"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!

Welcome Back, Winter

One week ago: I went running in shorts and a t-shirt. It was a little cool for that, admittedly, but for running, it was comfortable.
Then, on Wednesday, this happened.




















Almost all the snow had melted! We could see the grass! The snow mountain that shields our parking spot from the sun had disappeared! Of course, that's not as much snow as we used to have. On Wednesday we got about 3-4" of the heavy, wet kind of snow you get this time of year. It would melt easily in a day or two, if the temperature would just climb above freezing. We'll have to wait until next week for that.

Our semesters at Western are shorter than they were in Indiana - 12 weeks, vs. 15. The semester feels shorter to begin with, but it's a weird sensation for the weather to be this wintry and to know we only have 3 weeks of school left (AGH!). At least we don't have that feeling like, "It's summer weather! Who cares about school, let's go outside and play in the sunshine!"

Enough about the snow. Let's talk quesadillas!


















John found this recipe on the New York times last week and we both immediately wanted to make it. A 1/4 cup lack beans, a 1/4 roasted red pepper (per serving), and an ounce of goat cheese. Delicious!


















The recipe makes a single serving, but it's easy to adapt to whatever ingredients and number of servings you'd like. We made it again the next night and added some mushrooms, plus some grated mozzarella/provolone cheese, since we were running low on the goat cheese. As long as you've already made or bought the roasted red pepper, these babies only take 5 or 6 minutes to throw together. Perfect for a school night.

Here's a link to the New York Times recipe!

Pre-Thanksgiving Potluck, 2010

The week before Thanksgiving, our friend Anthony invited people in our department over for a pre-Thanksgiving holiday potluck. John and I naturally decided to bring two foods that we love, but that we wouldn't want just hanging around the house for us to finish off ourselves.


















John made Alton Brown's recipe for green bean casserole. You can see (above) him putting the dredged onions in the oven for browning. No funyuns here! Also, side note, it turns out you can't get funyuns in Canada. Some of our classmates knew what we meant by funyuns, but others had never seen them. Weird.



















This recipe was labor intensive, and I'd like to publicly give John credit for doing the whole thing himself. I know I write the blog posts pretty much all the time, but he cooks a fair amount of what we make. We normally work as a team, but he wanted to make this all himself to show people that he knows how to cook - it's not just me giving him directions.


This casserole tasted amazing. It's like I'd never had green bean casserole. It's made from fresh ingredients, so you don't ingest all the chemicals in funyuns or in canned cream of mushroom soup that would be in the traditional version (not that there's anything wrong with that version!). But that means there's heavy cream and a lot of it in this recipe. I'm glad we could take it somewhere that everyone could have some without us having tons leftover.



















The same pretty much goes for the bread pudding that I brought. This is from a recipe that John's mom, Julie, sent me last year. She made it once when I first spent Christmas at their house and I was blown away! Anything almond flavored like this really knocks my socks off. The good thing is, it's not really that hard to make and it's a real crowd pleaser. It was completely eaten by the time we left the party (and I consumed a not-so-small portion of it myself, of course).




















One of the best parts of the recipe is the sauce, which is basically made of a stick of butter, lots of sugar, and amaretto. We had a bunch of it leftover, so I froze it and hope to bring it back out as the topping for something else someday.








Mmm butter, 1/2 and 1/2, and sugar, boiling together at last.











Julie's Bread Pudding with Amaretto Sauce

3 large eggs
4 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup melted butter
1 loaf French bread (ideally, stale)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Tear bread into small pieces. Butter a 9x13 pan.
Mix all ingredients and pour over bread, pushing bread into the liquid gently so bread can absorb it.

Bake until golden brown, approx. 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Check and add more time, depending on your oven.


Sauce
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 cup amaretto

Cook first three ingredients over medium heat. Bring to a rolling boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to cool. Add amaretto, stir to combine.

Serve in small dishes over warm bread pudding.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

This food processor, Li'l Choppy, is freaking changing our lives.




























Sure, we can make hummus, crunchy peanut butter, and regular pesto. But now that we've been payed to go to school again, we can afford the big jar of sun-dried tomatoes from Costco! The skies the limit!

We made the pesto according to this recipe, and put it on pasta, along with a quartered and sliced zucchini, and some sauteed mushrooms.




























I'm really into this shape of pasta right now. Sort of like a spiral macaroni, but it's thicker when cooked. It's perfect for rich sauces.





















It made for an outstanding dinner. I also put about 1.5 tbs of the pesto on some quinoa for a good school lunch the next day. Quinoa is making its way toward becoming a very regular part of my diet. Since I'm basically giving up meat, a little at a time, and I'm adding a lot of mileage to my runs, I started to wonder if I'm getting enough protein. But then I learned that quinoa is a complete protein - not unlike a meat. So I'm making an effort to eat some kind of quinoa dish for lunch a couple of days a week. It definitely helps that the girls in the office next to mine have a microwave, since some of those recipes are much better warmed up.


















This pasta dish was delicious, and would be perfect as a simple recipe to serve to guests. With Li'l Choppy's help, it comes together easily and makes a large amount of food.


Sun-dried Tomato Pesto
from Imafoodblog

• 1/2 cup packed basil leaves
• 1/2 cup toasted whole almonds*
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/4 tsp coarse salt
• 1 generous packed cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 1 cup olive oil

1. Drain your sun dried tomatoes, lightly rinse them, and then pat them dry with a paper towel.
2. Toast your almonds in a dry shallow pan. They will take about 10 minutes, and you will smell when they are done.
3. In a large food processor, combine the basil, toasted almonds, garlic, lemon zest, and salt. Process until coarsely chopped.
4. Add the sun dried tomatoes and parmesan cheese and process until the tomatoes are coarsely chopped.
5. Now stream in the olive oil slowly and process until the pesto comes together.
6. Serve immediately or store in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 6 weeks.

*Toasting the almonds seems like a pretty important step for this recipe. We were skeptical for a minute, but once the smell wafted from the oven, we knew it was key to the overall flavor.