Egressions #63-64

63. Maybe this will happen? Via Mom, What's For Dinner..
64. If it does, it will be with this! Via My Fancy Pantry.

IDK, cauliflower crust pizza. Cauliflower crust? Would I ever go to so much trouble?

State of the Blog spring 2013

p: "i love you, man."
m: bromos.

It's been a good spring, I had fun writing this season. I like doing the egressions, they let a little air in around here.

My stats blooped up a little bit, I'm typically getting 200+ hits per day nowadays. Now and again I'm getting a 400+ day, so my monthly stats finally went over eight thousand, like, today.

It might not follow now that I'm gaining a little momentum that I think I'm going to take a break, more than my usual break. I might take a summer break. I'm not sure.

It's just that this blog is not my main thing. I write this blog 1) because I'm an introvert, honestly I blog like other people go out to bars, like this is me being social, 2) as a resource for myself, I really do cook from my blog and otherwise think out loud about things that I'm trying to get organized like my pathetic clothes, but as it happens 2a) I also leave all this lying around as a collateral resource for anybody who might find anything interesting or useful, and finally 3) as a resource for my clients, in case they don't get enough of my yammering once a week.

What I don't write this blog for is to get hundreds of thousands of hits, or to sell ads, or to sell e-books or whatever. At least not yet, I don't put work toward those results and I don't get those results. I'm cool with that.

Which means what, blogging is on a par with any other thing that I might want to do just for fun. Or not to put it too finely, not for a living. What I mean to do for a living is train folks, that is the dog and the blog is the tail. Or I guess it's some part of the dog that can be changed. The collar, okay? Or maybe a screw-on tail. NEVERMIND.

I'm just saying. Ha ha.

I'm just saying, energy husbandry. I train evenings and weekends, I work two and a half days, I cook for one day, I write for one day, and I clean half a day, and what if I want to do something else. I already learned this, you don't just add something. You can try to organize things so they fit better; but if you're already pretty organized, you have think about subtracting something.

And it's good to do new things every now and then.

I'm not even sure what.

I should probably look at catching up my continuing education credits, get into a little bit of a study mode. Or plus, I might want to organize my posts better and that's its own project.

Plus: Third Coast! Did I tell you that I tried out for WCR's C team? Do you want to know how many times I have tried out for WCR things and actually gotten on? One. We have an awesome summer schedule, I am super excited.

I'll probably have a reduced schedule of posts, I haven't decided how reduced. Or maybe I'll get excited about a whole new idea and write up a storm, because I'm like that.

Slow Carnitas

Second verse, pretty much the same as the first! Except instead of beef and peppers and chili spices, this is pork and citrus and sweet spices. You get that's how I do, right? If you're thinking is this blog really the same basic recipe over and over, one, what did you expect from the girl whose favorite comic is Dinosaur Comics, and also yes, that is my secret to LIFE.

an onion
an orange
a lime
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp coriander
1 Tbsp cinnamon
salt
pepper
2 lb pork shoulder

Roughly chop the onion, cut the lime into quarters and the orange into sixths. Mix the spices together, rub them on the meat, and cut the meat roughly into two-inch squares. Put half the meat in the slow cooker, squeeze two of the lime quarters and three of the orange sixths over the meat, discard the spent limes, and layer half the onions and the spent oranges on top of the meat; repeat with the remaining meat, citrus, and onion. Cook on high for two hours, then remove the meat to a plate and discard the oranges. Let the remaining vegetables and juices cook for another hour.

When the vegetables are reduced and the meat is cooled, rip the meat into bite-sized pieces; rough pieces are better than neat squares. Puree the vegetables into a sauce with a stick blender. At this point you can put the meat into a container, pour the sauce over, and put it in the fridge.

To finish the meat, put however much you want to eat in a singleish layer on a baking sheet. Broil for ten minutes if you like a dark char, then stir it up and serve. For a lighter char broil for five minutes, stir it up and broil for five more minutes. You can also do this in the toaster oven, it's the lightest char but the easiest cleanup.

You could serve this for dinner in lettuce wraps with avocado and tomato, or as a little breakfast meat with eggs and vegetables, or with some cauliflower or half a sweet potato for your spacefood needs.

ETA 6/27/13: I simplified this prep alot for summer: I just give the meat a rough chop when it's out, and put it in a container, and pour over the vegetables and liquid. Into the fridge it goes and when I want to eat it, I scoop some out and heat it in the microwave, no fuss with the broiler, it's still good.

Play Wear Review

My play wear is so last year, which means new to me. You know that I'll be wearing the tattered remains of these tanks and leggings well into my fifties. Ha ha, I just freaked myself out. Though my sister didn't even make it to fifty, so I shouldn't count my chickens. And then if I do, I should have a party for my chickens and you're invited.

ANYWAY twelve bandanas, six white and six black tanks, twelve black leggings, twelve black shorts, and twelve pairs of black socks. Monochromatic, no? Sooo much easier to match, I read this Obama interview where he notes that he only wears blue and grey suits just so that's decided. See, very presidential.

One thing to do, actually. The idea with my tanks was to screen my name and number on the backs and leave the fronts blank for future inspiration, which is how you end up with twelve blank tanks. If you're me. Our charity partner Working Bikes, though, they made us a cool Working The Fury Bikes screen, I brought in one of my black tanks to be screened and also scored a white WTFB tank so:

* screen name and number on tank

I will endeavor mightily to get that done this summer.

Avocado Zucchini Hash

SWEET! Is also good. Pepper, I mean. Remember, the formula is avocado + whatever vegetable + a pepper, hot or sweet.

1 lb zucchini
an orange bell pepper, or red, or yellow
olive oil
salt
an avocado

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Dice the zucchini, and seed and sliver the pepper. Toss them in a baking pan with a little olive oil and salt, and put them in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Cut up the avocado into hash-size pieces and stir them into the roasted vegetables.

For the rest of this breakfast

Fry some eggs in a bit of olive oil or butter in a skillet over medium high heat. I crack my eggs in the oil, let them set a bit, then dribble in a little water from the kettle and cover the skillet for a couple minutes.

Plate the eggs with the hash.

Happy Birthday Odie!

It's Been This Kind of Week

p: great scott.

p: ALL of my play wear is in the laundry.

p: that never happens.

p: that's okay, i have extra gray leggings.

p: guess i can wear orange camo sport bra from last night.

p: aw, derby lite t-shirt.

p: erk.

p: DON'T GO THERE

p: there's pink and orange together.

p: YOU LIKE PINK AND ORANGE

p: not with gray.

p: i think there's a black sports bra hanging in the bathroom!

p: YOU DON'T HAVE TO MATCH YOUR BRA TO YOUR SHIRT

p: STOPPP

p: see, better.

p: WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

Egressions #59-62

59. Oatmeal lattes, what. Via A Beautiful Mess.
60. Or cold oatmeal jars? Via The Yummy Life.
61. Crockpot oatmeal! Via Best Food Pins.
62. Muesli jars. Via Joy The Baker.

So I think there's a level of starch that I need to not fall below, I've been trying to cut starch out of dinner and scrimmaged a couple weeks ago on an apple and cold chicken and, ugh, that was one long idea blocker moment. So I'm looking at rice again, and also oatmeal. Look crockpot oatmeal, Sparty posted that to my wall! And hello, oatmeal jars. I still want to branch further out into savory oatmeals, but a thing about oatmeal is that it's portable and portable sort of means cold? And savory I think is better hot? I am thinking about these things.

Greek Yogurt with Stone Fruit Compote

Doesn't "stone fruit compote" make me sound like a fancy foodie? But in the world of frozen fruit that you can get at the Jewel, it just means peaches or mangos. Mangoes?

This is pretty much the same recipe as the berry compote, just that the stone fruits need a little bit more cooking time. And even though it's a pain, cut up peach slices into bite-size pieces before cooking for best results.

For the compote:
two 12 or 16 oz bags of frozen stone fruits
2 Tbsp honey

To serve:
greek yogurt
sliced almonds

Empty half of the fruit into a saucepan. Add the honey and cook covered over medium low heat until the fruit has started to break down, about 15 minutes. Add the other half of the fruit and cook for 15 more minutes. Cool and put in a container in the fridge.

Serve a few spoonfuls of compote over greek yogurt with sliced almonds.

Sweet Potato Bean Mash

You've seen this in bout day breakfasts plated with eggs or fried into cakes, and actually what this is really amazing in is oatmeal with poached eggs, but I don't have legumes or starchy vegetables for breakfast much anymore, so this has been serving as spacefood. Did I ever say what spacefood is? It's something really easy and digestible to eat for dinner before workouts, or whatever meal you eat before workouts. For dinner I usually eat a scoop of this with a fried egg, or a little bit of carne asada or carnitas.

two sweet potatoes
a can of black, red, or pinto beans

Whenever you're in the kitchen for something else, heat the oven to 400 and throw in a couple sweet potatoes and bake for about an hour until they're very tender.

Rinse and drain a can of beans and mash them with a potato masher, then mash the sweet potatoes into the beans.

Also, This Happened Yesterday At My First Crossfit

p: omg i looove your whiteboards.

d: that's unusual.

d: the whiteboards are not the first thing most people notice here.

Home Wear Review

p: MUNT SERIOUSLY

p: DO NOT MEND THOSE AGAIN

p: of course not!

p: i don't love mending, you know.

p: i'm not going to mend them.

p: ...

p: YOU'RE TOTALLY JUST GOING TO KEEP WEARING THEM

p: AREN'T YOU

Siiiigh:

* 2 pairs of giant sweatpants

Covered Planner Redux

I filled up my old notebook, so I covered a new notebook and fixed the little problem with the inside pockets: tape the pocket to the uncovered cover, THEN cover the cover with the pretty paper. Duh.

You can see that I've started this new notebook, as I usually do, with a throw of the coins and the hexagram that results. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the I-Ching. I read the Wilhelm-Baynes edition and throw British twopenny coins. That in no way covers everything that I, let alone everybody else, has to say about the I-Ching, but—

Here is a website that explains it better than I do.

Ha This Just Happened Outside Tsubo...

old man: hello! hello!

young woman: hi?

old man: not you, i already said hello to you!

old man: her!

old man: the one with the big legs!

Egressions #57-58

57. Already made these with greek yogurt, yumm. Via Bay Area Bites.
58. What I'm doing on my summer vacation. Via Dinner A Love Story.

Spring Cooking Plan

Chicken stew jars: cauliflower on the bottom, topped with chicken stew.

I keep wanting to be DONE ::kick kick kick:: with my food plan, so I can just follow the plan and think about something else besides food. But haha, I can't stop thinking about food. I keep having new ideas! So the plan keeps evolving, I'm really away from my earlier strategy of organizing my carbs around my workouts and now just mostly not eating starchy carbs. Mostly. Also I'm already transitioning to summer but still working that out, so below is what I was doing for most of spring.

The details of the plan are not really important. It's more the idea of a plan, and maybe even that isn't all that important to you. What I get out of a plan is repetitions, practice at getting good at something and then something to build on.

So this is how I do, first of all, there's setting up my lemon water before bed and starting the day with lemon water.

Monday morning is mainly when I cook. I used to cook Monday and Wednesday mornings, and then I switched to writing Wednesday morning. Because I thought I shouldn't burn my best self on housework on both days of the week that I get to play at home, where my best self is myself after breakfast. I have a second best self—I mean, not second best. I have two best selves per day, the second is after a little nap and dinner and that's when I practice or train. If there's any point to this blog, it is: energy husbandry. Heart containers, which you have a limited number of and which you have to choose how to spend. Two heart containers is too much for me to spend on making food, but no containers on food is a car wreck waiting to happen. One container is precious and not a lot, so I try to be efficient and get as much bang for my heart as I can. So Monday morning after breakfast, I start a recipe of egg bites: fit the parchment paper to the baking pan, microwave the frozen vegetables in a mixing bowl, add the green onions and bread crumbs and cheese, beat the eggs in my rocket blender and mix them in, and pour the eggy vegs into the baking pan and put them in the oven. Then I wash my hands and chop an onion and some celery and put them in a pot with the chicken thighs to simmer for an hour. Then I have some time to wait, so I do the dishes. The eggs and the chicken finish at about the same time; then I finish up the chicken stew, either roasting the vegetables in the egg pan or sauteeing them on the stove in the chicken pot. I also zap a bag of frozen cauliflower in the microwave to put in jars with the chicken stew. Then chop chop chop and gloop gloop gloop, egg bites and chicken stew go in jars and into the fridge. A morning's work and I have breakfasts and lunches for the week.

There's still dinner: I stopped with veganly beans a while back because it was one too much, played with baked oatmeal for a while, and eventually settled on just making sweet potato bean mash. Sweet potato bean mash you can make anytime, you just bake a couple sweet potatoes and then mash them with a can of beans—total spacefood, you eat a little bowl before your workout with a pat of butter or a fried egg or leftover meat. Meat is carne asada or carnitas, I make that in the slow cooker Fridays when I'm home. Fridays I work, I make butter trout or steak.

For half of spring for post-workout snack I was eating greek yogurt with peanut butter, which takes no preparation at all. But then I started making fruit compote, which takes just a little bit. This also you can do anytime.

Obviously this works for me because I have more than just the weekend at home. I'm not sure what I would do if I was in the office five days a week. Of course then I'd be free Saturdays, maybe I'd cook then. I'd have to find a day, because I don't think I'm ever going back to cooking dinner every night.

Slow Carne Asada

I think actually carne asada is not a thing that you make in a slow cooker, I think it's thinly sliced grilled steak? But anyway carne asada to me means beef and carnitas, which is coming up in a bit, means pork. I'm not saying that's right, just what's in my head. I developed my own recipe that I can use for both from these two that I pinned a couple egressions ago. I like using the slow cooker for something like this, but I personally don't think that any meat needs to be cooked for eight hours. The finish in the broiler is what really makes this, you can do the slow cooker part and just put the meat in a container in the fridge and then quick broil however much you're going to eat.

an onion
a red bell pepper
a jalapeno pepper
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 lb flank steak

Roughly chop the onion and peppers and mix together. Mix the spices together and rub them on the meat, and cut the meat roughly into two-inch squares. Layer the meat and aromatics in the slow cooker and cook on high for two hours. Then remove the meat and let the vegetables and juices cook for another hour.

When the vegetables are reduced and the meat is cooled, rip the meat into bite-sized pieces; rough pieces are better than neat squares, actually. I pureed the vegetables into a sauce with my stick blender, I think that was good. At this point I put the meat into a container, poured the sauce over, and put it in the fridge.

To finish the meat, put however much you want to eat in a singleish layer on a baking sheet. Broil for ten minutes if you like a dark char, then stir it up and serve. For a lighter char broil for five minutes, stir it up and broil for five more minutes. You can also do this in the toaster oven, it's the lightest char but the easiest cleanup.

You could serve this for dinner in lettuce wraps with avocado and tomato, or as a little breakfast meat with eggs and vegetables, or with half a sweet potato for your spacefood needs.

ETA 6/27/13: I simplified this prep alot for summer: I just give the meat a rough chop when it's out, and put it in a container, and pour over the vegetables and liquid. Into the fridge it goes and when I want to eat it, I scoop some out and heat it in the microwave, no fuss with the broiler, it's still good.

Chicken Stew with Artichokes and Peppers

I came up with this because I saw this infographic about the top ten food combinations, superfoods that are superfriends! Which nutritionally I sort of take with a grain of salt, I figure I'm in the ballpark if they're vegetables so all I'm on the lookout for is flavor combinations. First on the list was avocado and tomato, I immediately started eating egg bites with avocado and tomato. Second was artichoke and peppers, I wanted to use frozen artichokes but apparently there is a citywide shortage of frozen artichokes. So I ended up using canned, maybe even marinated would work if they were rinsed a bit.

an onion
two stalks celery
4-5 chicken thighs
2 cups water
olive oil or butter
2 cans artichoke hearts
1/2 lb hungarian hot peppers
1 Tbsp flour

Peel and chop the onion, and trim and chop the celery including the leaves if they look nice. Put the onion, celery, chicken, and water in a saute pan and bring to a strong simmer over high heat. Then turn the heat to low and let simmer partially covered for an hour.

Rinse and drain the artichoke hearts. Trim, seed, and slice the peppers.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board. Puree the remaining broth and vegetables with an immersion blender until smooth, then pour the pureed broth into a prep bowl and set aside.

Heat olive oil or butter in the saute pan over high heat and fry the artichoke hearts for about five minutes until a little bit browned. Add the peppers and saute for ten more minutes until softened. Stir in the flour and cook for a couple minutes, then add the pureed broth back to the pot. Stir until the broth starts to thicken and simmer.

Separate the chicken meat from the skin and bone, and cut the meat into bite-size pieces.

Add the chicken meat back to the stew and simmer a few more minutes until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Avocado, Cauliflower, and Hungarian Hot Pepper Hash

A couple Sunday breakfasts ago, I stumbled on an easy way to make any kind of vegetable hash. The basic formula is avocado + whatever vegetable you think would roast nicely, which is pretty much every vegetable + I like to add pepper for kick or maybe sweetness. KICK! You roughly chop and roast the vegetable and the pepper with a little bit of olive oil and salt, and then you stir in some cut up avocado. It's so delicious! And it's kind of so much more interesting than potato hash.

Me and the sweetie man can put away half a head of cauliflower, obviously just double everything if you want to use the whole head. Oh yes, and alert the media, Munt is eating fresh and not frozen vegetables, because the texture is really better and fresh actually cooks faster for this.

half a head of cauliflower
a hungarian hot pepper
olive oil
salt
an avocado

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Roughly dice the cauliflower, and seed and sliver the pepper. Toss them in a baking pan with a little olive oil and salt, and put them in the oven for fifteen minutes. Stir them up and put them back in the oven for ten more minutes.

Cut up the avocado into hash-size pieces and stir them into the roasted vegetables.

For the rest of this breakfast

When you put the cauliflower back in the oven, fry some eggs in a bit of olive oil or butter in a skillet over medium high heat. I crack my eggs in the oil, let them set a bit, then dribble in a little water from the kettle and cover the skillet for a couple minutes.

Plate the eggs with the hash.

Egressions #53-56

53. This makes me insanely happy. Via Poppytalk.
54. OMG this bathing suit. Via Design Crush.
55. Also dang, I need this dress. Via Girls of a Certain Age.
56. My friend Izzy might make me something like this! Via Upcoming Legendary.

See here Izzy a.k.a. Bella of Magnus & Bella makes beautiful things.

Greek Yogurt with Berry Compote and Sliced Almonds

Can I do this, picturewise? You know what greek yogurt looks like with fruit on, right? I mostly eat greek yogurt at night, so I don't have light. Sometimes I eat things out of order to photograph them, but I have three things going right now and am not bigger on the inside. Or more relevantly, I could get a light box.

For the past month I've been eating greek yogurt with peanut butter, just because it's easy and freaking delicious, but do you know what peanut butter I eat: Jif. Second ingredient on the label: sugar. So. And I put honey on, too.

Sooo spring was supposed to be greek yogurt and stewed fruit anyway, which I started last year with with greek yogurt with strawberries in rhubarb, which also has a lot of sugar, and the only reason I'm not sorrier about that is rhubarb is kind of a pain. You know what, anything that's freaking delicious only when you add a lot of sugar: you are a pain. Raspberries. Cranberries. Blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries are not a pain, I like you.

For the compote:
two 12 oz bags of frozen berries
2 Tbsp honey

To serve:
greek yogurt
sliced almonds

Empty half of the berries into a saucepan. Add the honey and cook over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, for until the berries have started to break down, about 10 minutes. Add the other half of the berries and cook for 10 more minutes. Cool and put in a container in the fridge.

Serve a few spoonfuls of compote over greek yogurt with sliced almonds.

Baked Oatmeal with Mango and Coconut

YUMMMM.

If you were wondering how I'm toasting these nuts, I just put them on the little tray in the toaster oven and turn the toast dial to medium. If they're not dark enough after that, I stir them around a little bit and then turn the toast dial to light; but this is when you have to watch them like a hawk, because they go from dark to black in the blink of an eye. Which is why hawks don't blink. No, I made that up. I'm pretty sure hawks do blink. But they don't go update their facebook statuses when they have nuts in the toaster oven.

I think unsweetened coconut would be better for this, but Jewel only has sweetened and that's what I used and it wasn't too sweet.

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut, toasted
1 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
however much you want of a 12 or 16 oz bag of frozen mango
2 cups milk
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 egg
2 Tbsp butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla

butter
greek yogurt

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix together the oats, coconut, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Butter a skillet or 8x8 baking pan, then put the oats in the skillet or pan and put the mango on top of the oats. I think I might toss the frozen mango in the bowl that you mixed the oats in and thaw it for a few minutes in the microwave.

Whisk together the milk, agave, egg, butter, and vanilla. Pour the milk over the oats and let it soak in.

Bake until the oats are golden and set, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve giant puffy scoops of oatmeal immediately or let it set up for a few more minutes for perfect slices.

Serve with a pat of butter and a scoop of greek yogurt, and some fresh fruit is nice if you have that.

Leftover slices can be refrigerated and eaten cold with greek yogurt.

Work Wear Review

  

Here are my thirteen twelve sweaters more or less that I drew in 2011, the last time that I decided that it would be a good idea to photograph all my clothes and then gave up and drew picture of them because that's so much easier and less insane. Plus my four t-shirts and twelve tank tops, which means all the tops I wear for work for the whole year.

• Top left are my heavy sweaters and fleeces for coldest winter. I honestly feel meh about the fleeces, for one thing, though they're the same style and size, the black fleece is thicker and bigger than the gray fleece, which drives me bananas. But it's been driving me bananas for well over ten years and I haven't done anything about it yet. I also don't really think they're nice enough to wear to work, but nobody seems to mind? I kind of would like to get a couple of thick cable knit sweaters, maybe cream and gray. Maybe next winter. She says, every winter.
• Top right are my light sweaters and fleeces for spring, again with the fleeces and actually I do have two other nicer knit sweaters (row four in the thirteen sweaters) that I could sub in, but I never hardly ever wear them. If you're looking at the thirteen sweaters picture, I'm down one light sweater; the tan one got a grease spot that wouldn't come out. Three is a better number, anyway.
• Bottom left are my t-shirts, which I only have four of. I have two more, actually, that I never wear, they don't fit. I should toss those. I've been saying that for ten years, too.
• Bottom right, I have no idea why in God's name I have so many tank tops. I think I bought two more last summer D:) Though tanks tops, in summer, you can only wear once and they go in the wash. Sweaters I wear with undershirts, wash the undershirts and hang the sweaters. So maybe that's why. I guess also t-shirts you can only wear once, but I never buy more t-shirts because I have so damn many tank tops.

These are the best long sleeved t-shirts ever, they're Xhiliration sleep tees and they're really light and stretchy. I wear them under all of the above. Obviously a nice underlayer under a heavy sweater in winter, but they also pull together an outfit with a light sweater very nicely. My light sweaters, I should note, are all too short in the sleeve and the waist, long sleeved t-shirt underneath, cute layer effect, problem solved. I wear these under my t-shirts and tanks in spring and fall, too. I only don't wear them in summer, just tank tops and bare arms with a sweater that I keep at work.

I also keep thinking that I need to replenish these and then don't, and just keep working around the ones that have holes. Why am I so incorrigible. You know what would be good, if I could get two of each in black, gray, and blue to mix and match with my tights. Xhiliration doesn't always cooperate with the colors that I want, though.

There are still four skirts, and I just wear my jeans—that I spilled acetone on the last time I cleaned my bearings—for the every other Friday. I am totally happy to keep wearing the same four skirts year after year, the only reason you have seen me buy new skirts is because my butt kept getting bigger, and truthfully now that I've lost some weight, now these are too big. So I wear a belt.

These were the best buy ever, the day's outfit starts with whichever color tights I grab out of the bin and then whichever skirt I didn't wear last week. So like, ooh, blue legs and black skirt today, and then I pick a top that works with that. It's like haiku, really a surprising lot of results from a pretty restricted set of syllables.

So, the shopping list:

* 2 heavy cable-knit sweaters
* 2 each black, gray, navy long-sleeved t-shirts

Oh and, I sometimes borrow my play wear leggings as an extra layer over my tights in coldest coldest winter, and will probably borrow again for summer when I switch to open-toed shoes. I used to have separate work leggings, but I hated them and finally threw them out, and I just bought like twelve new pairs of plain black leggings that I wear to skate in, so it seems stupid to buy more.

Eat Eggs and Vegetables for Breakfast

Well you know, a) I have been working on this for some time, and b) it's really part of a larger habit that I will be reiterating for four months, viz., eat protein and vegetables for every meal pretty much. This is a good place to stick a big old YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY. Because like I said, I've been working on this for years and believe me it's been baby steps all the way. Maybe this is the next baby step for you, or maybe a big step is fine by you, or maybe this isn't your next step. I don't write these as prescriptions. I would have to actually talk to you, ask you questions, and listen to your answers—very complicated stuff, I know—before I could begin to suggest something personally for you. In the meantime, I'm writing up these habits just as descriptions of what I'm doing over here. If that gives you ideas of your own, obviously that's great.

Anyway protein and vegetables for every meal is a great result, but as a target it's too broad. So I decided on what specific protein to shoot for every meal, and for breakfast it's eggs and then the tricky part is vegetables—though not as tricky as it used to be, now that I'm getting to know them. It's not that fruit isn't fine and good, but you don't want to fall into having fruit for every meal just because it's easy and sweet. I haven't officially limited my fruit consumption yet, I'm seeing first if I can proactively develop a taste for vegetables like how self-regulation is supposed to work.

The Cue

Easy enough, the cue is breakfast! Man, you don't have to ask me twice. See, this is what I'm saying about baby steps—you don't have to tell me not to skip breakfast. I would look at you like you had two heads if you did; but if your habit is to skip breakfast, I feel like eggs and vegetables might not be the easiest introduction? I know I started with eggs and fruit, eggs and fruit is good.

The Routine

The whole reason that I develop recipes the way I do is, it's time for breakfast and I can grab a jar of egg bites and heat them up in two minutes and eat them. Eggs, vegetables, boom. In summer, it'll be hardboiled eggs and fruit jars. In fall, I think I'm going back to egg bites. In winter, poached eggs and vegetable puree. All this is to say, I don't even have to think about it. Because I think about it, that's when the opera about the bagel starts up.

Level up, though! I'm actually at the point that I think eggs and vegetables when I think breakfast, like it finally got recoded in my brain. So now I can think more creatively about breakfasts, which in my opinion is what creativity is: freedom within limits. So like I have egg bites five or six days a week, and one or two days a week I'm on my own. And I'm aware of myself thinking, okay, I have eggs and what vegetable, oh here's a zucchini, well, I know what to do with a zucchini. Oh and here's a tomato, zucchini and tomato go good together. Et voila. Now that we're having Sunday breakfasts at home, I've been getting pretty fancy with this.

The Reward

I mean, the long term reward of this is supposed to be that you get the body fat percentage of your dreams and then rest of your life is summer. But that's not the kind of reward that keeps a habit going, you know what I mean? I mean, apart from the fact that I'm kidding. I personally am not that motivated by something that I'm chasing, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a lot more motivated by all the birds in my hand than that stuck up bird in the bush.

Birds off the top of my head: 1) who knew, vegetables are yummy, 2) a lot of your life does go more easily if you can form the thought vegetables are yummy on a regular basis. I mean, it won't make you popular. Really don't brag about it too much, nobody who's jonesing for a Thin Mint wants to hear how much you're craving some celery sticks. I'm just saying, your food choices will be easier if you actually like things that are good for you. 3) I personally like being creative, in general, and with food in particular. There's just something a lot more artful about vegetables than toast to me. 4) Not gonna lie though, there is something to be said about feeling virtuous about your food, and even more virtuous because it tastes good, because you're that good of a person.

Status: ACTIVE

Bout Day Breakfast TF vs XX playoffs

Fried eggs, avocado mushroom pepper hash, teeny bit of carne asada, orange juice, and water. already drank my coffee.

More bout day breakfasts!

Egressions #51-52

51. Always nice to find somebody who thinks like you. Via Zen Habits.
52. Here's her blog. Via Stone Soup.

Tay Q Down's Zucchini Hummus

This is the zucchini hummus! Let me tell you, this is the most luscious thing I have eaten all year and I was not expecting it. This is a paleo version of hummus without chickpeas, though I'm not paleo and have nothing against chickpeas. Honestly when I asked Tay for her recipes, I was mainly interested in the sweet potato chips. I don't need dip for chips.

I'm always trying to get myself to eat more vegetables though, and sometimes veggies need dip. Actually mini peppers, pictured here, do not need dip. Where did mini peppers come from all of a sudden, they're so crunchy and sweet. Mini peppers don't need dip, but you know what you can do: you can top them and slice them lengthwise, and then you can use them as scoopers to get as much zucchini into your mouth as possible.

Seriously, forget about what this is a substitute for. It's great for you, it hits you in the face with how good it is and also has all kinds of subtle notes—sesame, cumin, heat—going on all in the background.

2 zucchini
1/3 cup tahini
2 Tbsp olive oil
juice from 2 lemons or 1/3 cup lemon juice from concentrate
2 garlic cloves
1-1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp sea salt
paprika to garnish

Peel and chop the zucchini, peel the garlic, and put everything except the paprika in a food processor. Process till smooth.

Put in a serving dish and garnish with paprika.

BAMF!

Poppy. What the hell. Is that.

Ha ha, welp! I was curious! About how much time I actually spend sitting versus standing and, ideally, moving around on a daily basis. Don't you get curious about things like that? Yeah, you don't. That's what you have me for, I counted this for about a month.

It was the simplest possible count, binary. Zero and one, zero for sitting and one for standing in fifteen minute increments from 8:00 AM to midnight. I got a zero if I sat for the entire fifteen minutes. If I stood up at all, I got a one for that increment; if I stood up and shook out my legs for a minute, that counted the same as being on my feet for fifteen minutes and, for that matter, the same as being on my skates sprinting for fifteen minutes. All I was counting was up or down.

It was demented but reasonably easy for me because 97% of the time that I'm sitting down, I have a laptop within arm's reach. So I set one as the default, and entered zeroes when I was sitting down.

Some fancy technical notes: I conditionally formatted the cells so that ones would be orange and zeroes would be gray and wrote a count formula to count them up and express them as baseball averages. Because that's fun.

I can't imagine that anybody is actually going to try this at home, so none of that is important.

So what did I get out of this.

I Don't Think Batting 1000 Is the Goal Here

First of all, I'm an active person, i.e., I do more than 30 minutes of more than moderate-intensity activity for more than three days a week. Roller derby, right? And two, I have a sedentary job except for about four hours per week training folks, and the other main thing I do is writing. Which I do sitting at a desk, or sitting on the couch. Okay so, for the four weeks I counted, ONE week got up to 500 or fifty percent standing to sitting, two weeks were in the forties, and one week was below forty.

So that makes me think that batting 1000 is not the goal here. Maybe I'm the only person who thought that, being such an A-student. But like in actual baseball batting 500 is phenomenal, right? Or if that's too sporty, let's go back to the idea of binary; the idea of binary isn't 1111111111, how binary works is 0101010101. Or let's go back to everything I've ever said about training and recovery, yin and yang and whatnot.

Let's Say That Batting 500 Is The Goal

I actually think that 500 is sorting balanced, and something to work up to. Maybe 350 is pretty good, and 250 is minimal? Or if you have a job where you work on your feet all day and your BAMF score is way over 500, you might think about coming at this from the other direction.

But just for example, let's solve this for me. Since that's who I have the data for. The point of this, really, is Know Thyself and take it from there.

Different Things That I Do Are More Or Less Active

I know, duh. Honestly though, I think I did think of myself as divided between working out (rock star) and not working out (potato). Which is the wrong binary: it counts high intensity activity as something, and moderate and low intensity activity and also no activity as nothing. You get that moderate and low intensity activity is more like something than like nothing, right?

I actually identified three—no four—levels or types of activity that I do:

• high intensity—e.g., skating
• moderate intensity—e.g.,biking
• low intensity—e.g., cooking, cleaning, grocery, laundry, also commuting, and also training
• no intensity—e.g.,working, writing

And now remember that high, moderate, and low intensity all count as active and no intensity counts as sedentary. When I skate, I skate for two hours at a time. I bike between fifteen and forty-five minutes. I generally cook and clean for an entire morning, say three hours. I may sit for prolonged periods, but I'm also active for some good stretches—just somewhat short of how much I sit.

So I don't think that I have to convert my sedentary activities to 50% active. I think 25% active would be sufficient—just stand up, shake out, maybe stretch my legs once an hour. That's pretty much what you'd minimally want to do to mitigate prolonged sitting's metabolic effects. I've talked about this before, right?

I think a decent general strategy could be:

1. Add breaks to your sedentary activities. Stand up and stretch every hour, just that will do you a world of good.
2. Appreciate your low intensity activities! I have a new appreciation now for household chores, like they count as active and you get your food sorted for the week? Or your house. Or your clothes. Also I have a new awareness of the movements involved, like I used to be lazy about putting clean mason jars back on their shelf and now I'm all about pulling out the little step and doing a proper step up with my core engaged. Actually as a side note if no one's ever told you this, the reason you get tired cooking is because it's tiring. This is an incredibly important factoid that gets overlooked or guilted over, so then people feel bad that they're too tired to cook. Which is totally a thing, I totally think that cooking is a thing like working out; it's a thing that's worth the effort, but it is an effort. So there's no need on top of that to add pushups between egg bites, and all the more reason to practice quality movement.
   
3. Add moderate and high intensity activities per your training objectives. If you're topped out on moderate and high intensity activities, go back to step one and actually try it for real. Trust me, what you need is to stretch and not so much that eight billion a day burpee challenge that you're thinking about.

Oh, why is this called BAMF! Actually well, I've been testing this get lean program and that one is called SNIKT! Because shredded, get it. And this one is called BAMF! to stay with the Marvel theme, because this is about getting up off your chair.