Friday, August 31, 2012

Blog Break

domozuna

Domozuna says, Poppy is on blog break until September 21!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

State of the Blog
 summer 2012

So you know the best decision I've ever made for this blog is to take a twenty day break from the first through the twentieth of the last month of every quarter, and start up again on the first day of every season, so now before I go on break, I'm going to end with a little state of the blog report.

This here blog.

Welp.

So you also know that I roughly write about SYSTEMS on Monday, Fashion on Tuesday, Gear on Wednesday, Fitness on Thursday, and Food on Friday; but if I don't have anything to say about systems or fashion or gear or fitness, I write about food all week and then it's breakfast on Monday, lunch on Tuesday, snack on Wednesday, dinner on Thursday, and drink on Friday. Ish. These aren't rules, they're guidelines, which sounds so dumb to say, but they really are, like guidelines, like coordinates in the terrifying open space of that blank piece of paper. I also think of them as strings on a guitar. Though I guess in space no one can hear you play the guitar. Really basically, blogging is exactly like playing a guitar in space. But anyway, I can pluck this string or that string, in this order or that order, you know, like that. If you're drawing a blank about what to blog about, just saying, does your guitar have strings.

I have too many labels, though. I have to clean them up. I did also read somewhere that labels for blog posts is so nineties, I'm supposed to have a search function. And also I'm so behind on linking back to my posts from flickr. I need an intern.

Five posts per week is a lot, I'm not exactly sure how I managed to keep up with that. Probably all those movement and muscle writeups, otherwise known as studying for my certification exam. I dropped Thursdays this summer, fitness honestly is the hardest thing to blog about. Which seems ironic, being that's what I do. But actually not ironic, because doing is the best way to do fitness. I mean, right? It's motion in three dimensions, actually four dimensions if you count duration. It's most effective and easiest for me to show you in person, and then in descending order of effectiveness and in ascending order of ease, in a video, in photos, in writing.

I am melting my brain trying to process the difference between writing instructions for food and writing instructions for fitness. There's something, but it's not coming together. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

But, my point. Is. As I get busier as a trainer, I might blog less. Or I might blog more! I think it will depend on what it turns out that my clients need organized for them, this is the whole reason why I have my guitar strung the way it is. To organize things for myself, and why do I want them organized. So then that's done and I don't have to do it over and over, and I can do what I want. It just so happens that what I want to do quite often is organize things...

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Increase Flow Experiences

Flow, yeah, I've known about flow, read the book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a name that I most certainly just cut and pasted, have felt myself hysterical in the warmth and hopeless in the freezing cold of, as Heidi Klum says, "one day you are in, the next day you are out," talked and talked with Myra about being calmer about being in or out, and also the practical matter of, if I'm going to be lost in something, could it be something that pays the bills.


Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still. It’s when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you become one with the task. Action and awareness are merged. You’re not hungry, sleepy, or emotional. You’re just completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing. Nothing is distracting you or competing for your focus.
I wish I could say that I just didn't know where the time went when I was writing my screenplay, it was like flying on the wings of Thalia, except that it was like how Julia Roberts knows that she slept with the enemy for three years, seven months, six days. I mean, I lose time blogging. But back to paying the bills, I haven't figured out how to make blogging do that. Like all of the things they tell you to do to make blogging pay the bills just make me aware of time again.

But what I do lose time over, have always lost time over, is the very fabric of time itself ::reverb:: itself itself. I could work on my charts and calendars until the cows come home and after they've gone to bed. And I just started this really intense timetracker. I mean, not because I'm demented. Because I'm starting this business, right? I need to know how long it takes to do things so I know how much to charge for them. So these days I'm actually getting off the couch just so I have something interesting to put down in my timetracker. It's really akin to keeping a food diary in that you just automatically eat better because you're too ashamed to write down junk, I don't want to find out at the end of the week that thirty percent of my life goes to facebook.

But also, hey, I have my first client! Two clients, I'm training them together. They're getting my exclusive first responders rate and I'm getting to figure out how this all works, which is where the timetracker came in. Like I had a good meeting with them and realized afterward at home that there was nothing abstract about coming up with their training plan, this was a concrete task that had to be done by me by Monday. So I set about it, and the next thing I knew, it was 2:00 AM and the sweetie man was quizzing me entirely asleep about when I needed to be woken up the next day, the answer to which was 8:00 AM because I was leading SkateFit, and there are supposed to be rules about me getting eight hours of sleep. "This is a nightmare," I said to Odie, who's always awake when I'm awake, funny how that works out, "you know how I am when I'm working out a workout plan, once I get started, I can't stop," adding in my scorpion voice, "it's in my nature," and he wriggled, which how he nods because his body is one big head. Which is when I realized that this was the opposite of a nightmare, and in fact there was a check in my wallet that went with this thing that I just do. My god, it's like being paid for sleeping and eating.

So last night I was feeling good about knowing what I did every minute last week and thinking that, what, the shit hit the fan in my life around February 2003. Not saying that a lot of awesome things haven't happened in the last ten years, but jeebus, my mom died (2003), my dad died (2004), I quit my job (2005), I got divorced (2006), my sister's cancer came back (2007), my sister died (2010), I had a nervous breakdown (2011)... so you know, I decided way back that in the scope of things, if I couldn't manage to floss, welp. I think just this year I got back to flossing in the morning, but I was still going to bed without brushing my teeth. I know, gross. Don't think too hard about the fact that the whole time I've been writing this blog, I haven't been brushing my teeth before bed. I mean, I brush when I get up.

But last night, I wrapped up my work and entered the time in my timetracker. And then I flossed. And then I brushed. (It took fifteen minutes.)

If I get hit by a bus today, oh well! At least my teeth will be clean!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Basic Mayonnaise

basic mayonnaise

For Biggie's birthday I made yellow cake cupcakes, three egg yolks, with chocolate frosting, four egg whites and also a pound of butter. When I make frosting I do not fuck around. And mayonnaise, one egg yolk, WIN!

Probably should have warned the sweetie man when I offered him the beater that it was mayonnaise not frosting though.

one egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil

Whisk together egg yolk, mustard, salt, cayenne, and vinegar in a small mixing bowl. Whisk in the olive oil a drop at a time, you are looking for it to emulsify like vinaigrette, only this will be thicker.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Forty Five

forty five

p: i have to ask you an important question.

m: okayy.

p: i've been thinking as much as i wish i was an elf, i'm really a wizard.

m: why do you wish you were an elf?

p: oh you know, because elves are the best.

m: elves aren't the best.

p: well, they're the prettiest.

p: they shoot bow and arrows.

p: they're naturally skinny and they can eat all the carbs they want.

m: they are pretty.

m: but dwarves make shit.

p: do you want to be a dwarf?

m: i am a dwarf. there's no want.

p: do you think i'm a wizard?

m: what makes you a wizard?

p: well you know, a wizard is sort of alone.

m: aw.

p: i mean, except for his dwarf best friend.

::smooches::

p: i mean, a wizard has friends.

p: but you know what i mean, a wizard is sort of a solitary weird old guy.

m: i guess you're a wizard because you're a lot older than most of the people you hang out with.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
  remember your friends?

Everybody gets this, right? Anybody who's said "I can't, I have derby" or anybody who has a derby widow...

9. Remember Your Friends?

“Many entrepreneurs I talk to often think about how much time off that their peers have because of their cushy corporate jobs. Entrepreneurs should try creating similar schedules as well so that they can have proper work-life balance. If corporations can make it happen, entrepreneurs can too!” -Danny Wong, Blank Label Group, Inc.

It kind of seems like this guy's not saying remember your friends so much as remember your friends' schedules, and take them! We do not sow! No, I kid. I just started watching Game of Thrones. There's more to life than being a Greyjoy. I hope you think more of your friends than this! I think probably he does. Like which came first, the copy or the headline. Usually the copy, right? Probably somebody didn't quite match the label to the jar.

Really what's this all about, entrepreneur or skater or crafter, all of this is just about being busy and how to fit things in: eating, exercising, piano lessons, Facebook, volunteer hours street teaming track duty, laundry, groceries, rest and recovery... oh and, your friends.

So I read this thing about the difference between therapy and meditation, where therapy is like taking everything out of your closet and looking it all over and deciding what to throw out and what to put back and generally putting it back in a more functional fashion, and where meditation is like putting shelves into the closet and some stuff doesn't fit with the shelves suddenly in there and gets forced out. I bring this up because, well, I really think derby is meditation in a lot of ways, but in this particular way it's like shelves that suddenly get put in your closet and stuff gets forced out. Like certain friends, here's the part where I make everybody paranoid. Let's assume that anybody in this category as it relates to me isn't reading my blog, though. So yeah, all of a sudden you don't see your friends as much, or at all, and let's not assume that's necessarily bad. Maybe some of your friends are assholes. Maybe you didn't know that they're assholes. Suddenly having no time helps you figure out who the assholes were, they're the ones you don't have time for anymore.

But let us presume that you did have a few good friends before derby, and you will of course make new friends through derby, and as the song goes, one is silver and the other gold. I mean, you want to keep your good friends because good friends are good. But friends not in derby are also good, if only for balance and not just to sell tickets for god's sake.

I have a whole theory about friends, actually, of course I do. I mean, keep in mind that I'm the girl who doesn't believe in unconditional love. I adapted this from my first therapist, I think it was originally a theory for how to find your soulmate. Like you want your soulmate to have as many if not all of the below qualities, but it's probably demented to want your friends to have all of these qualities, which actually is what Tilda Swinton thinks about soulmates, so anyway. I think it's useful to think in terms of these qualities because it kind of clarifies what itch a certain person scratches for you, and that helps you know what that relationship is about.

qualityrole
doingcompanion
likingfriend
touchingcomforter
desiringlover
teachingmentor
livingpartner
enduringfamily

So like, perfect example, the girls that you practice with three to five times per week, the quality that you have for each other is that you do something together, you're companions. Somebody can be just that for you; and if you stop doing that thing and you don't spend time together anymore, it's totally cool.

When you truly like somebody and, say, share mind with them, you're friends and you have more of a bond than just doing this thing together. Even if that's how it started.

Touching seems weird, but humans do have a need to be touched. Think if you have a friend who's really good for hugs, this is what that's about. That person is your comforter. But also, this is as good an area as any to introduce the idea that any of these qualities has its own Evil Spock version. Like inappropriate touching is discomfiting, right?

A lover is somebody you desire, which is about sex, and I guess also love. Blah blah.

Teaching, actually, is the other red flag area for me. Inappropriate teaching, augh. It's awesome to have a mentor, but it's personal! People who jump uninvited into a mentoring relationship, why don't you just take off your clothes and jump right into bed. I would seriously be less grossed out by that, that's how gross it is. I'm not saying that sex is gross! Sex with you is gross.

Your partner is somebody you can live with, somebody you can keep house with. Or alternately, somebody you can run a business with. Which if you think about it, a household is.

Last but not least, the sweetie man and I worked on these verbs together and agreed that enduring is what family does for each other. Haha. Small f family, maybe not your actual family. All the other qualities are conditional, but family is as close to unconditional as I can understand.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Summer Wear

beach party

Except for the cami bra, I got nothing for summer wear. I did get a bathing suit, pictured right. Ha ha, Sassy took this picture of Biggie giving Roe a haircut at the WCR beach party and there I am. I just learned how to hula hoop this summer, at Shanna's wedding, which is why I bought this bathing suit, because I didn't think to pack my old bathing suit. I was due for a new bathing suit though, my old bathing suit was already old when I wore it four years ago to B's birthday beach party and the bra clasp disintegrated, and the clever ladies put me back together with a carabiner, and I've been wearing it like that, held together with the carabiner and then with some tie-dyed t-shirt yarn, ever since.

I think though sometimes there needs to be somebody who says, I didn't buy any new clothes this season. I'm wearing all the same clothes as last season. Old Navy tank tops, stretch knit miniskirts from Target and stretch denim miniskirts from Old Navy again, black or blue leggings, and Dansko black patent leather sandals for work, white and black tank tops with my name screened on, black leggings and boxer briefs, no show socks, and gym shoes for play, surgered tank tops, Selena Gomez short shorts and whatever these sandals are, Josef Siebel, that were my sister's for pastime. I did cut down some of my t-shirts into new-to-me tank tops, I realized that I only ever wear tank tops in summer and really only switch to t-shirts when it's cool enough to wear a long sleeved t-shirt layered underneath. So anything too snug for that got cut up, meaning my three Dinosaur Comics t-shirts, which I managed to turn into two Dinosaur Comics tank tops, because I cut the armholes too low on Return To The Moon And Don't Forget The Chicks This Time and tried to repair it with some fancy corset lacing, which is when I decided that I'm sort of over fancy corset lacing. I was sad. Not about the corset lacing, the shirt was one of my favorites. I had to sit on my fingers to keep from ordering a new one, and told myself that life is about the second law of thermodynamics and energy or favorite t-shirts escaping from inefficient systems. I shall endeavor to incorporate the pieces into a tote bag.

Do you know what I mean, though? Don't get me wrong, I love fashion. Or well, I love fashion for me. I probably don't love fashion the way a person who loves fashion loves fashion. But anyway, blogs, you know, if they're not outright selling you something, they want to be showing you something, blogs exist to be looked at. And I'm not faulting anybody, I'm just sometimes aware that the pace that we look at things is really far ahead of the pace that we can actually acquire things, let alone use them up. And not that everybody, if anybody, really tries to go shot for shot with what they look at, but I'm also sometimes aware of a subtle acceleration in the works. And I thought I would just say, I'm not going that fast. And then if you have it solidly in your mind that you don't need all the things all the time, you ask yourself Why am I looking at them.

Monday, August 20, 2012

I Just Want To Be Alive

Incidentally, I had an epiphany about recovery workouts, a couple Sundays ago, when I finally had an actual Sunday at home to tidy the front room. I've been meaning to weed out my books for, you know, two or three years, and blah blah kind of the notion of assigning rooms to days of the week is that this is the day to do whatever needs doing in this room, because part of the reason that the books haven't been getting done has been the screaming panic that I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS, THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER THINGS THAT I HAVE TO BE DOING, which is how my living room looks like the set for Sanford and Son. So I can say to myself, calm down. This is the day, look at the chart. So Sunday I started on the books. I was bending over and lifting boxes of books, and my back started to hurt. And I thought to myself, you know a better movement for bend and lift than this! I basically want to build my training practice around the five basic movements: squat, lunge, push, pull, and rotate. And squat, in other words, is bend and lift. And by the way lunge in other words is single leg movement, also known as walk and climb stairs. There will be lots more about this later. Anyway, amazingly, duh, it's way easier to lift a box of books if you hinge your hips, engage your abs, bend your knees, and lift with your legs. And you know what, an hour, two hours of greasing the groove through proper bend and lift movements, that's your recovery workout right there. I mean, right? Recovery workouts are pretty much exactly this, going through the motions without breaking a sweat.

And I cleaned a lot of psychic junk off my bookshelves, I'm just not going to learn oil painting ever. And now all of my dumbbells have been rescued from under the pantry shelves where all they were doing was gathering gross amounts of dust and attracting ants. Flock of birds, stone, check.

I need to say that less. It's so hostile. Poor birds.

I could say ants. I am in a war with ants. Ants, though, so hardworking.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Quinoa Salad with Navy Beans, Kale, and Caramelized Onions

quinoa salad with kale, navy beans, and caramelized onions

I meant to use all five of the onions that have been in the pantry all summer for this, but three of them turned out to be hollow paper lanterns, their oniony insides having fed the long pale green fingers of the next generation. It still tasted pretty good with just two onions, but more wouldn't hurt.

Sauteeing is a little preview of fall, and also notice that I'm cooking the onions and the quinoa in the same pan as a part of my neverending dish reduction initiative, but it also happens to marry the flavors pretty well.

3-4 onions
olive oil
3 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
one can navy beans
a bunch of kale
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water

Peel, halve, and slice the onions. Heat oil in a large saucepan over low heat, add the onions, and let them cook until caramelized. At first you can leave the onions to brown by themselves, stirring occasionally, and then towards the end, stirring constantly until they are are evenly browned.

Meanwhile measure vinegar into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and pepper. Drizzle the olive oil over the vinegar and whisk it in. Rinse and drain the navy beans and marinate them in the vinaigrette.

Trim and finely slice the kale. If you made a double recipe of pinto beans, put away about two cups for green salads. Toss the kale by the handful with the rest of the navy beans and vinaigrette, I use my hands for this and rub the vinaigrette into the kale.

When the onions are done, add them to the kale and beans.

Put the quinoa and water in the same pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits. Lower heat and simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat, fluff it up a bit, and add it to the marinated beans and vegetables.

Very good slightly warm, also good cold from the refrigerator with a little bit of sriracha or salsa to wake the flavors up.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Shark Week

p: i can't really lean forward for smooches this week.

p: so you will have to come more than half way.

p: it doesn't mean that i don't love you.

m: that's good to know.

p: also i will not be laughing as much at your jokes.

m: that's okay, they're not that funny.

p: haha no, you are funny. ow.

p: if i hold here, maybe i can laugh a bit.

p: hahaha.

p: the problem is, i'm pretty funny.

Honey Jar

honey jar

In mason, no one can hear you scream.

(And ants can't smell you.)

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Camisole Surgery: Cami Bra

cami bra

I don't expect this will be much use to you unless you went into camisole tops in a big way in the early aughts like I did. I really have no idea why I needed so many camisole tops.

Probably also not much use if you have actual breasts that need support like I don't. Actually this arose because I hate wearing proper bras except for work, I've had it highlighted on my chart for like a year to buy some training or juniors or whatever cheap comfy bras for pastime wear, and then I was cleaning out my closet and I was like, you mean like these dozen camisole tops with shelf bras that I'm about to throw out only shorter? So lop, I roughly measured down five or so inches from the top seam and took off the bottom of the tank with my rotary cutter.

Very comfy, actually more comfy than when they were whole tops. I think because they were too short, now I don't have to always fuss with pulling them down.

Monday, August 13, 2012

A Hero Can Be Anyone

odie in his batman costume

Friday, August 10, 2012

Quinoa Salad with Pinto Beans, Summer Squash, and Green Bell

quinoa salad with pinto beans, squash, and green bell pepper

I got a little mixey-matchy with my pepper colors, green bell pepper with yellow summer squash and yellow bell pepper with green zucchini, but you know what, green bell pepper is sort of bland. Red bell pepper would be better, I think. Also I would definitely put some aromatics in the vinaigrette with squash and with zucchini, they're both pretty mild and could use the flavor boost.

3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
one can pinto beans
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2-3 summer squash
1 green red bell pepper

Measure vinegar into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and a little bit of minced aromatics like onion or shallot or garlic if desired. Drizzle the olive oil over the vinegar and whisk it in. Rinse and drain the pinto beans and marinate them in the vinaigrette.

Trim and dice the squash and pepper. If you made a double recipe of pinto beans, put away about two cups for green salads. Toss the squash and pepper with the rest of the pinto beans and vinaigrette.

Put the quinoa and water in a pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat, fluff it up a bit, and add it to the marinated beans and vegetables.

Very good slightly warm, also good cold from the refrigerator with a little bit of sriracha or salsa to wake the flavors up.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Pickled Onion Jar

pickled onion jar

So this solves a problem with the zucchini and summer squash quinoa salads, which are a little bit bland. I find adding raw onion to vinaigrette too strong, though. And also if I can't use up the whole onion, I have a problem using just a piece of the onion. So this is great and it couldn't be easier, you pickle a whole onion and then just fork out what you need, mince it up, and whisk it into your vinaigrette or whatever. Also you have a pickled garlic clove floating in there that you could use whenever. It's basically the pickled onion recipe from Salt and Fat, except that I have mulling spices here that I've never used, so I just threw those in instead.

red onion
garlic clove
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
palmful of mulling spices

Peel, halve, and slice onion, and peel garlic. I peel garlic by smashing it, which I think also releases more garlic flavor.

Put everything into a saucepan, bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Let cool, put into a mason jar, and refrigerate.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Summer Fitness Plan Check-In

Summer fitness is going swimmingly, no actually, I have been in water this summer, if you're just tuning in, I do not swim, but anyway, I am more or less following my original plan but with more Sundays at the beach:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
front room bedroom
kitchen
WORK
 
bedroom
kitchen
WORK
 
bedroom
kitchen
SkateFit
Review & Plan HOBBY WORK
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
 
bathroom
 
PASTIME
beach
KettleBox
 
PASTIME
 
MMS RowStrike
 
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
PASTIME
 
Blocking
 
PASTIME
 
C Team
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Actually what's most true about a fitness plan is its ebb and flow, I've talked a bit about periodization and that comes in long, medium, and short forms. Long-term periodization is what I wrote about earlier, what you do over a year—e.g., January through May is my playing season, June through August is my postseason, September through December is my preseason—and short-term periodization is what you see here, what you do on a weekly basis, your three key and two recovery and two rest days. Medium-term periodization is the ebb and flow from week to week; so all of it is like fiction or jazz, rhythms within rhythms, like life itself. Aliveness is what this is about. Contrary perhaps to popular belief, the point is not to train ourselves to death but to train ourselves to live!

Less fruitily, this is what it looks like in chart form. So you can see there are key and recovery and rest days, which add up to key and recovery and rest weeks. I love how the first five weeks of summer went: a rest week, a recovery week, a key week, a recovery week, and a rest week. I wouldn't have minded repeating that pattern, but the next week I was preparing for an audition to be a cardio kickboxing instructor and was kickboxing every other day—not every day though, which I was super proud of myself for— so that was a key week, really intense actually, then a recovery week, then a rest week. I'm in the middle of what was supposed to be a three week brick starring SkateFit, but last week's SkateFit was barely attended and my trainers fell through for this week so I have to sub. So then I got training's approval to scale down SkateFit leading into preseason, I thought when I planned this, oh, people will do five weeks of SkateForm and then they'll be in shape for five weeks of SkateFit. But really what happened was people who weren't busy with travel season did five weeks of, you know, summer. Which is totally fine! But the way it is, SkateFit isn't the right kind of practice to get folks back into the swing of things. And I could use the recovery practices because oh hello, another cardio kick audition.

Home team practices resume after Labor Day! TFFY!

Monday, August 6, 2012

It Goes Like This
 tidying the kitchen and cutting up fruit

p: grrmp

p: stupid cantaloupe surrounded by stupid dishes

p: why don't you cut yourself up

::pours a glass of coffee::

p: i mean, i could eat.

p: what am i saying, i have to eat.

::puts eggs on the stove::

p: blrrgh, i know where this is going

::puts on apron and washes the dishes::

::cantaloupe looks sexy::

p: oop, eggs.

::puts lid on eggs and sets timer::

p: every time

::cuts up cantaloupe::

::puts cantaloupe in a bowl and into mason jars::

p:oop, eggs.

::sits down to eat hardboiled eggs and cantaloupe with iced coffee, BEST COMBO::

Later in the week, grabbing a mason jar of cantaloupe and a fork:

p: i am so good at life.

I'm not kidding. Give yourself occasion just three times a week to say that you're good at life, reinforced by cantaloupe. It's a confidence builder, believe—

Also when you sprinkle salt on your eggs, sometimes a little salt falls on the cantaloupe or watermelon or mango or whatever below and that is really good.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Quinoa Salad with Red Beans, Zucchini, and Yellow Bell Pepper

quinoa salad with red beans, zucchini, and yellow bell pepper

I'm tweaking these recipes as I convert them from pasta to quinoa, the pasta version of this had corn instead of yellow bell pepper. Which was clever because you could cook the corn at the last minute with the pasta, there's no way I'm going to dirty another pot just for some corn. I guess I could stir the corn into the quinoa about halfway through? Eh. I like the yellow bell pepper! It's crunchy and fresh.

Oh I guess I put peas with zucchini, and corn with summer squash. Why would I have done that, obviously you want yellow with the green and green with the yellow. For the contrast. What. Well, I fixed it.

Remember you can double the marinated beans and set half of them aside for green salads later!

3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
one can red beans
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2-3 zucchini
1 yellow bell pepper

Measure vinegar into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and a little bit of minced aromatics like onion or shallot or garlic if desired. Drizzle the olive oil over the vinegar and whisk it in. Rinse and drain the red beans and marinate them in the vinaigrette.

Trim and dice the zucchini and pepper. If you made a double recipe of red beans, put away about two cups for green salads. Toss the zucchini and pepper with the rest of the red beans and vinaigrette.

Put the quinoa and water in a pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat, fluff it up a bit, and add it to the marinated beans and vegetables.

Very good slightly warm, also good cold from the refrigerator with a little bit of sriracha or salsa to wake the flavors up.