Lightweight Eats

Friday was an incredibly busy day! I started out my day with an early trip to the farmer's market. Although the market is scheduled to open at 8am, there are vendors there as early as 6 o'clock. My morning practice didn't start until 9:30 (more on that later..), so I headed over around 7:30 to make sure I got a fair shot at the best produce.



The haul included summer corn and stone fruit, and some walnuts.

Practice was an adventure. My bike has been broken (thanks to a shoddy repair job post flat tire, done by yours truly) for about a month and a half now, so I've been taking the subway to the boathouse. On my way to catch the train to our luxuriously late 9:30am practice, I managed to drop my subway pass.

The ensuing search caused me to miss my train. Whoops on being late to the one practice that is schedule for a reasonable hour of the morning. Perhaps there's a reason they're scheduled for 7am?

The practice itself was all on land. Our coach did lactate testing on us, which involved rowing machines and heart rate monitors and blood samples. How exciting. Although painful (both the rowing machine and the blood sampling), it definitely made me feel like a legit athlete!

Afterwards, I rushed off to meet my mom at the Berkeley Bowl. It's been almost two months since I've been, since my bike has been out of commission (again, more on that later). We were running out of all sorts of pumpkiny spices and were completely out of garlic! ACK!

The shortage is now solved.

And finally, in the early afternoon, I got a phone call from Tip Top Bike Shop--my favorite bike shop--that my bike was ready!! I dropped it off yesterday afternoon for a tune-up (aka them fixing my bike properly).

They showed me all of the things I had neglected to put back together properly and sent me on my merry way with a fully functioning bicycle. Riding home was absolutely incredible!

That was a bit of a ramble, but all-in-all a very, very exciting Friday.

It's only Friday and we've already deviated from our menu plan, but here is what we have scheduled for our week of eating:

1. Pasta with sage-walnut pesto, roasted butternut squash, parmesan
2. Chinese food out (we may skip this since we had salad for dinner tonight)
3. Grain/bean/green bowl: rice, chickpeas, baby spinach, avocado, cucumber, tomato, shredded carrots and Mmmm sauce
4. Dinner at my bestie's house to celebrate Sukkot
5. Mexican sweet potato soup (yea, we didn't have this last week)
6. Broccoli, quinoa, chicken/mushrooms (again, didn't end up eating this last week)
7. Pita with grilled veggies, arugula/spring mix, shredded kohlrabi and fried eggs

Favorite menu item last week:
Tie between the Thai tofu and the grain bowl

Don't forget the sauce!

Our dinner tonight was a way of cleaning out the fridge. We had some leftover peanut sauce hanging around that we were planning to use in a grain bowl. We also had leftover corn (both canned and on the cob) and grilled eggplant lurking in the fridge.

And then I picked up a big bunch of dino kale, and some beautiful purple and yellow beans at the market on Friday that I needed to use up.

So, we made some lentils and some rice. We heated and cooked. We assembled, and we ate. The verdict? Delicious!


Corn is a great way to add sweetness to mask bitter veggies like kale. The green beans provided texture. And the peanut sauce lent a nutty richness that went with the myriad of flavors. And now we have room in our fridge for more leftovers!

Last week, my friend, India, came over and went to the farmer's market with me.


We let the season dictate our lunch, and ended up with some late-summer tomatoes and corn. We threw it together with spring mix, chickpeas, and armenian cucumbers for a delicious (and gorgeous) salad.

What an awesome way to spend a day at home!

After running our 5.6 mile timed run on Friday, and clocking a decently fast pace by my standards, I started poking around the internet to see how much faster I'd gotten.

According to the Runner's World Training Calculator, 5.6 miles in 40 minutes translated to 21:30 for a 5K--much faster than my last 5K race, which took just under 24 minutes. By a stroke of luck, google calendar reminded me minutes later of the upcoming fourth Sunday run around our local lake.

Dan and I raced the 5K last summer. It's a small, casual race, with a $5 entry fee for non-members, and a 5k, 10k and 15k option. Most of the fastest runners do the 10 and 15k distances, which means I'm relatively competitive with the 5K field. Awesome!

I registered last night and jogged the 2 miles to the start line this morning. I got to the course super early, and spent a fair amount of time warming up there, as well.

Bib pinned on, we were off just minutes after 9AM. I tried to position myself towards the front of the pack, knowing my times could put me in the top 20 finishers. There were a lot of kids in front, though, who sprang off the blocks and the died about a mile in. I definitely got caught up in their frenzy, though, and ran the first mile in 6:45--too fast.

I began to reel it back in the second mile, until I got passed by a woman--up until that point, I was the first place woman. My competitive spirit kicked in and I tried to hold on to her, finishing mile two in 6:50. That push definitely caught up to me in the third mile. I slowed down a lot, finished the race at around 6:54/mile average.

Overall, it was great to get out and race. I need to get better at pacing myself, but I was still happy with the huge PR. According to the training calculator, my marathon time should be around 3:25--a Boston qualifying time! Entries just closed for 2013, but maybe I can run a qualifying time for 2014?

Unofficial time: 21:27 (6:54/mile)

This was my first full week back at the boathouse training. We still aren't back to the same training volume as my first few weeks in May, and I'm also a lot fitter, so I've been enjoying more energy than usual.

Monday:
We got everything out of the way with one long morning practice, including some biking, about 17km of rowing with some faster 10' sections, and a 25 minute run to finish out the day.

Tuesday:
The morning practice was simple and sweet: another 17km row, all at a steady pace. I worked on a lot of technical issues, and was impressed with how fresh I still felt at the end--my stamina is improving! In the afternoon, I took a run around our local lake. The loop was about 5 miles, completed in just under 45' (including some time waiting at stop lights!).

Wednesday:
A very short day, we rowed a quick 10km in the morning. The conditions were a little bit rougher, and my row was unexciting--I worked on a few things but generally wasn't rowing very well at all.

Thursday:
Training on our own, Thursday was a running and weights work out. I started with the running--about 50 minutes total, with a few bursts of speed throughout. I'm not sure how I felt about this workout. It was fun to push the speed a little bit, but it felt very prescribed. Maybe I'm just not a fan of short sprints. My left quad also started to hurt during the running, which caused me to go easy on the leg section of the lift.

Friday:
My body was definitely feeling the effects of Thursday. My left quad felt better, but there were twinges of tightness in my right hamstring. Overall, though, felt more sore than damaged. In the morning, I headed down to the boathouse for 17km. As usual, I was the first one to launch and the last one back to the dock. The lightweight women's single is the slowest boat class, so I am always the slowest boat on the water. It can be really disheartening, especially on the days when I get back to the dock and everything has been put away and locked up. Today, I handled it pretty well, although I was pretty drained by the end of the row.

In the afternoon, I jogged down to the boathouse to warmup and met up with the rest of the team there. We had a timed run: four laps on a bridge-to-bridge course near the boathouse, just over 1.4 miles per lap. I had mapped the route at 1.2 miles, but we chose a slightly longer but less gravely route instead.  I managed to hold a pretty solid pace, finishing in 40 minutes flat. Between walking and running, I estimate I traveled around 14 miles on land today, in addition to my row. I ate accordingly!

Saturday:
This morning, we got to sleep in an extra hour or so before heading down to the boathouse to row forever. Actually, we only went 24km, and I sat in bow of our gold medal quad. It felt a lot shorter than rowing 20km in a single, and it probably took less time.


I was definitely tired at the end, but bringing Gatorade in the boat definitely helped prevent complete fatigue. However, I did go home and take a 3 hour nap!

Sunday:
I'm off to run a 5k race! There's a race around our local lake that costs $5 to enter. I raced it last summer and placed 2nd in my age category. Expect an update later!

This week's menu feature a number of leftovers, as well as a trip to the Eat Real Festival, about a mile from our apartment. Usually, we don't hear about these things until the last minute and have already eaten when we go. This time, we're planning ahead, so we can enjoy the food!

Otherwise, we are celebrating the transition to fall with the re-introduction of soup. (Cold soups still weird me out, and therefore soup is avoided for much of summer.)

1. Mexican sweet potato soup
2. Leftover vegetarian chili (in our freezer, from ages ago), with cornbread muffins on the side
3. Black lentils, leftover grilled eggplant, sauteed kale over rice with leftover peanut sauce: this dish was admittedly inspired by all of the delicious grain bowls at Cafe Gratitude
4. Fried rice with the leftover rice from #3
5. Thai tofu w/ long beans: we didn't get around to making this one last week
6. Grilled chicken (Dan), sauteed mushrooms (me), grilled broccoli, quinoa: we still need some sort of sauce for this one, maybe BBQ sauce for Dan, and mushroomy gravy for me
7. Eat Real Festival

I also came up with some lunch ideas:
- salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber (from the garden!), bell pepper, avocado, olives, salad dressing
- hard-boiled eggs, veggies sticks w/ peanut sauce
- hummus w/ pita triangles, fresh fruit
- tacos w/ leftover grilled veggies + scrambled eggs or black beans

A few of these dishes will also help us use up some pantry items, like the sweet potato soup, which uses nutritional yeast!

Gas burner + pepper = fire roasted pepper! Yum!

It has been almost a year since we moved into our apartment. Although we are undecided about continuing our lease for a variety of reasons, we are starting to think about whittling down the pantry.

First, it's great to just clean out old stuff once a year. Things like flour and spices don't last forever, and if they're not getting used up in a year, we should finish them and reclaim the pantry space.

Second, it'll force us to use different ingredients. For example, we have a lot of bread flour and black lentils. Homemade naan with lentil stew? Yes, please!

While we still plan to restock many of the basics, as well as most non-condiment refrigerator items, there are certain things we will try to use and won't plan to replace.

Here is a list of things in our pantry we need to use up. Creative ideas are welcome:
- canned beans (black, garbanzo)
- dried beans (black, garbanzo, black lentils, red lentils)
- rice
- quinoa
- oats (quick, rolled, steel cut)
- puffed rice
- popcorn
- potatoes
- pasta

- hamburger patties
- chicken breasts
- canned sardines
- cheese
- butter

- flours (bread, white, white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, cake)
- sweeteners (white sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar, honey, agave, corn syrup)
- wheat bran
- vital wheat gluten
- corn starch
- cocoa powder
- yeast
- corn muffin mix
- baking soda, powder
- seeds: chia, sesame, ground flax
- unsweetened chocolate
- vanilla, peppermint extracts
- spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, ginger, cumin, garlic powder, dill, chili powder, curry, onion flakes, thyme, nutritional yeast, sage, oregano, paprika, juniper berries, saffron, turmeric, cumin seeds)

- frozen fruit (bananas, berries, mango)
- dried prunes
- marshmallows
- chocolate pudding mix
- nutella
- peanut/almond butters
- jams

- condiments (gochujang, sriracha, sweet chili garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, vegetable oil, BBQ sauce, veggie stock concentrate, lime juice, salad dressing, mustard, mayo)

Much of this will be used by incorporating more spices and condiments into our meals. The beginning of fall baking season will also help with the plethora of baking supplies.

I'm most concerned about the ingredients I purchased before I really got my food intake under control--when I still thought it was ok to eat three desserts a day. Things like a pound of butter, and chocolate pudding mix, I'm afraid will all sit in the pantry forever.

I'm hoping that thinking a few months in advance will help me use these ingredients slowly enough to maintain a healthy diet. I also hope to pawn them off on friends who come over for meals--a lot of dessert becomes a little if you share!

Any great ideas for using these ingredients? Bonus points if I don't have to buy anything new, except fresh produce, milk, eggs, etc.

With the arrival of pumpkin lattes at our local Peets, it's official. Fall is here!

Of course, September and early October are some of the most beautiful, hottest months in the Bay Area. But after a summer filled with bountiful berries and stone fruit galore, we are ready to welcome the season of apples, grapes and pumpkin. It is time to trade citrus for warm spices. Let's break out our boots and get baking!

Our first can of pumpkin was multi-purpose, going into pumpkin granola, pumpkin syrup and pumpkin muffins.

Today, we celebrate muffins.

This is an old recipe, posted on Piquant Prose and forgotten. It is worth revisiting, over and over again. They are so easy to make it feels like cheating, and so delicious to eat you'll thank me for insisting on the jumbo muffin cups.

Go out and get some pumpkin. Restock your baking spices. Dust off the oven, and get ready for fall!

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Perfect Pumpkin Muffins
makes 6 jumbo muffins

2 eggs
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
0.5c oil
0.5c cold water
1c sugar
0.75t salt
1.5c whole wheat flour
0.25t baking powder
1t baking soda
spices: 1T cinnamon, 0.5t nutmeg, 0.5t cloves or allspice, 0.5t ginger

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Pour into jumbo muffins cups.
3. Bake at 325°F for 50 minutes.
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Last fall, I made a lot of applesauce. Slightly bruised apples were regularly on sale for 50 cents a pound or less at the farmer's market, so I would take them home and make a huge batch of sauce to eat.

Of course, by the end of fall, I was sick of applesauce. Problem, meet solution: use applesauce to make granola!

Turns out, this was a key in discovering how to make clustery granola! I don't know about you, but I think granola is worthless unless it has clusters. Without them, it's just a higher calorie version of toasted oats. Boring.

The liquid in the applesauce helps the oats create that goop that makes a hot bowl of oats so satisfying. The flaxseed meal creates more goop, and all that goop dries out in the oven, making nice big clusters. So to get clusters, add plenty of liquid!

After some experimentation and adaptation, I came up with this incredible, clustery, low fat, delicious pumpkin granola recipe.

It is almost infinitely adaptable. Don't have pumpkin? Substitute any standard baking liquid with some flavor: applesauce or other fruit puree, sweet potato puree, maple syrup (not quite so healthy), etc.

Here is the basic formula:
8 cups oats
0.25c flaxseed meal
spices/flavorants
2.5c liquid (water, applesauce, maple syrup, honey, corn syrup, pumpkin, etc.)
60-70g sugars (brown sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, honey, white sugar, sugar syrup, etc.)

Note that items can count towards both liquid and sugar categories. For example, 2T of honey is 2T of liquid and also has around 30g of sugar. (16 Tablespoons = 1 cup).

The granola isn't super sweet, but that's the way we like it. You can add less sugar, but make sure you taste it before it goes in the oven. If it isn't sweet enough, it will taste like crackers--grosser than unclustery oatmeal.

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Pumpkin Cluster F!@x Granola
makes not enough

8c (640g) rolled oats
0.25c (28g) flaxseed meal
3t ground ginger
2t cinnamon
0.25t cloves
0.25t nutmeg (freshly ground!!!)
1t chili powder
0.75t salt
2t vanilla
1c pumpkin puree
2T (42g) honey
3T (30g) brown sugar
1c water (or more)

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Because there is a lot of liquid, the granola has to cook long and low to evaporate all the liquid without burning the edges.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together, stirring to mix well.
3. Add the wet ingredients, stirring well again. The oats should all be wet. If not, add more water (or more pumpkin).
4. Spread onto 2 lined baking trays (you won't need all the space) into a 0.5 inch layer. There may be a few gaps, but it should be a pretty solid layer. Pretend these are going to be Nature Valley granola bars.
5. Press the granola down firmly, until the top is flat.
6. Put into the oven for 35 minutes. Stir. Really, you will need a spatula to flip large swaths of granola cluster.
7. Shake and stir every 15 minutes until the granola is either about to burn or getting thoroughly dried. It will probably take about 45 minutes, depending on how much water you added.
8. Cool the granola thoroughly, then break into (slightly) smaller pieces.
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We got into a rut. We have a few dishes that are adaptable to the season (e.g. stirfry, salad) that were becoming stars in our weekly menu rotation.

This week, we're shaking things up, with a bunch of new recipes. Some of them are involved, others are super simple.

Note: there are more than a week's worth of recipes here--they include some menu items from last week, since it wasn't a full week.

1. Oven roasted broccoli spears with fried eggs over toast
2. Salad with hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, carrots, tomato, lemon/garlic/oil dressing
3. Roasted poblano peppers, corn, black beans, tortillas, cheese and homemade salsa
4. Rice/lettuce wraps with thai chili peppers, carrots, cucumber, bell pepper, cilantro, green onion, shrimp and peanut sauce
5. Chard soup
6. Polenta with eggplant sauce (we are not making our own polenta..)
7. Thai tofu w/ market veggies
8. Soba noodles with mushrooms, cabbage and edamame
9. Wraps/pitas with hummus, arugula, grilled veggies

I try to eat healthy foods 90% of the time. I've been known to polish off a pint of ice cream, or gobble down a slice of chocolate cake by myself, but the vast majority of what I eat is healthy: fruits, veggies, nuts, grains, legumes, dairy, eggs, etc.

Here are a few of my tips for staying healthy:
1. It pays off to have willpower on the front end. Yes, it is incredibly tempting to throw Oreos, ice cream or chocolate bars into the grocery cart. But willpower just once at the store means you don't have to have willpower over and over again at home, when those desserts are calling your name from the cupboard.

2. Use a cart. Counterintuitive? Yes, until you think about it. A cart gives you more leisure to pick your fruits and vegetables carefully, and to actually read the nutrition facts on the items you purchase.

3. Along those same lines, I have criteria for packaged goods, and I read all of the nutrition facts to make sure those packaged goods meet my criteria. A sample:
- no trans fats or partially hydrogenated oil
- approximately equal grams of fat and protein (sorry, ice cream!)--only applies to packaged foods
- less than 20% sugar by weight, with great preference given to those items which are less than 10% sugar by weight (this mostly applies to cold cereals)
- 100% whole grain, wherever possible (a few notable exceptions: pasta and baguettes)
There are other softer criteria, as well, such as short ingredient lists. Looking for these factors has become so ingrained in my shopping behavior that I can glance at most items and tell if they pass.

4. Treat nuts as a treat. You know what tastes almost exactly like Nutella? Chewing three or four hazelnuts with one or two chocolate chips. Equally satisfying, a lot healthier. When I get hungry for something decadent and naughty, I usually reach for nuts first. Their fat content is very satisfying. Plus, because they are used in desserts a lot, they often remind me of dessert. Walnuts? Remind me of brownies. Almonds? Marzipan, or almond brittle.

5. Make silly rules. This is similar to number three, but these rules are set day by day to help stay on track. For example: today, I won't eat anything packaged with an 'm' in the name. Or I will only eat vegan foods, unless I make them myself. Or I will not use a knife today. All of these rules make you think twice before you eat anything, and sometimes that is enough to influence your choices for the better.

A little bit of effort of the front end makes a huge difference in what goes into your body. As a child, you can't choose what goes into the shopping cart, nor are you equipped with the knowledge to make good choices. However, in college and after, that choice is given to you.

It is a responsibility I'm still adjusting to, but the more I grocery shop, the better I get at it. In particular, every smart choice I make makes it easier to make the next smart choice. Sometimes all it takes is one change: buy the reduced fat crackers next time, or the whole wheat bread. Just leave the candy bar on the shelf, and your whole life could change.

On our last day in Oregon, we headed up to Portland to explore. Someday, we are likely to leave the Bay Area, just to experience another part of the world. We are in the (slow) process of interviewing cities.

Although we only had a few hours in the city, we tried to feel the vibe.

If you're from Oregon, I'm sure you understand that $3 for a pint of blackberries is absolutely obnoxious, since they grow like weeds on the side of the road. Dan and I set out with two hours and a few bins to prove just how obnoxious it was.

We returned from our foraging journey with a few scrapes and 30+ pounds of wild Oregon blackberries.

On Thursday, Dan and I packed our bags and headed to the airport. Two hours later, we landed at PDX, and a happy son was reunited with an equally happy father. (Mom showed up a few minutes later.)



We are spending a long weekend on the Oregon coast with Dan's parents to celebrate his birthday.

Here's what a typical vacation day looks like:

6:30AM wake up (slowly) and get into running clothes. (I put these out the night before so that I would actually go running.)



7:00AM cold cereal + banana + coffee (thanks, Jim!) for breakfast

7:30AM go running! I went out for a 15-minute warm-up loop out to the beach, stopped in at the house to go pee, and then headed out for another 50 minutes through the neighboring gated community. My iPod shuffle died with 15 minutes to go, so I finished my run in silence.

9:00AM snack + shower -- I got way sweatier than I was expecting to, as the sun came out during my run. Also, plugged in my shuffle.



11:00AM lunchtime! (I know, I just had a snack.) Dan and I shared veggies sticks and hummus, with black beans and tortillas on the side.

12:00PM Television! I love watching crime drama (CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, etc.) and we don't watch much TV at home, so it's a nice vacation treat.

2:30PM car trip. We drove out to one of the local towns and stopped in at a coffeehouse for chocolate cake and coffee. we also picked up a movie (Rango!) to watch.

4:45PM go running, again! Because I don't run a lot, the small, running-specific muscles that help stabilize my legs/knees/etc. get really tired after an hour of running. To prevent injury, I've been trying to split up my workouts into two shorter ones. Hopefully it works! I'm also super glad I got new running shoes--my vibrams aren't great with all of the rocks on the roads out here.

I had to borrow Dan's rash guard for my run--I didn't bring enough long sleeved shirts for the foggy weather.

The afternoon run involved a trail! There's a pretty long one with some sand and some densely packed grass about a mile away. It was a ton of fun to run, and I expect I'll be back. This run lasted about 30 minutes, plus some walking with Dan, who was coming back from a nature photo session.

5:30PM cool down, stretch and shower

6:30PM dinner! We grilled broccoli, asparagus and bell peppers, with a side of homemade whole wheat bread, and some grilled corn. There was also some steak and fish, but I passed and just enjoyed the A1 sauce on my broccoli. I polished off the cake from this afternoon for dessert. Yum!

7:30PM We spent awhile hanging around the table chatting, including a discussion of unsaturated vs. saturated fats, and some other organic chemistry lessons.. typical.

Afterwards, some blogging and then early to bed for another trail run in the morning!

What's your vacation guilty pleasure?

Dan and I have started playing a new game whenever we go on dates. It's a pretty easy game, and would be great for group events or dates.

Although summer squash is still fully in season, I've begun to see the first winter squashes popping up at the farmer's market.

It's not quite time to heat up the oven and process them (September is one of the hottest months here), but the sight has given me a serious hankering for butternut squash. So, in preparation, I decided to round up a selection of delicious looking recipes from around the internet.

Butternut Squash Curry
Butternut Squash and Chickpea Curry

Butternut Squash Risotto

Butternut Squash Lasagna

Veggie Chips  (the rest of the veggies look incredibly, too.. weekend project?)

Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

Poor Dan doesn't like butternut squash at all. Some of these aren't too complicated to make for lunches, maybe? Especially if I make a big batch and eat it all week.. which might be necessary given the size of butternut squashes.

A few months ago, Dan and I went down to Jack London Square for dinner. We first tried to go to Haven but didn't want to wait for a table, so we ended up going across the way to Bocanova.

This weekend, we finally made it back to Haven. It was a great decision!

The place is very modern chic--the perfect combination of rustic and industrial. We also love that they use the same plates that we do, locally made at Heath Ceramics, about an hour drive away.


Although I was a little bit skeptical that I'd be able to order a vegetarian entree, and was resigned to eating a side and an appetizer, their market vegetables didn't involve zucchini! Many restaurants have a Market Fish that rotates; Haven had a Market Vegetable dish, that involved Israeli couscous, fennel salad and charred cabbage, with plenty of butter. Incredible!

Dan had a chicken dish with seared avocado, corn and corn pudding. He ate all of it.

For dessert, we split the chocolate mousse cake. It was rich and decadent and not a bit too big.

Things we loved:
- The service was spectacular. Our food came quickly, but we never felt rushed. Our water glasses stayed full.
- The portions left us perfectly satisfied. As I was eating, I desperately wanted seconds. But at the conclusion of the meal, I was content with the amount I ate.
- The quality of the food was superb. Not only was each dish artfully presented, it was lovingly prepared.

Things we loved a little bit less:
- My dish had a LOT of butter in it. It was delicious, but I think it could have been equally delicious with at least 25% less butter.
- Their selection of non-alcoholic drinks was pretty underwhelming.
- For our coffee, they brought cream out in a little bowl. I am not capable of pouring gracefully from a bowl into a mug, and the spoon was definitely not big enough for scooping into the mug. Pretty, but not very practical.

Overall, we very much enjoyed the experience, and look forward to going back!

Have you ever looked at a restaurant menu and wanted to order everything? Sometimes, too many options can be really overwhelming.

When I was a kid, my solution was to always order the hamburger. (Love you, mom and dad!) If the restaurant didn't have a hamburger, I wasn't interested in eating there.

Giving up meat made eating out a lot simpler as well. It took visiting two vegetarian restaurants for me to appreciate it, but now I do. Most restaurants only have one or two vegetarian options, one of which usually involves either eggplant or zucchini--not my favorite ingredients. Suddenly, my decision is made.

At the very least, I've narrowed my options down significantly.

When we went to Greens, an all-vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco, and Cafe Gratitude, a vegan cafe in Santa Cruz, I was once again overwhelmed by my options. While it was a nice change to have so many options, it made me appreciate how much easier life is as a vegetarian!

Non-vegetarians often worry that giving up meat would limit what they could eat. Frankly, I think there are so many delicious things to eat that a few limits are really helpful! If I had other dietary restrictions, or was super picky, I might think differently. Right now, though, I'm loving the freedom!

Where am I? On a treadmill!

Recently, Ashley wrote a post about reasons to stop running. It reminded me of the many reasons why I keep coming back to the treadmill.

Yes, it's incredibly boring to run in place for an hour (or more). Still, almost every time I suit up for a run, I drag myself down to the gym and get on the treadmill.



Why? Here are my top six reasons:

1. There's a bathroom across the hall! I *ALWAYS* have to go pee during my run. When I ran a half-marathon, I had to stop 2 miles in--and yes, I went 10-minutes beforehand.

2. I hate carrying water, but I get so thirsty! I know they have those little waist pouches with teeny tiny water bottles. And the ones that strap onto your hands. But the treadmill has a cup holder, and I'd rather avoid carrying an extra 2 or 3 pounds on my run, if possible.

3. It keeps my competitive streak in check. When I run outside, I tend to go really fast--like, too fast. I get all hyped on the adrenaline of passing people, and the wind in my hair. And then, I absolutely die, usually about 10 minutes into the run. On the treadmill, I can force myself to pace out a warm-up, and a run.

4. No matter how far you go, when you turn around, you're home. I'm fit enough to run for two hours continuously, but sometimes my knees start to ache after an hour, or I get blisters, or something else goes wrong, completely unrelated to my fitness levels. In a boat, I know what I can push through, and what's likely to cause a longer term problem. Not so much running. I like the security of not having to run back home.

5. Music! I don't really like listening to music outside. There are so many cars, stoplights and people, that I feel very disconnected from my surroundings. I find it disorienting. On the treadmill, I can watch the people and cars out the window and listen to music.

6. The weather is better. I know I live in Northern California, so I don't really have a lot to complain about. Except I'm allergic to sunscreen, and NorCal happens to be very, very sunny. To run outside, especially during the summer months or the height of day, I have to cover up, wear a hat, and sometimes I still feel myself getting roasted after 30 minutes. Not pleasant.




Of course, there are a lot of reasons to run outside: it's more interesting, fresh air is lovely, it's easier to do interval work, the elevation can vary, you can do it anywhere, etc. Still, the treadmill almost always wins for me.

Do you prefer the gym or the great outdoors?

Today is my husband's birthday!

We make a lot of stirfries. They are delicious, easy and we live less than a mile from Chinatown (i.e. lots of cheap Asian produce at our local farmer's market).

Dan and I also both love rice.

Recently, these beautiful Thai peppers showed up at the market, reminding us both of a version of Szechuan broccoli that we'd had at a restaurant.

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So I googled Szechuan broccoli and the third recipe on the list is from Mama Pea at Peas and Thank You, one of the few blogs I read religiously. Not only that, but we had all of the ingredients on hand except maple syrup.

Dan made a double batch of the recipe, with extra ginger, and substituting sweet soy sauce (a sticky, molasses-y version of soy sauce) for the maple syrup. I imagine honey, molasses, brown sugar syrup or even corn syrup would work.

We added our whole peppers in lieu of red pepper flakes and fished them out before serving. The spice mellowed a lot in the fridge overnight.

 We used at least half of it as indicated in Mama Pea's recipe--over broiled broccoli.

The rest, we stuck in a jar and stashed in the fridge. The following day, inspiration struck, and we made this beauty. (Ok, doesn't look as delicious as it tasted. iPads aren't great for speed photo taking.)



Delicious! If you've ever made a stirfry, you don't really need a recipe. Cook the tofu as desired (we sauteed it in sesame oil and seeds until warmed and a bit brown), and set aside. Cook the veggies, chinese broccoli first, adding the bell pepper once the leaves have wilted. Combine veggies and tofu in the same pan, and add the sauce. Once everything is combined and warm, serve it over rice (or any grain of your choice).

Note: if you can't find chinese broccoli, save your broccoli stems from another night and use them with spinach, kale or any other leafy green.