It’s getting hot in here.

So, I know everyone’s been all “OMG, where is See Food? Is she okay? She has no life, so she always posts on weekends.”

Y’all. Don’t worry. I’m back.

It has been so hot. We had a heat advisory all weekend and on Saturday, the heat index got up to 114. Today, the for real temperature got up to 108. I went outside just to say I felt it. Also, I work in a library, and libraries are always cold, so I get all thrown off when my computer says it’s 108 and yet my hands are so numb it’s hard to type. Anyway, starting Friday afternoon, the warnings all basically amounted to, “Do not leave your home.” But we’re getting ready to leave for vacation, so we had to do a couple of things like go to the storage unit and transfer boxes from the car in blazing heat, go get a few groceries, and, oh yeah, we steam cleaned the carpet. It didn’t get that hot, but I’m going to go on record as saying that I don’t recommend it during the hottest weekend of one’s life. Live and learn. At the farmer’s market on Saturday, I got this teeny little apple:

I’m not sure if that really captures the teeniness. I have really small hands.

Oh, at Target I got a Rodney Yee Power Yoga DVD since the gym was closed all weekend. I did it pre-steam cleaning on Saturday. He creeps me out with his tight pants, but his cueing is awesome and it was a fairly tough workout, with something like 837 sun salutations to keep me moving.

Saturday night we had Lime Biryani, a recipe from a recent issue of Women’s Health. It’s quinoa cooked with water and lime juice (genius), carrots, chickpeas, golden raisins, sliced almonds and a lime vinaigrette. It was all cold and delicious and summery and I kind of wish I’d make like ten servings. But I made four. So between dinner Saturday and lunch Sunday, it’s gone.

That’s a fancy new bowl we received in the mail this weekend, handmade by a woman in Vermont. Ahh. Vermont. I bet it’s not 108 there.

Sunday morning I got the completely ridiculous idea that it would be fine to exercise outside. After all, it was only 88. At 8:00 in the morning. By the time I got home at 9:15, it was well into the 90s. This is what happens when the gym is closed. I start to lose it, bit by bit. Anyway, I jogged a mile like an idiot and then I kind of staggered for another three. I came home and we steam cleaned once more, just for kicks. And then I got all sickly and I think I had or have heat exhaustion. The internet doesn’t lie about these things. I’ve been chugging Powerade, for which I have a deep and inexplicable love.

Tomorrow it’s only supposed to be 95! Which is great, because I have 119 things to do, including packing for VACATION. Yay.

Tonight I wanted another salad, so I made tabbouleh with shrimp and feta, inspired by the same magazine that included the lime and quinoa thing.

Also a new bowl, received on Friday. I may have mentioned that in my last post, but I’m too lazy to look.

Okay, now I’m exhausted. It’s time for bed so that I can wake up painfully soon and go back to the (hopefully) cool and open gym. And then it’s just 8 working hours, a bunch of errands, a sleepless night of pre-flight stress, a ride to Kansas City and a 2 hour flight between us and glorious North Carolina. Which is supposed to be getting hit with a similar heat wave later this week. What can I say? We have terrible luck with weather.

Don’t worry, I’ll be posting tomorrow night’s dinner before I go into vacation mode. I’m sure it will be breathtaking and will not at all have an “I’m panicking because we have so much stuff to use up while we’re gone so here’s an onion/orange/zucchini salad mmmmmmm” feel to it.

Get ‘er done

I was a busy little bee today. I basically didn’t have time to be in a mood again, so at least there’s that, but I was slammed at work. This doesn’t happen that much in the summer, because my teaching load is lighter and I’m usually working on projects with more fluid deadlines, but today was back to back to back. To back. And back again. And I’m still not done - I have a few more things to wrap up at home tonight. The good news is that it’s Wednesday, which means two more days and then it’s smooth sailing into a weekend of… cleaning.

Anyway, on to the food. I was all excited to make this saffron lemon chicken salad thing from Ellie Krieger’s cookbook, and then I went to the store to buy saffron and I definitely came home without it. It was in the spice area with all the other normal spices, but instead of being, you know, 4.99 or whatever, it was 19.99. And there were about 6 strands of saffron in there. What kind of jackass business is that? Those strands of saffron probably cost more than my outfit that day. So what we had was lemon chicken salad. Sans saffron.

That chicken salad was awesome. I chose it specifically because I had a pound of green beans from the farmer’s market that needed to be used, and this recipe called for a pound of green beans. Lucky me. I was also intrigued because it involved cooking a lemon, scooping out the the insides and chopping up the peel for the salad. Zesting would’ve been easier, but this had really good flavor. So it was green beans, marinated grilled chicken breast, lemon peel, and a nice lemon-honey vinaigrette. With some bulgur on the side. Oh, bulgur. How I’ve missed you.

Okay, time to work and get myself psyched for a 5:30am gym trip.

Yay?

This was what we ate on Tuesday.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as “some kind of chicken” because my mom would’ve hated it.

We had spicy chicken with bulgur and cherries salad. Only the chicken wasn’t so spicy. That’s okay.

There was supposed to be eggplant in the salad but eggplant is disastrous around here, so I left it out. Then I realized there were no vegetables, so I threw together a salad with some mixed greens, chickpeas, grape tomatoes, and goat cheese.

Today, I had to go back to my favorite doctor ever, which was a treat, as always. Next week, I’ve got to take this test, which, in the biz, is referred to as a meth challenge, and which I prefer to think of as METH CHALLENGE, some kind of reality show for meth heads.

Anyway, after the doctor, I worked from home and was reminded again why it’s not a good idea for me to fulfill my dream of a work from home life style at this point in my life: snack attacks. Or, as I like to call them, snack-cidents. I just can’t stay out of the peanut butter. Or the yogurt. Or the granola. Or the trail mix.

Now I’m going to go do some cleaning to try to make up for it.

I can’t think of a title.

Today was kind of rough, so I’ll keep this short.

Dinner was pan-fried tempeh, bulgur pilaf, and roasted vegetables:

I’ve never roasted broccoli before. It was awesome. I’ve also never cooked tempeh before. I’ve eaten it, and one of my favorite Planet Sub sandwiches is the tempeh parmesan. I loved making it. I think I’m going to make it every single day for the rest of my life. This blog will now be called See Food (But Only Tempeh). Nice, right?

Here’s a close-up. It looks like I burned it, but that’s actually a soy sauce/rice vinegar coating type of thing. I hope.

Mmmmmmm. Grainy.

Anyway, now I’m struggling with my eternal question: Edy’s fruit bar or coffee ice cream?

Both?

Stuffed up

I’m changing my middle name to efficiency. My middle initial is already E, so it should be a relatively seamless transition. Our wedding is now 98% planned. We have a date, a judge, a dinner reservation, rings, plane tickets to North Carolina, and, at this time tomorrow, we’ll be licensed to marry. Oh, and I have a dress. Now I just need shoes. THE HARDEST PART.

Most of that has happened since Friday afternoon, which explains the lack of posting. On Friday, we shared a delicious Mexican dinner with Donna and Ellen. Mexican used to stress me out because I would always weigh myself in the morning and have a few extra pounds of taco weight to process. Things have changed significantly since I discovered fajitas. It’s hard to make yourself too sick when your plate is basically the equivalent of one gigantic onion, a quarter of a chicken breast, and some peppers thrown in there for luck. The chips, though. They still conquer me.

Last night, we went to a party, where there was insanely amazing food like a mushroom/tomato/artichoke heart marinade, a goat cheese cake, fancy chips, fruit, and the greatest coconut cake of all time. There was also an impressive array of beer. It’s good to be an adult finally be several years removed from parties that center on tepid cans of Coors Light, and, if you’re lucky, a bag of chips that someone brought. Now food is the real focus, and I’m pleased. I like food. And something about having good food makes people bring good beer, too.

Tonight, I finally made the stuffed peppers I’ve been planning to make for about 9 days. I had the ingredients, but not the will to bake them. Something about having the oven on for over an hour when it’s 90 degrees outside and even hotter in our apartment. Now I really understand why the top chefs are always so shiny. It’s sweat. It’s not (just) that they don’t shower.

So, this may have been the last time I will turn on the real oven until October, but it was worth it.

These are adapted from another Ellie Krieger recipe for Greek Stuffed Peppers. I changed it up by using ground turkey breast instead of ground beef and by forgetting the spinach entirely. To make up for it, I had a spinach salad with walnuts and honey lemon vinaigrette.

I think I need to take some kind of a photography class. If I’m going to enrich myself, I’d really rather take something tough like boxing. Or yogilates. But there’s got to be a better photographer in me somewhere.

Now my face hurts from being all congested and my throat hurts from who knows what and I just finished one of those Edy’s All Fruit bars which helped for about .02 seconds, so I think I’ll mope around until I feel like I’ve reached a proper bedtime. Like 8:45.

Doctor day

I still have no idea what’s wrong with me but I did have several new kinds of uncomfortable experiences today, so I guess that’s something, right?

My appointment with the nutritionist was great, though, and I learned a few important things. Perhaps most notably, my sister and Donna have been right all along, and I need to increase my daily caloric intake. Otherwise, though, I am awesome. Her words, not mine.

We also talked about the importance of eating Different Colored Foods, which I already knew, but which helped solidify my plans for dinner. We had stuffed zucchini and carrot salad.

Pretty colors.

The zucchini dish was based on this recipe, but modified so that they’re stuffed with bulgur and ground turkey breast instead of bulgur and beef. Matt expertly got the innards out of the zucchini and now we have a huge bowl of guts that I need to use for something. I guess I’ll figure it out.

Anyway, these were awesome. Since I had my bases covered nutritionally but still wanted something extra, I did a carrot salad inspired by this one over at Not Eating Out in New York (which is a great blog). I used that ginger-lime dressing idea, and added some goat cheese and pine nuts to it (see, more calories).

I’m still low for today, but we’re about to go to the mall and maybe I’ll get some frozen yogurt. I’m sure that’s what she meant by increasing calories, right? I know she said something about calcium, too. Plus, we’re doing an arthritis walk tomorrow morning and I think you’re supposed to carb-load for those. Right?

In other news, I got my tax refunds today and now I have to decide what to spend them on. So far I’ve come up with: not student loans.

That’s a solid start.

Double deja vu

I’m sure you were all worried that this happened to me.

Not so.

I just got distracted by things like: a shopping trip to Topeka (no, really, this is exciting); having a saleswoman tell me that I look like I’m “fourteen, fifteen, maybe sixteen AT THE MOST” and that she ask ed me for my ID because she thought I was using my mother’s credit card; the most depressing college basketball game in the world; trying to do my taxes, realizing I’m the least organized person I know; almost having to pay 600 dollars for overdue books (they probably would’ve taken away my official librarian decoder ring for this, too); etc.

Last night, at Matt’s special request, we had bulgurritos. I made a filling with bulgur, a red potato, and leftover cheesesteak fillings. And some kale chips. Matt would not eat those. Here it is, with some of the filling that wouldn’t fit in the burrito on the side:

See how beautifully I set up this photograph, delicately placing my plate on the living room chair. In case you didn’t know this about us, we usually eat on the floor. We only sort of have a table, so we always eat in the living room. On special occasions, we use trays.

I feel so much better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest.

Tonight, we had a modified version of last week’s pasta.

Whole wheat penne, roasted tomatoes/asparagus/zucchini, chicken breast and feta.

Now I’m going to go work on my taxes some more.

Yay?

Nacho salad

I threw two of the best foods in the world together in a big bowl and called it dinner:

It’s a massive amount of lettuce, some leftover black bean salsa from taco night heated up with a little cheese, and a few blue corn and flaxseed chips (Target) thrown in. Mostly because I really like when chips absorb things and get all soggy. Also, I heard flax makes you really happy and has other health benefits. Clearly, I could use some health benefits.

This was kind of light for dinner, probably because I spent the afternoon eating candy and almond butter from the jar. Halfway through, I got inspired and added a third component to nacho salad: bulgur!

Sometimes, you just have to throw caution to the wind.

Note that this salad was so massive that my normal bowls couldn’t accommodate it, so I had to serve myself in a small mixing bowl.

I had all kinds of good intentions to make a delicious soup for dinner tonight, but I still don’t feel well, and after working for most of the day, including standing for two hours while talking to disinterested high school students, I really wasn’t up for it. So, I took the easy way out. I’ll get to the soup sometime. Hopefully before the pears go bad.

Tonight, we did something pretty exciting: we left the house on a Friday night, and it wasn’t even to go to Target. We went to Donna’s, where we contributed to a tray of pretty skewers for a baby shower:

We made the ones on the left. In exchange for some fancy homemade hot chocolate. Did you know that some people don’t use the packets? I know. Weird.

The excitement of “going out” on a Friday night has taken its toll on my 108 year old inner self, and I’m going to bed. I skipped all exercise today, as per my doctor’s strong suggestion, and it just made me feel nervous. I’ll have to work something in tomorrow. Maybe a heavy session of Wii Sports.

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.