GYM CHRISTMAS Days 6 and 7: No pain, no gain, and Taking Out the (Mental) Trash

I neglected to post a second time yesterday so today I'm covering two days worth of Gym Christmas activities.

Day 6: Turn Commercial Breaks into Fitness Breaks. Since we don't have cable, I just made a point of stretching and foam rolling during our ongoing marathon of Game of Thrones.

This Christmas, give yourself the gift of injury prevention. I highly recommend the foam rollers by Trigger Point. It hurts like you wouldn't believe, but it pays off. Day 6: check.

This morning, John and I went to the Christmas Pageant at my church because it is easily one of the most entertaining things I see all year. Little kids reading lines, pretending to be Mary and Joseph, carrying around a big stick with a donkey's head on it (to represent the donkey, duh), a kid dressed as one of the three kings holding a bar that said "GOLD" on it, just to make sure you know he's rich. It's non-stop laughs. Then the new rector invited the costumed children to stand all around him while he did communion and explained each part as he went. Note the kid running past the alter. He was dressed up like a horse and wandered around aimlessly during the entire pageant.

Today for Gym Christmas Day 7 I did Hazardous Waste Removal. For me that meant emptying all the trash in the house and cleaning up a bit because we're having people over for beer and board games tonight. I also decided to bake some Christmas cookies and chose a recipe for sandwich cookies. There's ganache in those cookies! Delicious. Also on the menu: French Onion Toasts from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (not shown).

For the more holistic aspect of hazardous waste, I focused on my dissertation. I have a great advisor and I was recently paired with a great mentor through the SMT abstract mentoring program. She and I will work together for a month or two while I prepare my SMT abstract that's due in January. She pointed out a few things that will dramatically change my project for the better. When something like that happens, it's easy to feel like the whole thing is going to unravel. But with a good advisor, it changes into something much more awesome. It also means I have more work to do. I spent some time today honing my outlines and creating a to-do list for the next two weeks that includes everything I have to do to write the fourth chapter, with new info in hand. Very exciting. It's nice to have an empowering day with my dissertation. Day 7: check.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

"All or Nothing at All."

That's the title of the O-Town song playing right now on my Songza playlist - "A 90s School Dance." I have no words for how much I love the 90s stations on Songza. Unbelievable. So far it's included Daydream/Mariah Carey, Spice Girls, and Aqua.

John is in Portland giving a paper. Meanwhile, I'm in that limbo stage where I've submitted my proposal but haven't defended it yet, so I basically have nothing to do. This is the first time I've had this much time on my hands since Christmas and I've been a little unsure about what to do with myself (except, oh yeah, all those things on my to-do list that I've put off for months).

So speaking of the 90s, tonight I watched Sleepless in Seattle on Netflix. I used a screenshot to gather further evidence that my friend James looks like Bill Pullman (yes, he's is in that movie). The resemblance is strongest in Independence Day, but I feel like he and Bill look a lot alike here, too - if only James's hair was a shade lighter.

See what I mean? 

John and I have also made a few more recipes from Appetite from Reduction, such as: 

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Toasted Cumin Seeds:

This was good, but a few avocado slices would make it great. To be fair, I think it's me, not the salad. I don't really like quinoa - there, I said it. You can take away my yuppy card now.

This Eggplant-Chickpea Curry, on the other hand lacked nothing. It was really easy and so good. The eggplant really does break down into a velvety kind of sauce for the chickpeas.

Tonight I made this Mushroom and Cannellini Paprikas. It's basically mushrooms and white beans cooked in broth and red wine. It wasn't as amazing as I hoped, and it's totally my fault for leaving out the fresh thyme. I'm anxious to try it again as directed because it was easy and so good. I ate it over pearl barley, as recommended....and then I ate some more barely on its own, right out of the pot. Home alone for the weekend! 

Last week we made tacos out of the Coriander Mushrooms and Tomatoes, from the section of the book on veggies/sides. The author recommends them as a taco filling, and they were perfect in that context, especially with a little cilantro on top. And yes, we added cheese (take my veg card away, too, while you're at it). They'd be great on their own without cheese!

Complete non-sequiter....

A few weeks ago I had my first macaron. Holy crap! Why did I ever wait?! They are amazing!

This made me really want to make them, but I need to acquire a candy thermometer first. Maybe after the wedding. They seem kind of complicated, but once you have the knack of them, it seems like the possibilities are endless!

And in completely unrelated, running news...
This time of year, the weather alternates between fabulous and crap. Here are some pics I took after the crap weather days from last week:

             

I'm completely soaking wet in both of those pictures because I had to run in the rain a few times. Other days, it's been in the 50s and sunny - pretty much the best running weather ever. 

I'm running in the Forest City 10k next week, and I realized that I will have run this race (or race series, 5K or 10K) more than any other race ever - four consecutive years. At this point, I have a race plan, and I also have a back up plan. 

Goal #1: New PR. I'll have the fancy new gps watch to help me keep track of how I'm doing during the race. I'll write out splits ahead of time. I know the course well; I know not to go out too fast (easily done since the first 2K are downhill) and to save something for the hill on Talbot St. in the last 2k. I can visualize it easily.

Goal #2 Run a strong race without being sick.

I may have to ditch goal #1 the day of, we'll see. This training cycle has been more sporadic than normal because I've going out of town twice, and then gotten sick right after each trip. On the other hand, I've lifted weights and worked on speed more consistently than ever before. 

Really, I just need to stay flexible mentally since the weather is all over the place this time of year. It could be 70 degrees and sunny, or it could snow. That's what happened this week, anyways - 72 on Thursday, snow today. I know I can handle either of those, if I have a good attitude. John, Ian, and Matthew are running the 5k an hour prior to my race, so I will get to watch and cheer for them and get into the race spirit. 

What about you? Any upcoming races or new recipes? 
Enjoy the last few days of April!

Gym Christmas Days 12 and 13

Yeah, I missed a day of blogging. Since I turned in my second directed study and then hosted a party last night, I don't feel too bad about it. Also it's hard to feel like your work outs are that important after what happened in CT yesterday. Here's yesterday and today's Gym Christmas updates. 

Gym Christmas Day 12!

Work out: 2k swim. 

I did basically the same work out I tend to do, except there were no pull buoys, so I made an adjustment: 

• 400m freestyle warm up
• 6 X 200ms, alternating swimming and kicking (no pulling). 
• 400m free cool down. 

Finals week is a great time to swim or do anything at the gym really. I think swimming once a week has been really good for my brainz. 

GYMGO: I checked off a Get Wet box that didn't really advance my GYMGO chances.

Then, John and I had some UWO friends over to decorate "Gender Non-Specific Gingerbread Persons," as Matthew likes to call them. I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen's Family Cookbook, and cookie cutters that my Aunt Becky gave me two summers ago - including a couple of turkeys and menorahs. 

Let's count gingerbread cookies and dough as the thing I ate.

The one menorah was turned into a martini glass, about 6 o'clock in this picture.

And one person made this very attractive Ginger Pope.

Gym Christmas Day 13!

Work out: 3-ish mile run with John around the neighborhood. Based on my perceived level of effort, I'd say we did more like 3.2 or so, since it was more like a tempo run. But we didn't map the route before or after, we just ran around for 32 minutes.

GYMGO: Socialcize, aka, GYMGO #2! Woo hoo!

Thing I ate today: definitely no more gingerbreads. I sent the leftovers home with our friends. But I did a healthy portion of the greek olive hummus I got at the store this week. Mmmm olives in hummus.

November Foods 2011

Instead of a bunch of separate food posts, here's a round up of recipes we tried and enjoyed this fall.

First up: Vegan Broccoli Cheese Pasta Bake from Daily Garnish.

















It's amazing how blended tofu turns into a creamy sauce for this dish. You can use pretty much any shaped pasta and whatever green veggies you had on hand, though broccoli works extremely well. Our only complaint was that this didn't reheat very well the next day. The tofu on the pasta gets kind of hard, even though it was totally creamy the first time. But if you're feeding a large group, I would recommend it.

Next: Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup from Giada (Food Network).

















My friend Katie sent me the recipe for this and I knew we'd both love it. It's basically a lot of sweet potato and broth, but then you mix in marscapone and it turns into magic. I think subbing almond milk and some Earth Balance would be a good way to make this vegan, and I almost tried it (but then I wanted to buy the cheese, so...you know what happened). We will definitely make it again.


ON TO DESSERT!

Numero 3: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows from the PPK.

















These. are. amazing. I made them for a get together at Bryn and Djillian's house, and they were gone well before I left. I think next time I would make them a little smaller, since some of them were quite large. They are only slightly more involved than a regular cookie, in that you have to roll the peanut butter part into balls and then cover it with the chocolate to make one giant ball, but really, it's pretty fool proof. I'm looking for another excuse to make them because, seriously, these are the best cookies I've made all year.


Four: Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.
























This recipe isn't on the PPK site, though they do have three other cupcakes up there. I suspect that if you google it, you could find the real thing. They have corn flour and almond meal in them and it gives them a little bit of a gritty texture. The cayenne pepper also gives them a little kick - nothing strong, just a bit - because apparently that's what Mexican hot chocolate tastes like. I've made a couple other recipes from this book, but these are by far my favorite.


Cinque: (Vegan) Pumpkin Pie Brownies, also from the PPK.

















I baked these a little longer than the directions called for, and I'm not sure if it made a difference. The final direction is to chill them for an hour and a half before serving, and at that point the pumpkin layer on top was fully set and DELICIOUS. I love these brownies! One of the taste testers said that they have the consistency of a cheese cake. I kind of went on dessert overkill last week, so I froze individual servings of these brownies. I'm optimistic that they will still be good after being frozen.

Six: Mashed Potatoes with Sage and Rosemary and White Gravy from Daily Garnish.
















Not a dessert, but I did serve these and the brownies along with a few other items on American Thanksgiving. We had a couple friends over for a casual meal and these potatoes were a hit. They have mashed apples in them that add the perfect amount of sweetness. We will probably make them again at Christmas!


And finally, chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

























This recipe is from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and I first made it the day after we got El Mixo 3000 from Costco (we've been through so much since then, El Mixolito!). Unfortunately I baked them a few minutes too long and they were a little brown. Normally this wouldn't stop me from eating them or giving them away, but they were for a church fundraiser, and they're supposed to look nice so people will buy them. So I did what anyone would do - combine a little melted chocolate with a little milk, dip 'em, and cover them with Christmas cheer. Done and done. I think they sold well!

That's that for fall foods. I'm so proud that this list even includes two non-dessert recipes. It's that time of year again. I have lots more Christmas stuff to write about. In the mean time, it's after December 1st, so crank up the volume on the Christmas music!

Sweet Beach - Port Stanley, ON

As I mentioned here, I went with John and Lauren to our friend's new cafe in Port Stanley, Ontario: Sweet Beach.

Our friend Meg opened Sweet Beach earlier this summer. It's a really cute little place on William Street in Port Stanley. If you've ever been to Port Stanley, you've probably been on William St. - it's the one that leads straight to the main beach in town. Meg's location is fabulous, and the cafe appeals to people like me who would like a food option other than fries when they visit Lake Erie. The other big restaurant on the same street is Mackie's, which is kind of a Port Stanley tradition for a lot of people. They sell fries, fast food stuff, and ice cream. It's not there's anything wrong with that, but it's nice to have the choice of something else.







Here's Meg with their display case of delicious baked goods.
































Meg has a nice variety of baked goods: muffins, cookies, ham & cheese croissant, etc. Lots of yummy stuff, and she bakes it fresh every day.









Chocolate silk cake.













Sweet date squares.














Sweet Beach has the only soft serve ice cream in Port Stanley and it is seriously some good soft serve. She also has a ton of mix-ins so you can order a Sweet Storm - their version of a flurry/blizzard kind of thing.


















One of the perks of having a year-round place like this is the coffee - Meg has several kinds of organic, fair-trade coffee brewing daily, plus this row of pretty teas. You can also buy the coffee by the pound to take home.






















John and I had such a good time visiting Sweet Beach and we will definitely be back!




















Note: just a reminder, this ain't no fancy blog. I wasn't paid or given any sort of compensation for this post, I just like Meg and Sweet Beach a lot.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last week I decided I wanted to send some cookies to one of my favorite cousins, Halley.






Here she is with her fiance, Josh. I'm so happy that both my girl cousins have really great fiances.















She eats vegan, and I love that about her because it means I have a food ally in my family for when I don't want to eat meat.








Sad doggies watching Halley and her mom back out of the driveway.
















In an unrelated note, I finally got to meet her dog earlier this year - Minnie, the 100 lb great dane (shown here with my Aunt Becky's dog, Phoebe).







Left to right: me, my cousin Jessica, and Halley.



















I searched around for a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe and settled on one from Post Punk Kitchen. It was one of the only ones I could find that didn't involve egg replacer - not that I'm trying to avoid it, exactly, but I didn't have any and I'm not sure yet where to find it. This one turned out to be perfect and I've already made it two other times! I hope they tasted good by the time they reached Halley in Chicago, but you know, stale cookies are good when heated up and dipped in your favorite alterna-milk.

Check out these bad boys. They taste like magic.


























Did I mention this recipe only takes one bowl?



















Instead of posting the whole thing, I'm just going to link to the recipe. If you're so interested, check out their website. They have a lot of awesome food to share.

Click here!

Melted Snowmen Cookies

This week as I was reading my food blogs I came across a post about using marshmallows to make melted snowman cookies. It didn't really look too difficult and after I watched about 10 youtube videos about piping with royal icing, I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

For various reasons, however, I got kind of lazy. Instead of making royal icing in a few colors I just bought some cookie decorating supplies. What could go wrong?! This is a moment of foreshadowing: we learned that gel icing tubes are probably not right for this kind of detail. Still, the regular white icing we used worked fairly well and I'm pretty sure all of it is vegan. So if you made some vegan sugar cookies, this would translate fairly easily (making royal icing vegan surely involves lots of chemicals, but apparently no animal parts).




The set up.











Part of the point was to use up a very old package of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix, and in order to make them big enough, I was only able to get 5 cookies out of it (the fifth didn't survive the transition from cookie sheet to cooling rack). Still (more foreshadowing), the gel icing doesn't look super appetizing, so it's not like these are actually going to get eaten, and I think our attention spans held out just long enough to do all 4.









Gillian came over to watch a movie and decorate with us.







That's my little snowman, just after I gave him eyes. "Purple" turned out to be a sort of light blue, and it pretty much made our snowmen look possessed. The gel didn't really hold its shape very well, so their stick arms kind of bloated up.
















Here's Gillian's, before his face was finished. Check out those creepy "purple" eyes!
















John decorated the fourth cookie. As he says, in fairness, he had the most practice. But this fourth cookie is the only one that I think looks endearing, as intended.
















Look how much mine looks like a scary clown. "Merry Christmas, boys and girls! AHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
















John's first snowman is even scarier. Note how his eyes are oozing down his face, and he's apparently having a nose bleed.















John's second snowman just looks pleasant in comparison to our demonic ones.






















Love the ear muffs. Here's the whole gang:
















After the gel sort of spread we decided that Gillian's (far left) looks as though his throat was slit, with blood dripping down. I think with royal icing and finer tip they would have turned out fine, and the whole thing was pretty fun! I guess I have a certain habit of making Christmas desserts look evil - recall last year's gingerbread robot monsters.


Since I didn't really bake any of this from scratch, here are some links, including a very clear tutorial on how to make these snowmen:

Post with pictures and instructions
Snowman Cookie Tutorial

American Thanksgiving, 2010

Naturally, John and I don't get a day off for American Thanksgiving. Since I'm doing an independent study this semester, I can feel like I have a "day off" any time I want, except that then I would feel really guilty and behind my imaginary deadline. This year, we marked the American version of Thanksgiving by staying at home to work on papers and cook fairly normal, American Thanksgiving fare.

Since John and I don't really buy meat in Canada (because of the expense), we went with a meatless Thanksgiving and ended up using a few different vegan recipes from this website, which I love. The author over there had a couple different tofu preparations that looked delicious, and I ended up choosing the one I did because it involved making gravy, that was too goo to pass up.

So here are the things I made, some of which were for that day in particular, and some for other occasions.

Pumpkin Chocolate Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World.





Delicious.












Those were meant to be dessert after the holiday meal, and I think I'm the only one who had any room left to eat them. Also, they're great heated up in the microwave the next day.


Molasses Spice Cookies, from America's Test Kitchen Family Cook Book.



















Don't believe the recipe when it says this makes 2 dozen cookies - it made more than 2 and a half, and they weren't small, neither. I gave half of it to a local holiday bake sale and brought the other half for my students on Black Friday. One of my colleagues said these are better than the same cookie at Starbucks. Ahem.

Then we set the table and our friend Gwen came over for dinner.

















With just three people to feed, I tried not to let the menu planning get out of control (as I'm wont to do). We had three dishes, gravy, and the cupcakes. It was kind of perfect because I stuffed my face (especially with potatoes) but I didn't eat my weight in three kinds of potatoes.




















Here's what we served:

• Steamed green beans, with margarine, sea salt and pepper
• Crash Hot Potatoes (I could eat these every. day.)
• Pan-Fried Tofu with Mushroom Gravy, from fatfreevegan.com.
  

It was sort of hard to explain the tofu recipe to John until I made an analogy to chicken-fried steak. Then he was on board. This was a delicious recipe, and it reheats in the oven well. The breading is delicate, since it's just flour and some herbs. Our guest (who told me in advance that she would try anything once) said if I hadn't told her ahead of time, she would have thought it was chicken. The chicken seasoning is a pretty crucial ingredient for making it so good. I seriously couldn't wait to have this again the next night.

As for the gravy, our guest also told us that mushrooms are the one food she absolutely abhors, so we left them out of the gravy. Still, it was delicious and came together easily. I think if you added some finely chopped and sauteed celery, and maybe some bread cubes, it would taste just like regular stuffing. The mushrooms would make it even better and I hope we try that again. John and I were putting the gravy on everything on the plate by the end of the meal. I was concerned that it all might taste overly like soy, but it didn't at all.

I have no illusions that what we ate was "healthy" just because it was vegan. Fried and breaded tofu may not have have as much fat as similarly prepared beef, but it's still high in fat. I just figured it was a cheaper (and just slightly healthier) thing to eat in place of making a turkey or buying a cut of meat. This meal was a good example of how vegan cooking can still be somewhat indulgent and super flavorful when you want to splurge on the calories a little. We won't make it again right away, since you know, it's fatty and for a special occasion, but we will definitely make this tofu again.

I know I'm late, but I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, whenever you might have celebrated it!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Some of you may have known that we had a few...dislikes about our neighbor, the woman who lived below us in our current apartment. Thankfully, she moved out while were gone! The new neighbors have brought a lot of changes to Barry Place, including free laundry for us.




















As a way of thanking them for the laundry, getting things off on the right foot, and buying their children's love, we made them a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies.

I searched around my saved recipes for a good chocolate chip cookie recipe, since I've never been that sold on one in particular. This recipe from Erin's Food Files came up and it looked perfect to me, as I prefer a cakey, thicker cookie. In reading the post I learned that Erin wasn't so wild about this recipe herself, but it really appealed to me, and it got rave reviews from everyone who ate them.





















I think the recipe made about 3 dozen good sized cookies. I made the last two batches a little bigger in order to use the dough faster, so I probably could have made 5 or 6 more if I'd tried. If I ever make this for a smaller group of people I'll probably halve it, to keep from having cookies in the apartment...just...starting at me.


Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Erin's Food Files.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.