Feb 15 and a Recipe

Well, today I woke up feeling about as motivated toward gym-going as I am about things like taxes, watching small children and receiving extensive dental work. However, the mid-winter Hawaii being-seen-in-a-swimsuit issue occurring in two weeks is ridiculously motivational. With as white as I am though, spectators will most likely be blinded enough to not notice the Valentines chocolate clinging to my hips. I did go though, and treated myself to a peppermint-soy latte afterward. I would drink these every day except I'm one of those people who thinks $4/gallon for gas is expensive, so $4 for a 12 oz latte is slightly ridiculous. (By the way, that would be $42.67/gallon for you math buffs out there trying to figure it out to leave a smarty-pants comment. Beat ya to it.)

Today was the day where I try to catch up on all the responsibilities that I've been slacking on, and to try and predict the close-range-future responsibilities that will soon be calling my name and take care of them too, so that I can be excusably lazy in my free time. So today I deep cleaned my kitchen, attempted to match my socks, wrote letters to my little siblings in reply to the stack of letters they have sent to me. And believe me, they know exactly how many I owe them. These letters are pretty easy to reply to, however, usually consisting of topics about tree forts with elevators, dead squirrels, lego sets, gum wrapper collections, and the various cootie exchanges they have been subjected to in the past few weeks.

I also went shopping today; that took up the majority of my afternoon. Now, don't start laughing because you think that shopping is not a chore, I didn't even get near the shoe section of Fred Meyers. I'm one of those people who can spend hours, hours, in the food department, comparing brands and prices and quality and new products blah blah blah...all while a virtual list of future recipes and foodie ideas floats through my head. Yes, I am a nut case. A hazel-wal-almond-pecan-pea-NUT case.

I knew I wanted to try something new for dinner tonight, but I wasn't sure what. I've pretty much exhausted the realms of sweet potatoes and pumpkins, yet winter vegetables are still in their prime season (and are my personal favorites). Viola, the squash; butternut to be precise. The recipe I came up with I am rather proud of for several reasons: 1) It was, for the most part, entirely from my head. (I did google what was the fastest way to cook my squash.) 2.) I did not waste any part of the vegetable. 3.) I stuck to this month's resolution of cooking with no animal products and still producing perfectly palatable and nutrition food. So here goes. And you can use any winter vegetable you choose for this, it doesn't have to be butternut squash. Sweet potatoes, yellow yams, rutabagas, carrots etc..

Rustic Winter Vegetable Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Biscuit Topping
Vegetable Filling:
2 cups your choice winter veg, cooked.
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
2 stalked chopped celery
1 cup button mushrooms, quartered
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup firm tofu, cubed (optional, substitute protein of your choice if you don't like tofu)
1/2 cup roughly chopped cashews, preferably unsalted
w/w flour
Milk; I used almond milk. Plain soy or normal cow would work as well.
Seasonings, to taste:
Sage, cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, celery salt, oregano, curry
1 Tbl maple syrup
Biscuit Topping:
1-1/2 cups w/w flour
2 Tbl ground flaxseed
1Tbl baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
seeds from squash, if available
1/4 cup shortening (I used Earth Balance non-hydrogenated margarine)
1/2 cup reserved winter vegetable
1 cup appr. almond milk (or your choice)

1. Combine vegetable filling ingredients (except for your winter veg, which should have been cooked ahead of time) on stove top, let sweat until tender.
2. Flour to roux (dump flour and stir until everything in your pan is coated), cook for just a moment to get rid of the starchiness, but don't let burn!
3. Add almond milk until a fairly thick sauce forms, stir in winter veg.
4. Season according to your tastes, I like spice so I went heavy on the black pepper, also on the cinnamon and thyme. Add maple syrup. Pour into baking dish.
5. For your topping, combine all dry ingredients, cut in the shortening. Puree in blender the reserved winter veg, the seeds and about half the almond milk. Pour this into the dry ingredients.
6. Stir and add more milk until mixture is thick but wet. Spread evenly over filling. Bake at 400 for 30-35 minutes or until topping is cooked through and mixture bubbles cheerfully.
7. Restrain yourself from tearing into this amazingness until it has cooled enough to eat.

V is for Valentines

Roses are red, Violets are blue. Pink is overrated, and chocolate makes you poo.
Roses are red, Violets are blue. Tonight I'm reminded, how much I miss you. .

Valentines is like a grapefruit, you either really like it, or you really don't. It can be a giddy, giggly, romantic night, especially if you are a girl and it's not your bill fold going up in flames. It can be a day of mindless sugar crunching, card-giving bliss. It can be the one day that cooties are neutralized and girls aren't too weird. But Valentines can also be a day of tears...a day where the numbness wears away and your heart groans..a day where you feel abnormal for being alone..a day where eating chocolate isn't a pleasure, but a gross survival therapy. Valentines can hurt...but it doesn't have to.

Too often, Valentines is portrayed as a mass birthday-style holiday mainly directed toward women everywhere. A day to receive love. A day to be fawned over, adored, pampered, and an excuse to dress in hideous shades of mauve and pink. What a complicated way to set the majority of people up for disappointment. Sitting back and waiting for other people to love on you is a sure way to spend a day waiting, and ending it unfulfilled.

So this Valentines, be pro-active. There are hundreds of people around you that are starving for a little affection, especially today. You don't know the difference you could make in a person's life, just by making them smile. Leave chocolates on a desk, send a text, make a call, jot a note in a $.50 WalMart spongebob valentine, it doesn't take much. Besides, when you find that person that makes every day a little better, Valentines will still be overrated, and those candy conversation hearts will still taste like chalk.

Feb 6, 2011

*Today, I made bread sticks to rival all bread sticks. Light and fluffy and garlicky and melt in your mouth and stick-to-your-hips-forever good, I was forced to make a hasty retreat from work to resist them.

*I was going to take a nap, but there was something about the rapidly dwindling daylight that tied my shoes to my feet and shoved me out the door. Running in the dark is so much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, because when the passerby can not see your sweaty pink face, fists clenched to offset frostbite and open mouth gasping for air, a runner can actually appear rather graceful. Perhaps it is the ego boost that makes evenings runs seem like more of an accomplishment.

*How on earth does a person acquire a nickname like Tinkerbell?

 *I spend too much of my time fearing the unknown, thinking about the "what if" factor, and these fears cause me to spiral into an attitude of just surviving each day, not trying, just getting by. This morning in my quiet time I read "The complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me (wisdom, in Proverbs) will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster." And it made me think, I don't want to be a fool. If complacent people are fools, I will not be complacent. The opposite of complacency is diligence and passion, and I want to apply the energy of that to everything I do. And how appropriate is it that the benefits of setting aside complacency would be peacefulness and security?

Define the day.

Anyone will tell you

That each day starts anew. 

That every day you can make up

What you have failed to do.  

But what if sometime that day comes

Where everything goes right.

What happens then, when that day ends?

Wiped away by night,

And gone.

Even if tomorrow

Has some accomplishment

Is it not still destroyed because

Yesterday was perfect?

Is every day a failure then

Because you’ll never know

Which day you will be at your best.

There is just today

Just now.

Four Top

I was informed the other day that when I write, I predictably essay on the same four subjects repetitively: running, cooking, Cooper and moose. So for the sake of habit, today I have a little on each.
“Running reminds me that there is more to me than what is readily apparent most of the time.”   (–Kristen Armstrong) When I read this quote in a recent article in Runner’s World, it struck so close to my heart that I had to repost it. Running is, more than anything, my alter-ego. It is my confident self, it is the dreamer of my life’s dreams, it is the motivator to pursue them, it is the disciplinarian and the teacher of the rewards of hard work. When I run, that is me as a superhero, even if every other part of my life is mundane and routine.
It’s nice to have a passion that is always rewarding, versatile and endlessly repeatable. Running has become such a powerful part of who I am that when I miss a run, I miss a part of my day. This need drives me outside in the worst of weather, at ungodly hours, and in ridiculous looking tights and neon colored jackets. Runners have been called psychologically unstable endorphin junkies. Tis’ true. It’s a comfort to know I’m not the only one.
In one way, Wasilla is awesome: there are sidewalks everywhere. Theoretically, I could run anywhere I want to go. But, it's a war zone out there. It takes a little more than driver's Ed to be able to read the traffic patterns; you need to able to read people. What a person drives can tell you a lot about their style of driving; what a person wears and their habits can tell you a lot more.
There are the Iphone clutching, Subaru rallying, organic underwear wearing yuppies. They speed around like it's okay to run over pedestrians as long as they raise enough awareness over animal cruelty.
There are the Chevy truck driving, Carhart wearing, Dierks Bentele blaring species who, by some weird phenomenon, have created a genre of hillbilly similar to a gangsta. Thankfully you can hear these guys coming before they actually reach you. This is handy because, ladies, I assure you that these cowboy brothas ain’t watching the road.
Okay, enough on running. Last night was the opening night for Last Frontier Brewing Company; Wasilla’s newest restaurant venue of all things manly. Gourmet burgers, pizza, wings, thick cut fries and in-house brewed beer has never been so classy. Officially, we can only seat 74 guests at a time, and last night we were only to seat a specific list of specially invited patrons including Wasilla City Council and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as close to 100 other prominent business owners from the area. Did you catch that? 100+ guests in a venue with a max of 74; and we had a line out the door of people offering cash to get a seat.
This, of course, threw the kitchen into a cosmic array of panic, adrenaline, frustration, elation and hilarity, all in turn. You don’t have time to think; until the storm passes you are a salesman, a mediator, a cook, a dessert connoisseur, an expediter, a superhero, a burn victim, a close comrade, a worst enemy, a preacher and a pirate.
As for Cooper, he is still in boot camp; I spend most of my days trying to refrain from the checking the mail every five minutes..and the neighbor’s mail. Just in case the postman got confused. And yes, I know exactly how many days it is until he graduates.
Thus far there is nothing to report on the moose, they are no doubt planning a major onslaught of terror. I just wanted you to read to the end of the page. I win.