Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Commit to Your Goals

Welp, you know what I'm going to say about this:

Being wholeheartedly dedicated to doing something comes fully-equipped with an ineffable force. Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get somewhere. When you’re fully committed to doing something, you have no choice but to do that thing. Counter-intuitively, having no option – where you can’t change your mind – subconsciously makes humans happier because they know part of their purpose.

I mean yeah, sometimes? It depends on the kind of person. If you're the kind of person who can't commit to anything, probably you'll feel better if you commit to something and see it through for some distance. If you're the kind of person who can't not commit to everything, I think you'll feel better if you quit almost everything except the few things that are really important to you. You want to keep your eyes on the prize, but also you want to check with yourself every now and then whether that's the prize you want, and if it isn't, you can quit.

Which pretty much boils down to the courage to commit, the serenity to quit, and the wisdom to know the difference. Or is it serenity to commit, courage to quit. Or did I just figure out that courage and serenity are the same thing.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Turkey Meatball Prep

turkey meatball prep

Man, am I getting good at making turkey meatballs. I figured out a few prep tricks that you might as well do up front, it makes the next couple batches so easy to throw together. I mean, this is because the canadian bacon I get comes eleven slices to the package. Why would you make a prime number of slices of anything, you can't divide that any way evenly. Anyway. I would do it this way even if there were twelve slices.

a bunch of parsley
1 package of canadian bacon
2-4 onions
4 garlic cloves

First, actually, sort through your parsley bunch and throw out any wilted pieces, rinse and shake dry. Whack off the stems, throw the parsley in a food processor and chop fine. I envisioned ending up with a quart-size box of parsley, but no. It was a small bunch, pretty much enough for two recipes. Set aside however much you're going to use for today's batch, a good handful, and freeze the rest in a container.

Next quarter the bacon, throw it in the food processor, and chop fine. There might be little bits of parsley in there, that's fine. Scrape it all into a saute pan over low heat. Then quarter the onions, you're aiming for an amount equivalent to four small onions. I had giant onions, so I used two this time. Throw the onions and garlic in the processor and pulse to chop, pay a little mind to not pureeing the onions. Which I did slightly. Add the onions to the pan and turn up the heat. Saute the bacon and onions until golden brown, about ten to twenty minutes. Divide the mixture into quarters, set aside one quarter for today's recipe and freeze the other three quarters in containers.

OKAY NOW, pretend you did all this and now you want to make turkey meatballs.

2-3 slices whole wheat bread, or about a cup of crumb
1/3 cup almond milk
1 egg
1 lb ground turkey
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Scoop out some frozen parsley into a large bowl, also thaw out a container of bacon and onion mixture and put that into the large bowl. Dice the bread and soak it in the almond milk in a small bowl. (And you know what, I also started a freezer container for bread crumbs. Ahhh the sweetie man will eat his way through a loaf of bread and when he gets to the heels, he starts a new loaf. I have had seventeen heels of bread in my fridge at times; so now I am going to use them for turkey meatballs, I dice them up and throw them in the freezer. So now I can scoop out a cup of crumb and soak it in almond milk.)

Beat the egg in the large bowl with the parsley and bacon, then add the turkey, one tablespoon of tomato paste (I also freeze extra tomato paste, so I took that out of the freezer too), and the squeezed-out bread, and mix it all together.

Divide the meat mixture into however many meatballs you want and put them on a baking sheet.

Stir together the other tablespoon of tomato paste and the olive oil in the same small bowl that you soaked the bread in, and brush the paste over the meatballs.

Bake the meatballs for twenty minutes until cooked through.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Greek Yogurt with Roasted Plums and Almonds

greek yogurt and roasted plums

These are yummy but if you're thinking, these kind of taste like prunes, well, plums are what prunes are. I like prunes but if you don't like prunes, be warned.

six plums
honey
olive oil
salt
thyme
greek yogurt
sliced almonds

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Halve and pit the plums, and arrange the halves cut side up in a 13 x 9 baking pan.

Thin about a tablespoon of honey with about a tablespoon of hot water in a small bowl. The hot water will melt the honey a bit, then whisk them together with a basting brush. Brush the thinned honey over the cut plum sides, using it all up.

Lightly drizzle the honeyed plums with a bit of olive oil, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and thyme.

Roast plums for twenty five minutes, turning the pan around in the oven halfway through if you think of it.

Let cool a bit, then plate three still warm halves right away with some greek yogurt and sliced almonds. The rest you can put away in the fridge to eat cold.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Eggplant Tomato Quinoa Gratin

eggplant tomato quinoa gratin

Ahhh the tomatoes and parmesan were begging for eggplant! If you can get zucchini-shaped eggplant instead of giant globe eggplant, it's easier to arrange the slices nicely. Be extra generous with the olive oil when you're roasting the eggplant.

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 pound plum tomatoes
1 1/2 pounds eggplant
olive oil
salt and black pepper
an onion
3 garlic cloves
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 500°F.

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil right in the skillet you're going to bake the gratin in, obviously it has to be ovenproof. Cover and reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it stand, still covered. This is actually twice as much quinoa as you need, you can put half in the fridge and then you just have to get the quinoa out of the fridge when you make this again next week.

Meanwhile slice tomatoes into 1/4-inch slices, generously drizzle a baking sheet with olive oil, arrange tomato slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast tomatoes for 10 minutes. Remove roasted tomatoes from sheet and set aside.

Meanwhile slice eggplant into 1/4-inch slices, drizzle baking sheet with more olive oil, arrange eggplant slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for 10 minutes. Flip eggplant slices, sprinkle with a bit more salt and pepper, and roast for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile dice the onion and mince the garlic cloves. Drizzle some more olive oil in the skillet over medium heat, then add onions and saute for about 10-15 minutes until translucent or for 20-25 minutes until caramelized if you're feeling that. Add garlic and saute for another minute until fragrant.

Beat eggs in a small bowl and stir in half the quinoa, onion, and a 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Put the other half of the quinoa in the fridge for later.

Drizzle even more olive oil into the skillet, and don't worry if there are burnt on bits of quinoa and onion. Spread half of the quinoa in the bottom of the skillet and arrange half of roasted eggplant over that, spread the rest of the quinoa over that and arrange the rest of the eggplant on top, then arrange the tomato slices around the eggplant. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan over everything and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Cauliflower Pesto Sweet Potato Gratin

cauliflower pesto sweet potato gratin

GEEZ, I must have made this five times before it got close to right. It started because I have all these great pasta with vegetable pesto recipes from last fall and I'm not eating pasta this fall, but the vegetable pestos are really easy and good, and potato and sweet potato are doing starch duty, so I thought what could be easier and more delicious than layering potato or sweet potato with vegetable pesto in a gratin. Well it's easy now, everything is tweaked and it all works. And it is delicious. It's not the prettiest dish in the world, it's what I call space food—a perfect balance of starchy vegetable and vegetable that can be reheated and scarfed down an hour before practice. Because obviously astronauts eat gratins in space, haha, all the layers floating apart, but what I mean is it's sort of engineered nutrition.

1 lb frozen cauliflower
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne
1 cup almond milk
4 sweet potatoes
1/4 cup butter
a bit more almond milk
another 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Bring water to a boil over high heat in a large saucepan. Add cauliflower and cook until tender, about five minutes. Drain.

Put the cauliflower, garlic, walnuts, parmesan cheese and cayenne into a food processor and process until roughly chopped. Add the almond milk and process until incorporated, you don't want it to be perfectly smooth. I mean, unless you do.

Peel and slice the sweet potatoes very thinly. Melt some butter in the microwave and get your brush. First brush your ovenproof skillet with butter, then lay down a layer of sweet potatoes and brush them with butter. Spread some cauliflower pesto over the buttered sweet potatoes, not too thick. Lay down another layer of sweet potatoes, brush with butter, and spread with pesto, you do this three more times. After the fifth layer of potatoes though, you should have just a little bit of pesto left. Mix that with whatever butter's leftover and a bit more almond milk and brush that all over the top layer, then sprinkle over a final layer of parmesan cheese.

Bake for forty minutes until the top is golden brown and the sweet potatoes are very tender when poked with a fork. Let cool a bit before slicing, then the slices come out better.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
 put yourself first

I'm sure I've said this before, it's like there are two kinds of people: people who are totally comfortable with being selfish and could stand to think about somebody else once in a while for the love of god, and people who aren't, and left to their own devices the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in this regard. The problem, as usual, is with partitives and comparatives, and the solution is specificity:

12. Put Yourself First

“If you’re an entrepreneur, your business relies heavily on your sleep and sanity. Make sure that you are putting yourself first by eating right, sleeping well and exercising (at a minimum). Remind yourself that those things are critical to thinking, creating and performing at your best, and make sure you stand firm to your commitments to all three.” -Jenny Blake, Life After College

Because you know, derby is kind of a tar pit! It can get you and drag you under, and not just you. We're all in this together like papa and mama and baby elephant at La Brea, which is the saddest diorama. Elephants are awesome. Everybody I know is awesome. And everybody I know is drowning in work a little bit, and not wanting to walk away and leave everybody else to drown, and so sort of all drowning together, and sometimes or eventually you do have to walk away, and if you walk away what's going to happen to your team or your league or to derby, that's a bear of a question, and what, do you think I have an answer to that bear?

Let's not even go there, let's just keep it at:

  • Are you eating right?
  • Are you sleeping well?
  • Are you exercising enough but not too much?
Let's not worry about the bear, let's get the bare minimum down. Because I kind of bet that not a lot of folks do, which means they're fighting the bear with low blood sugar and on four hours of sleep and maybe even, you know, it's a dancing bear and doesn't want to eat you.

As if "eating right" and "sleeping well" and "exercising enough" are the easiest things in the world. I didn't say easy though, I said important. Actually I didn't say important, but now I'm saying it. Yeah, you will do more important things in your life than eating and sleeping and exercising. I don't know what those things are for you or whether derby is included in them, so think to yourself how important they are to you and that's how important eating and sleeping and exercising is—for achieving those things, and enjoying them when you achieve them.

Do you know what I'm saying, though? There may be higher level things like, idk, spending an entire Sunday afternoon reading Game Of Thrones, that you should, arguably, do for yourself instead of doing that extra track duty or street teaming shift. Or arguably, that you sacrificed to do derby. I don't know about that. This I know, I'm trying to hold the line where I know what I know. Which is like this tiny footprint that you wouldn't think that you have to fight for, but you do. I do. When it's down to extra street team or eat, or email trainers or sleep, do yourself and everybody else a favor and hold your ground there at the very least.

And if you can't make it all work, here's a thought: don't do derby. Don't do anything that you can't do the work for, don't make anybody else do your work, don't be a dick.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Fall Work Wear
 dansko clogs

fall work wear

Fiiiiinally got a proper pair of work shoes, Dansko Professional Black Patent Leather Clogs. Do you want to hear my ridiculous shoe story? I have been needing to buy work shoes for, like, a year and a half, and last Saturday I finally achieve escape velocity from the house to go to the shoe store, or rather, the uniform store where they sell nurse's uniforms and shoes. Danksos are shoes for people who are on their feet all day like nurses. I'm not sure of the size since the last pair of Danskos I got was, as I like to date them for the sweetie man, "back when you were going out with Sirin," so like ten years ago? And my feet are weird, so I want to try them on. The clerk is the exact kind of butch that gives me the vapors and I am overwhelmed with the desire to please her, therapy fail. Like she's totally not paying attention to the sizes she's bringing out, I ask for a 36 and she brings me a 37 (too big) and a 35 (too small), and I'm about to buy the 37, JUST TO PLEASE HER, but I manage to timidly ask... are these 36? And she's like, No. She gets the 36 and clearly this is the right length, they seem okay but a little bit tight across. So I ask, are these regular or wide? And she says, Regular. I ask, do you have wide? And she says, No. And I say, "I'll take them." What? I mean, they almost fit. In the store. Actually wearing them at work, they hurt so bad by the end of the day that I'm exhausted. Maybe they can be stretched, or maybe I can just order a 36 wide online, actually first I try Zappos which I think I should have tried in the first place, and then I hit checkout and Zappos nicely says, these shoes are not in stock. RAGE. Finally I find The Walking Store online has one pair of 36W in stock, and I snap them up. Instead of returning the regulars, I'm trading them to Biggie for color. Have you seen my hair, by the way? I am a hair model for Biggie, so far I have had a long one length bob, a long layered bob, and this is a short layered bob. Biggie is on her feet all day and it turns out, she was just window shopping on the internet for these same shoes and they fit her perfectly.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Fried Eggs and Zucchini Noodles

fried eggs and zucchini noodles

I don't know if I'm weird, well no, I know that I'm weird, but anyway I have certain phrases that pop into my mind to go with certain actions, or images or sounds that go with certain feelings, like when I feel good I always hear the lapping sound of a rowboat. I've never even been on a rowboat. And whenever I'm trying to scrabble every last crispy bit of fried eggs out of a frying pan I think about God saying to Moses, "for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God."

What. I thought if I wrote it down, it would stop.

Despite the distressing ideation that goes with, this is the winner for fall breakfasts at home. I'm super proud when I can get vegetables into breakfast. I don't think of zucchini noodles as a pasta substitute, they don't taste like pasta at all if you ask me. They taste like zucchini, zucchini that you can twirl! Two zucchini may seem like a lot but will shrink down to one serving, so that's two impossible things for breakfast. Zucchini loves parmesan, and it also loves soaking up runny egg yolk.

two zucchini
butter
parmesan
two eggs

Heat oven to 200-300 degrees. Two hundred is probably fine, but my oven doesn't go that low.

Wash and trim the zucchini, then julienne them with a julienne peeler or with a knife if you have mad knife skillz or spiralize them with a spiralizer.

Saute the zucchini over medium high heat with a pat of butter until the noodles are separate and floppy. Put the zucchini on an ovenproof plate, sprinkle with parmesan, and put the plate in the oven while you fry your eggs.

Fry the eggs with a pat of butter also over medium high heat. I crack my eggs in the butter, let them set a bit, then dribble in a little water from the kettle and cover the skillet for a couple minutes; this cooks the tops of the eggs without having to flip them or wait forever.

Plate the eggs on top of the zucchini.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Summer Squash Tomato Quinoa Gratin

summer squash tomato quinoa gratin

I feel like summer squash is even milder than zucchini, so the extra time to caramelize the onions is worth it for the flavor.

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 pound plum tomatoes
1 1/2 pounds summer squash
olive oil
salt and black pepper
an onion
3 garlic cloves
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 500°F.

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil right in the skillet you're going to bake the gratin in, obviously it has to be ovenproof. Cover and reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it stand, still covered. This is actually twice as much quinoa as you need, you can put half in the fridge and then you just have to get the quinoa out of the fridge when you make this again next week.

Meanwhile slice tomatoes into 1/4-inch slices, generously drizzle a baking sheet with olive oil, arrange tomato slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast tomatoes for 10 minutes. Remove roasted tomatoes from sheet and set aside.

Meanwhile slice squash into 1/4-inch slices, drizzle baking sheet with more olive oil, arrange squash slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for 10 minutes. Flip squash slices, sprinkle with a bit more salt and pepper, and roast for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile dice the onion and mince the garlic cloves. Drizzle some more olive oil in the skillet over medium heat, then add onions and saute for about 10-15 minutes until translucent or for 20-25 minutes until caramelized if you're feeling that. Add garlic and saute for another minute until fragrant.

Beat eggs in a small bowl and stir in half the quinoa, onion, and a 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Put the other half of the quinoa in the fridge for later.

Drizzle even more olive oil into the skillet, and don't worry if there are burnt on bits of quinoa and onion. Spread half of the quinoa in the bottom of the skillet and arrange half of roasted squash over that, spread the rest of the quinoa over that and arrange the rest of the squash on top, then arrange the tomato slices around the squash. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan over everything and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Odibisi's Hat

odibisi

HNGGGH!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Mashed Potatoes and Beans

mashed potatoes and beans

Ack, it's cold! Who wants an ice cold glass of chocolate silk now, not me. (Although, hot chocolate...) You don't feel so bad biking home in the cold—well, I actually like biking in the cold—when you know that you have mashed potatoes in the fridge that you can heat up in a bowl and top with a pat of butter. Or if you want a bit more protein, a dollop of greek yogurt. Or a fried egg...

two russet potatoes
two cans of cannellini or pinto beans, or one of each

Generously salt water and bring to a boil in a large saucepan.

Scrub and quarter potatoes. Boil until fork tender, about fifteen minutes. I think. When the potatoes are done, dunk a heatproof glass measure and dip out about a cup of cooking water and then you can drain the potatoes.

Rinse and drain the beans. Then mash the beans with a potato masher, I do this right in the saucepan. Then add the potatoes back to the pan and mash them on top of the beans. Add back the cooking liquid to make the consistency as you like, I like fairly soft mashed potatoes and add back almost the whole cup of liquid.

I usually make these for a weekend breakfast, I made them more than once for last season's bout day breakfasts and also its sweet potato cousin. I make a lot and put away whatever I don't eat right then for post-workout snacking and happiness.

[ETA: Ha ha okay, it's awesome to eat mashed potatoes for a week but then you get ennui. You know what else is good, though? Green tea with almond milk, dates, and almonds. Pic TK. Or also, hey, greek yogurt with fruit and sliced almonds...]

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Teaching Myself Gangnam Style

p: if you hear this this sound:

tap tap TAP tap
tap tap TAP tap

p: you know what i'm doing.

m: lol

m: okay, good to know.

Avocado Kale Salad with Turkey Meatballs and Mango

avocado kale salad with turkey meatbals and mango

Sometime in August I started developing quinoa gratin recipes and stopped with quinoa salads, so I didn't have extra beans for green salad, what, I know, how hard is it to whisk up some vinaigrette and toss some beans in. It was just easier to eat a little more chicken, okay, and I liked my salads fine like that. So my summer green salad formula is officially avocado, romaine (because romaine keeps the best and is therefore the easiest and also the crunchiest), chicken, and fruit. And now my fall green salad formula is avocado, kale (which is also easy and crunchy, and hearty for fall), turkey meatballs, and fruit.

a bunch of kale
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil

per salad
an avocado
a mango
3 turkey meatballs

Stem, wash, and slice the kale and spin it dry in a salad spinner.

Whisk the vinegar with the oil in a large bowl. Add the kale to the vinaigrette, rubbing the vinaigrette into the kale. You will have a lot of dressed kale, grab a handful to eat now and put a bunch of handfuls into takealong boxes in the fridge. The freshest kale will be super crunchy and hearty, kale at the end of the week will be pleasingly broken down but still crunchy and good.

Per salad, put down a base of kale on your plate, peel, seed, and dice an avocado and a mango—my current favorite fruit— and pile on the avocado, mango, and turkey meatballs.

So obviously, it doesn't have to be turkey meatballs for protein. It can be chicken, if you're still rockin' the chicken, it can be salmon, it can be tuna, it can be sardines. And it doesn't have to be mango for fruit—like I said, tomato is very good—but something that stands up to the kale, which both mango and tomato do.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Greek Yogurt with Roasted Peaches and Almonds

greek yogurt with roasted peaches and almonds

It's like a chorus line in my house, all the excited hopeful foods are auditioning for a spot in the fall show. They are singing in the fridge, I can hear them. I'm sorry to say that slow cooker meat sauce did not get a callback, it was only okay. Foods that make the rotation have to perform! I'm eating them almost every day for thirteen weeks, they have to be really healthy first of all if I'm eating that much of them, they have to be really easy to make if I'm making them that much, and they have to really taste good if I'm going to be eating them for thirteen weeks.

Not one, but two singular sensations will be starring in breakfasts this fall. I can say two singular sensations if I want. One's for work, and the other's for home; this is the work breakfast, which has to be portable, which means hardboiled eggs in summer and poached eggs in winter, and greek yogurt in spring and fall.

six peaches
honey
olive oil
salt
thyme
greek yogurt
sliced almonds

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Halve and pit the peaches, and arrange the halves cut side up in a 13 x 9 baking pan. My twelve peach halves fit exactly three across and four down in my baking pan.

Here's the clever part: thin about a tablespoon of honey with about a tablespoon of hot water in a small bowl. The hot water will melt the honey a bit, then whisk them together with a basting brush. Brush the thinned honey over the cut peach sides, using it all up. This way the honey goes evenly over all the peaches.

Lightly drizzle the honeyed peaches with a bit of olive oil, and sprinkle with a bit of salt.

I horked this recipe from Joy the Baker's roasted plums recipe, and she says to also sprinkle the fruit with thyme. Which I think sounds fantastic, but I have been out of thyme for months. Well she did say fresh thyme, I could have gotten that. I am not a fresh herbs gal, though. When I replenish my dried thyme, I will be sprinkling it on my roasted fruit. [ETA: Yum, yes definitely, sprinkle with a little thyme. Or I'm sure cinnamon or nutmeg would also be good.]

Roast peaches for twenty five minutes, turning the pan around in the oven halfway through if you think of it.

Let cool a bit, then plate a couple of still warm halves right away with some greek yogurt and sliced almonds—seriously so good. The rest you can cut up and put away in the fridge, they're also really good cold.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Behold the Man

p: how can they possibly know that you can't dream of a face that you haven't seen?

p: how can they know all the faces that you dream?

p: who's to say that you don't take one face's eyes and another face's nose and make a new face?

p: which is basically what creativity is!

m: mashups.

p: ecce homo!

p: that face never existed before.

p: it does now.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Zucchini Tomato Quinoa Gratin

zucchini tomato quinoa gratin

Homely but easy and good tofu scramble and vegetable hash was going to get its turn as fall dinner, but zucchini rice gratin from smitten kitchen and swooped in and stole the show. Life is like that sometimes.

I did manage to make mine all in one skillet, plus one baking sheet. I mean, only one baking sheet fits into my oven at a time. So I didn't bother with foil at all, since you can't use foil with tomatoes. I was just extra generous with the olive oil, so cleanup wasn't really too bad and it's just the one sheet.

Also as you can see I make mine with quinoa, which is faster than rice. I did make it once with leftover rice and I have some wild rice in the pantry, so that will probably happen at some point.

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 pound plum tomatoes
1 1/2 pounds zucchini
olive oil
salt and black pepper
an onion
3 garlic cloves
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 500°F.

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil right in the skillet you're going to bake the gratin in, obviously it has to be ovenproof. Cover and reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it stand, still covered. This is actually twice as much quinoa as you need, you can put half in the fridge and then you just have to get the quinoa out of the fridge when you make this again next week.

Meanwhile slice tomatoes into 1/4-inch slices, generously drizzle a baking sheet with olive oil, arrange tomato slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast tomatoes for 10 minutes. Remove roasted tomatoes from sheet and set aside.

Meanwhile slice zucchini into 1/4-inch slices, drizzle baking sheet with more olive oil, arrange zucchini slices in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for 10 minutes. Flip zucchini slices, sprinkle with a bit more salt and pepper, and roast for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile dice the onion and mince the garlic cloves. Drizzle some more olive oil in the skillet over medium heat, then add onions and saute for about 10-15 minutes until translucent or for 20-25 minutes until caramelized if you're feeling that. Add garlic and saute for another minute until fragrant.

Beat eggs in a small bowl and stir in half the quinoa, onion, and a 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Put the other half of the quinoa in the fridge for later.

Drizzle even more olive oil into the skillet, and don't worry if there are burnt on bits of quinoa and onion. Spread half of the quinoa in the bottom of the skillet and arrange half of roasted zucchini over that, spread the rest of the quinoa over that and arrange the rest of the zucchini on top, then arrange the tomato slices around the zucchini. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan over everything and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Truth About Sitting Down

This was published by medicalbillingandcoding.org, which in itself is fascinating to me. It's a website where you can find out about careers in medical billing and coding, and they publish some cool infographics. Is that just as it seems, infographics as eye candy to lure you into to a rewarding career in medical billing and coding?

[ETA 5/25/13: The plot thickens, I received an email asking to remove my link to their site. What is that all about.]

Here's my take on the truth about sitting down: 1) Modern humans sit a lot, though by "modern humans" I mean that more people work in offices than in olden times and when you work in an office, you mostly sit and 1a) not everybody nowadays works in an office, Biggie who posed for my movement and muscles series is a hairdresser and is on her feet all day, which creates its own postural imbalances, and so not to be hyperobvious but 1b) there's nothing wrong with sitting per se and sitting itself isn't going to kill you, I don't want you to think that every single time you sit adds to your RealAge or anything like that. It's about the balance between sitting and moving around, sitting unbalanced is the problem. I know, people exaggerate to make a point and that's what they meant and in fact that's what they say in the above infographic. I worry though that people aren't going read the small print under the specter of death; but if I think that, why am I writing this.

Anyway.

2) The key datum, I think, is that sitting for more than 6 hours per day makes you 40% more likely to die within 15 years than somebody who sits for less than 3 hours, and I think the cheap shot is 2a) even if you exercise! Because 2b) if you look at the actual studies that this infographic is based on, your recommended 150 minutes per week of exercise does reduce your likelihood of an early death; it just doesn't cancel it entirely. Why would you give the impression that exercise is futile for the sake of a little drama, argh, for the love of god 2c) keep up the good work, not the least because 2d) if you're exercising or otherwise physically active outside of work, that leaves less time for sitting as a pastime.

3) I'm skipping over the panels about the terrible effects of sitting, already sold.

What I'm interested in is, what is to be done. Which to my mind will take a two-pronged approach:

4a) see about getting at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week per the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans

Which for me is three key and two recovery workouts per week, that's eight hours per week by the way. More than seven hours of exercise per week is the threshold for athletic or performance training, you can refresh yourself on the phases of training here. If you're training for fitness, you're doing between three and five moderate intensity workouts per week.

4b) see what you can do about breaking that six hours down to something, if not less than, closer to three hours of sitting per day

A modest proposal: our old friend, the pomodoro. You could do a lot worse than to set your pomodoro and work for 25 minutes, stand up and stretch for 5 minutes, repeat three more times, and then take a 15 minute walk or other exercise break. Repeat two times if you're non-exempt and three times if you're exempt, haha.

So yeah, my athletic friends who work in offices, I'm always exhorting you to recover and rest for pete's sake, but go ahead and do this off the books. Definitely do it, and definitely keep it light. I was feeling hypocritical about my little kettlebell workout, but it really is a little workout; it really is this, what Box calls an exercise snack. This goes for everybody, these are just little exercises and not even close to an ass-kicking workout. That's not what they're for, they're just to get you out of your chair and moving around. Little workouts are my favorite thing, I'm super happy to have a justification for them and will be posting more of them soon.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
 try time boxing

OMG my two favorite things, well, my top two favorite things are kittens and Batman:

I swear though, time and boxes are right after that, and I would have said that time in boxes was unbeatable, if somebody hadn't already combined kitten with Batman.

11. Try Time Boxing

“If you can offload common tasks, such as scheduling and other appointment setting, you’ll free up your time to focus on the most important tasks. Time boxing will allow you to apply laser focus to one project at a time.” -Jeff Slobotski, Silicon Prairie News

There's two ways that I use time boxing, first the way I think he's talking about, I "box" my routine tasks generally between breakfast and lunch. Between breakfast and lunch is when I'm supposed to make the bed and do the dishes and cook one of the three recipes that I'm going to be eating from all week, I realize that having between breakfast and lunch to do these things is kind of an embarrassment of riches, but also, this is part of the whole reason that I studied to get certified to start my own business as a personal trainer. But anyway, boxing like this saves me from having to decide every cotton-pickin' morning should I make the bed or should I tackle my to do list. Make the bed is at the top of the to do list, then wash the dishes, then cook and so forth. With the side benefit, which is actually the main benefit, that the bed is made and the dishes are washed and there's food to eat all week. What does that have to do with derby, what doesn't eating well and sleeping well have to do with derby? Not to mention having clean laundry. And also not to mention, by which I mean mention, that I would prioritize cutting down on decision fatigue and guilt for improving fitness and performance over, say, cutting down on ice cream. Aagh nothing makes me more insane than a goody two shoes wallowing in guilt like it makes her better than everybody else, I want to make the scales fall from her eyes and for her to suddenly see the guilt that she's feasting on like the Ben and Jerry's binge that she thinks she's too good for and to be bathed in shame. And by "her," I mean me circa 2010.

The other way I use time boxing is the way it's used in software development as an alternative to fixing scope. In a training word, periodization. So this is talking about a long-term project, whatever that is—to play derby, to get good at derby, to get faster and stronger, to stay fit for the rest of your life—and to break it down into, say, six week boxes is pretty typical, and set yourself to whatever task you can get done in six weeks. If it's not doable in six weeks, then pick something smaller that is doable in six weeks. Because rewrite the following in your head for derby or just fitness or life in general, "in the overwhelming majority of cases, scope in a software system is not only expendable; it is usually overblown and selected by people who do not accept accountability for, or have the knowledge needed for, fitting the work with the constraints." You have work to do within constraints. The way to fit it in and hold yourself accountable for your results is to extract and accomplish specific (measurable, attainable, relevant, timebound) goals from your overblown dream, not hating on dreams, but that dream's not gonna come true by itself.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Turkey Meatballs

turkey meatballs

Okay, let's talk turkey meatballs. These meatballs came to me by way of The Food In My Beard's Chicken Meatballs with Rice, Tomatoes, and a Fried Egg, which maybe went that way from smitten kitchen's chicken meatballs, which looks like pretty much the same recipe, which she credits to Gourmet. Ah the tangled web we weave, when we first practice to de... licious meatballs...

Mine also is pretty much the same recipe, whole wheat bread because that's what I have in the house, almond milk for the same reason, canadian bacon because the sweetie man doesn't know what pancetta is—there's a Northern Exposure darmok that covers the sweetie man buying all my groceries for me, which it occurs to me actually is about pancetta—and ground turkey also because that's easier to find.

2-3 slices whole wheat bread, or about a cup of crumb
1/3 cup almond milk
3 slices canadian bacon
1 onion
1 garlic clove
9 sprigs parsley
1 egg
1 lb ground turkey
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Dice the bread and soak it in the almond milk in a small bowl.

Finely chop the canadian bacon, onion, and garlic and saute for about ten minutes until softened. Also stem and finely chop the parsley.

Drain the excess milk out of the bread. You can beat the egg in the same small bowl, a few drops of almond milk isn't going to hurt. Then combine the onion mixture, bread, egg, turkey, and one tablespoon of the tomato paste in a large bowl.

Here it's easiest to divide the meat mixture into fourths and each fourth into fourths to form sixteen meatballs. But I kind of want three meatballs per serving, four is too many, which means divide the mixture into thirds and each third into fifths. I know, why can't I make an easy sixteen meatballs and just have the sweetie man eat one out of the oven. Becauuuuuse then the meatballs are smaller. Leave me alone, put the meatballs on a baking sheet.

Stir together the other tablespoon of tomato paste and the olive oil, hello, in the same small bowl that you had the almond milk and egg in, and brush the paste over the meatballs. In addition to a great rubber spatula, I also have a silicone brush that works great for this. I don't know why I have this brush. Oh, because I wanted to brush butter on my airpopped popcorn.

Bake the meatballs for twenty minutes until cooked through.

There's lots of ways to eat these meatballs, they look great with the roasted tomatoes and broccoli and the fried egg with the garlic chips like Food in My Beard does. I am starting with them on kale salad, which you can probably figure out yourself, but recipe TK anyway—

Monday, October 8, 2012

Frozen Grapes

m: auuuuugh...

m: auuuuugh...

m: auuuuugh...

m: ice cream headache...

m: only healthier...

Scrambled Eggs

scrambled eggs

Some lifehacker site a few weeks ago posted a top five list of tools to optimize your life, four of which I have managed so far to live without, and furthermore Brawla Poundstone and I agreed that our lives could hardly be optimal without our heat-safe rubber spatulas (pictured). I talk about all the things I left two of behind in the divorce, but I sure as darn did have the sense to take one of the spatulas.

Scrambled eggs are kind of a transitional summer to fall breakfast, for when I'm done with hardboiled eggs but not done yet with fruit for breakfast.

a pat of butter, or a dab of coconut oil
two eggs

Melt butter in a skillet over low heat.

Crack eggs into a small bowl and beat with a fork, and pour the beaten eggs over the butter in the skillet. Now what you do is let the eggs set up a bit and then push them around with the rubber spatula, let them set up and push them around, and so forth, until the eggs are cooked to your liking. I like mine pretty soft but not wet.

Friday, October 5, 2012

My Snack Plate
 chocolate silk and almonds

my snack plate

Kind of a perfect combo for a post-workout snack that couldn't be easier, almonds and a glass of chocolate silk. Or chocolate milk, if you drink milk.

Not gonna lie, I drink an immoderate amount of chocolate silk: that's a pint glass. I know I said that I don't count calories, except that sometimes I do as a sanity check. So a pint of chocolate silk is 280 calories plus, what, 200 calories for the almonds, speaking of calorie dense. So we're talking close to 500 calories for a snack, that's a pretty good-sized snack. Which is to say, a meal. Not real worried—say I'm shooting for 2000 daily calories, I eat four meals per day so 2000 total calories divided by 4 meals is 500 calories per meal; that's my basic rule of thumb, I did actually scale back from laying on the couch with the jar of almonds open on my stomach to get under the five hundred.

I said earlier that I get half of my dinner before my workout and half after, now you can see that caloriewise I actually get a whole meal before and a whole meal after. They just look like half portions because they're the calorie-densest meals I eat. So this is a little about knowing your food and adjusting for what it is with regard to how much room it takes up on your plate.

Whatever nice things you may say about chocolate milk, you're basically talking about a glass of sugar. A more nutritious glass of sugar than a Coke, but still. That's why I have it in the upper corner of my plate, which is probably more accurately "starch" but I'm gonna keep calling it grains for now to encourage myself to think about getting my starch from whole grains like brown rice and quinoa. But also as you know I put beans in that corner, and also potatoes, so perhaps I'm slouching toward a plate that's half fruits and vegetables, a quarter starchy vegetables, and a quarter protein...

[ETA: Now that the weather has turned cold, I guess I was so wild about drinking so much silk because I was hot and thirsty. I'm back down a jelly jar of milk, about eight ounces. This might also be a good time to note that you can burn out on a plate, mine are supposed to last thirteen weeks but you can tell that you're done with a plate when you're awake in bed ideating about all the mochi you can eat and that it's time for a new plate.]

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Actually, Last Week...

p: dammit there's a hole in my leggings.

p: but my boots are already onnnnn.

p: maybe i can just color it in with a sharpie.

 

::later, getting undressed::

p: WTF IS THIS BLACK SPOT ON MY KNEE??

p: oh, nevermind.

Beige, Navy, and Black

p: so my life is a LOT more difficult--

m: how so?

p: now that my blue leggings have holes in them.

p: now i have to wear black leggings with my blue skirts.

p: so unless i always wear black tops with my blue skirts, i have to put together three colors instead of two.

m: oh how confusing.

p: so does this look okaaay.

m: yes.

p: yay.

p: ironically though, there's a hole in these black leggings.

My Dinner Plate
 eggplant tomato rice gratin

my dinner plate

So dinner is when I fill the grains corner of my plate, this here is eggplant tomato rice gratin, recipes TK, though not exactly this recipe because I made this with leftover white rice from Chinese takeout we had and usually I make this with quinoa; there are also zucchini and summer squash versions. If I deconstructed this gratin, probably it would be about a quarter plate of vegetables. And half an egg, and a couple tablespoons of parmesan—light protein before workouts, and there's also protein in quinoa.

This is actually a useful representation of how calorie dense starch is compared to fruits and vegetables, and also portion size before a workout. You don't want a full plate of starch like my spaghetti plate, haha, because trust me that's way more calories than you bargained for, and you don't want a full plate of food before you work out, because trust me you don't want to work out on a full stomach. I swear every single practice somebody groans to me skating around during warmups, shouldn't have eaten dinner before practice. Your mileage, as always, may vary, but you want enough food to fuel your workout and not too much to weigh you down. I don't mean that too much food will literally weigh you down, I actually mean that your body diverts its blood supply to where it's needed and you want your blood going to your muscles and not your stomach when you work out. And it probably will go to your muscles not your stomach, which means you might get a stomachache during your workout.

So portionwise I always think to myself that I'm getting half my dinner before my workout and half after, because you know that your post-workout snack is totally important. You know that, right? You have a forty-five minute window after working out to refuel your muscles; you definitely want to eat, and pretty much immediately, after your workout but you don't want to stuff yourself for the same reason above about diverting your blood. I guess I should photograph my snack plate, brb.

You don't see starch on my other plates because I save starch for dinner. Starch is quick fuel for performance, you want fuel because, well, why wouldn't you want fuel, and you want quick because why wouldn't you want quick and because what quick means is that it's the simplest and easiest for your body to break down i.e., digest. You don't want your body to work hard at digestion, you want it to work out hard. So starch, specifically for this.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

My Lunch Plate
 avocado kale salad with mango and turkey meatballs

my lunch plate

If you were wondering whether healthy eating means that you have to give up being greedy, I present this picture. It's not enough to say that this is my fall lunch, it's my new favorite lunch of all time. You will see this again soon, properly recipified.

I meant to show the fruits and vegetables all piled on their half of the plate, but they wouldn't fit without falling over. So fine, three-quarters of my lunch plate is fruits and vegetables. Which is to say, half my lunch plate is vegetables and a healthy quarter is fruits. You know that avocado is a fruit, right? Mango is the other fruit, remember when I made that green salad with salmon and mandarin oranges? I was going to make that again and just couldn't get over the light syrup, and mangoes were on sale and around the same time I stumbled upon a tutorial for how to cut up a mango. Yatta! So now I'm obsessed with mangoes and sort of can't believe that eating avocado and mango together is even allowed, it's so good.

The fruit taking over the grains corner actually fairly represents my carb strategy, which perhaps I will write up as well.

You may have noticed, fats are not represented on MyPlate. I'll tell you where the fats are here, the kale is dressed with vinaigrette made with olive oil. A recipe of vinaigrette uses a quarter cup of olive oil, I think I got six servings of salad out of the whole bunch of kale; so something less than a tablespoon of olive oil in the salad. And that is a whole avocado, which honestly is more fat than fruit. And then whatever fat is in the turkey meatballs. So basically all the avocado you can eat—well, I limit myself to one avocado a day—and a little bit of other fat here and there, and you're covered for fats.

If I were to upgrade this, I could do tomato instead of mango. I mean, I have done this with tomato instead of mango and it's also very good. Tomato is also technically a fruit, but we don't have to get hung up on that. It's lower in sugar than mango, so that would be a way to cut my sugar further if I wanted. Or I could conceivably eat half the avocado and half the mango, grrr... easy, girl...


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

My Breakfast Plate
 scrambled eggs and fruit

my breakfast plate

Probably the first ten things you can think off the top of your head for breakfast are starch—cereal, toast, donut, bagel, blueberry muffin, oatmeal, pancakes, french toast, waffles, hash browns—which took me forever to break away from, because let's talk about how it's hard to organize food when you're not awake yet and how coffee and a blueberry muffin is like a little hug that you give yourself for being at work. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm never sarcastic. No seriously, never. Ironic, sometimes. I hate sarcasm, sarcasm is mean. Anyway also you can either carry a muffin on the train, or you can get it at Corner Bakery on your way to the elevator.

I made a long, slow transition from coffee and a blueberry muffin, to coffee and a cinnamon raisin bagel, to oatmeal with fruits and nuts, and then last fall to oatmeal with poached eggs—protein, hallelujah—and then this summer I finally got into fruit. I want to keep saying that it's a process, and you're okay if you're at coffee and a blueberry muffin. I envy you a little bit like when you meet somebody who says she just started watching Buffy. The Master! The Mayor! The Initiative! I liked Riley Finn, shut it.

Also can I say right off the bat that not every plate looks exactly like MyPlate, here I have a corner filled with protein and then half with fruit. Sometimes I have vegetables for breakfast. Mostly I have vegetables for lunch and dinner, though. And I leave off grains for breakfast, I only have grains for dinner. Is where I'm at with that. If you're not down with that, that's where you could put your piece of toast or whatever.

For work days, I have basically the above except hardboiled eggs because they're portable and I just grab a mason jar of fruit. Wait, what? How much of the fruit do I eat? Dude, the whole jar. I'm a work, I need a hug!

If I were to upgrade from here, I would swap out the fruit for vegetables. I mean, saying that makes me feel like stabbing somebody's hand with the fork that I'm eating my fruit with. It's interesting though, that's how I used to feel about blueberry muffins. Actually also I have an idea cooking for an amazing vegetable breakfast that I'm saving for when it gets cold out. I'm not looking forward to the cold, but I am looking forward to this breakfast...

[ETA: The fat in this picture is whatever's in the eggs, and actually I scrambled these eggs in coconut oil. Whenever somebody says you can't even taste the _____, I can always taste it. I can taste the tofu in tofu cheesecake, it's gross. I can definitely taste the coconut whenever I cook with coconut oil, and it's kind of delicious in eggs. Though butter is delicious, too.]

Monday, October 1, 2012

My Plates

So you will never get wack nutritional advice from me, because I'm not allowed by my certification and because I never want to think that hard. It's all epistemology in the end, right? It's not that I don't believe in or love science, I think I'm actually pretty scientific. I mean, I grabbed a pair of socks off the floor the other day and they were ginormous, my mind did an allemande left and a dosido about whether humidity could expand cotton four sizes larger, and then I realized they were MJ's socks. So sometimes, scientific like that. Otherwise though, I'm a pretty good empiricist and that's actually probably why I don't put too much stock in statistics or studies. If it works for me, that's what I need to know. If you're my client, I need to know what works for you. Though this kind of reminds me of this picture of the guy who built his business without government help, so I should say that I build most of my hypotheses from the well-caramelized fond of conventional wisdom.

usda my plate Which is basically what's allowed by my certification and which means USDA's Dietary Guidelines and MyPlate, which suits me fine because I think MyPlate is more or less okay and certainly better than some of the other nutrition graphics that I've lived through. It's way better than MyPyramid, which was the least helpful graphic ever. I know they were trying to fix the Food Pyramid, which was, like, a pyramid with carbs at the bottom. Hardly anything makes me feel old, but I felt old when diets stopped being about low fat and started being about low carb. Not that labeling bacon as low carb doesn't insult your intelligence less than labeling candy as low fat, but carbs were off the chain back then.

More or less okay means that I'm more okay with MyPlate being a pie chart, and also a plate, the better to visualize with, and less okay with that glass of dairy. I did a project about milk subsidies for my advertising major and you know that you can never unsee behind the curtain, and also approximately 95% of Asians are lactose intolerant. Which I have a crazy story about, maybe I already told you. Nevermind, it's off topic! Also what do you not get about a pie chart, and why is the milk blue.

Which is easily fixed by making it a glass of water! I feel like that was the subliminal suggestion of blue anyway, and then the glass is okay on its own and not figured in the chart. Also what is the deal with purple protein, I adjusted the hue to brown. It bugs me a little bit that "fruits," "vegetables," and "grains," which are foodstuffs, are on a chart with "protein," which is a macronutrient, but I'm leaving it like that because that actually is how I think about that corner of my plate, which if you think about it in the way that I think about things, justifies dairy getting its own glass even less. Meat, eggs, and dairy are all protein to me. I also get protein in whole grains and legumes, but I count those as grains.

myplate alla poppy

There's been a spurt of hits on my calorie checkup series from last year, nooo don't look at that. I'm officially over counting calories or grams of anything, I have it boiled down to two basic guidelines:

  1. Eat whole, unprocessed foods. Harvard made their own healthy eating chart because they don't trust people not to fill their plates with wonder bread and bacon. It's crammed with footnotes, silly Harvey! Footnotes are for squids! Though they did also fill their glass with water. It's not that hard, all you have to get is what whole and unprocessed means and the rest just follows.
  2. And now you just make your plate look like the plate in the picture. I won't say that it's easier said than done. I feel like easier said than done implies that it can't be done, which maybe I'm being paranoid about. I'm just saying, I'm totally capable of looking at the plate in the picture and making a plate that looks like this:

spaghetti with meat sauce

...and still thinking that it looks like the plate in the picture, I might add. It's the effect of motivation on perception. Not to mention that spaghetti is processed, and this isn't even whole wheat spaghetti. And yes, I made that plate just to be photographed and then I ate every bit of that spaghetti. I do still eat spaghetti, sometimes.

So I will just say that it takes a little doing to train your eyes to see your plate for what it is, and maybe it would help to see some real live plates? Like I hope it helps to keep seeing pictures of me in my same old sweats year after year, so you know that somebody isn't buying all new clothes every season. So stay tuned for my plates...