesy and I’m pretty sure I got some on my sweater because they never have tables and I was probably also holding a beer or something.

Anyway, I ate one of these halves (I wasn’t very hungry because I ate about 482 graham crackers with Nutella when I got home from work), and it was pretty delightful. It’s a nice variation on rice and beans.

Here’s what I did:

Wash, halve and seed 3 green bell peppers (I am really paranoid about the seeds b/c Matt or someone else once told me that they will kill you. Also, once in third grade, this kid named Manil got a pepper seed in his eye and told me he almost went blind). Put on a cookie sheet or some other kind of baking dish.

Prepare 1 cup of dry bulgur (cook in 2 cups liquid, simmering for about 15 minutes. You could use rice or another grain here, too). Add beans (probably anything would work here, but I used pinto beans). Mix together, add spices (chili powder and cumin in this case) and spoon into pepper halves (about 1/3 cup of the mixture seemed to fit in each pepper). Add salsa and cheese. I used shredded 2%, and it didn’t work out so well - a little hard or something. I think I’ll try it with slices if I do this again. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes. Add extra salsa. Sour cream might also be tasty.

Oh, and I also had some leftover salad from last night.

I’ll probably also have a Fage or some more Nutella or both sometime before I go to sleep. Which could be any second now.