Setbacks... but chickpeas!

I think I gave myself tendinitis the other night at Body Pump. My right arm is swollen above the elbow, and aches a bunch when I move it. Gosh darn it! My legs are still sore, and my arms are out of commission. Abs it is... for days... haha.

With an injury to my cuttin' hand, and a day without cardio, I needed to make a dinner that would be fast, involve minimal labor, and wouldn't ruin my streak of healthy eating. Pizza fit the bill for two of these three criteria... but not the last and most important one!

I made some bulgur last night and threw some chickpeas in the slowcooker overnight, so I already had some hardware to work with. Here's the chickpea salad I concocted:

Chickpea and Bulgur Salad

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dijon

1 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

berbere (totally optional, I just had this in the cabinet)

1-2tsp cumin seed

Equal parts chickpeas and bulgur (I used about a cup each)

1-2 cups baby spinach, chopped

5 sundried tomatoes, cut into 1/2" chunks

1 small shallot

2 minced pepperoncini

1tbsp pine nuts

Make your vinaigrette with the first six ingredients, then toss everything together! Add some fried scallions (from your local Asian grocery) for fun. This salad is beautiful, tastes amazing, and it's perfect for an after-workout recharge meal. Full of healthy carbs and protein, and WONDERFULLY flavorful-- what more could you ask for? :)

This I Believe

Soup is some kind of magical wonder-food sent from on high to heal all earthly wounds and soothe all tired souls. I attempted to go to yoga today, arrived late and was greeted with a locked door. Lesson learned. I got back on the subway and headed to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things for the rat men. I wandered around for probably 45 minutes in a congested haze before walking out with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, some multigrain hot cereal, a box of vegetable broth, and a bag of baby spinach. I trudged home in the rain and came up with this pot of deliciousness.

Vegetarian Chicken Noodle Soup

3 celery ribs, sliced, greens and all

1 medium sweet onion, small dice (any yellow onion will do)

1 carrot, small dice

1 bag Trader Joe's "Organic Foursome," or a bag of mixed veggies with corn, carrots, peas, green beans, or other similar vegetables

3 cups baby spinach

3 cloves garlic, minced

thyme, rosemary, za'atar, oregano-- whatever herbs you like. I used about a teaspoon of za'atar and a teaspoon of dried thyme

1 package Trader Joe's Chickenless Strips (optional)

noodles (I used a nest of egg noodles from the Vietnamese grocery. any noodles you want will work)

3 bay leaves

1 box vegetable broth + 1/2 box water + 2 tbsp Better than Bouillon No-Chicken Base OR 2 boxes Imagine No-Chicken Broth and water as needed, to taste

Throw the carrot, onion, and celery into a big pot with a little olive oil or butter/margarine and sweat the veggies down over medium heat for 10 minutes.

Add the minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper and cook another 2 minutes.

Add the entire bag of frozen vegetables, season again, and add the herbs and bay leaves.

Pour in broth, water, and base, and bring to a boil. Add as much water as you want, to taste, and to the consistency you want. Make sure you add a little extra liquid to take the spinach and noodles into account!

Add the chickenless strips and noodles. Boil until noodles are cooked through.

Stir in spinach just before serving.

I added a little Bragg's to my bowl when the soup was done. This is so wonderfully warming, and it's got me feeling better already. Enjoy!

God damnit.

Uh, well. I'm sick again. And it looks like I've injured my left elbow from too much lifting/resistance training. Woops. Can't stop me though-- I'm still going to go to Core Yoga tomorrow and get my cardio in at the gym. However, it's still a huge bummer that I can't continue my strength training for the rest of the week. I can still do my jumping jacks, 8-minute abs, and stretches in the morning!

Today was the first day of class! It was great! Nothing much to report other than this... just wanted to make sure I posted about the setbacks to my exercise routine.

Make your own life!

Hey y'all! So I know this blog is mostly supposed to be about, like, food, or whatever, but I do more than eat and work out! Lately I've been trying to find ways to become less reliant on chemical-filled products like commercial deodorants, laundry detergents, shampoos, and conditioners. I want to do this because 1) I am broke, and homemade alternatives are literally always cheaper; 2) I want to eliminate weird artificial stuff from my life as much as possible because it just feels better, and 3) ... I'm really broke. Saving up for a giant trip after graduation means the next five months will be Brokesville, PA.

Anyway, so far I've made laundry detergent and deodorant based loosely on The New Architects: Make Your Own Life series (which stops short its journey toward liberating Americans from their dependence on large corporations, unfortunately, as these are the only two videos they made about product alternatives).

Here's the laundry detergent tutorial:

I used Fels Naptha laundry soap instead of random chunks of soap from around my house (because I have none, and because Fels Naptha smells damn good and is an awesome stain remover). This stuff works SO WELL!! So excited about it. I've washed my own laundry and my rats' laundry in it, and it's done a stellar job on both. Never going back to the old stuff again. This was stupid easy, took me about 20 minutes (not counting the overnight-sitting-time), was very cheap, had my apartment smelling like a bubble bath, and the ingredients I bought will last me another zillion batches. I really could not be more pleased.

As I said, I also made homemade, all-natural deodorant based loosely on the Make Your Own Life video. Let me come right out here and say it. I am a stinky, stinky lady. I sweat quite a bit, and that sweat smells extraordinarily unpleasant. I haven't had a lot of luck with commercial deodorants-- they always make my poor pits feel uncomfortably dry (before they wear off and I'm sweating fountains again), and I've never found something that actually keeps me from smelling. I've tried it all. Dove, Dove Clinical Strength, every Secret product there is, multiple Degree products, BAN, Mitchum, Arid, even Old Spice. Nothing has worked for me for more than a couple of hours. The best I can hope for with a commercial deodorant is that whatever scent I've chosen will overpower my body's natural stink. Usually, this does not happen. However, I know now that there is hope, and IT IS CHEAP, and IT SMELLS GREAT, and SO DO I!

Here's the tutorial from The New Architects. My measurements differed and are included after the video.

My recipe:

1/2c extra virgin coconut oil

1/2c baking soda

1/3c corn starch

a bunch of drops of grapefruit essential oil

*Basically, use equal parts baking soda and coconut oil, and a little less corn starch or arrowroot powder. Add as much essential oil as you want-- stop when it smells good to you!

Thomas and Jason used arrowroot powder, but I didn't have any, and I know I don't react badly to cornstarch, so I just used what was in the kitchen. I've seen recipes including lavender and/or tea tree oil, and, provided you like these scents, these could work equally well. Grapefruit essential oil is what smelled good to me at Whole Foods two days ago. Also, it's relatively cheap as essential oils go, and has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties that I thought my armpits could use! The bergamot oil smelled luscious (but at $15, I wasn't about to buy it!), and I imagine there are others that would work well. Find what scent or scent combination works for you-- just make sure one of the oils you choose has anti-bacterial properties! Pour it into a container (I'm using a small tupperware container), stick it in the fridge for half an hour, and just rub on a little every morning!

Folks, this is the BUSINESS. For real. I worked out today for 45 minutes-- running, free weights, ab stuff, whatever. I left the gym, went home, took off my shirt, sniffed my pits, sniffed my shirt, and had LITERALLY ZERO B.O. This has never happened to me in my life. Holy crap. I have found the holy grail of deodorants, and it smells lovely and makes my armpits all soft. I really truly hope you try this!! 16oz of coconut oil and the little bottle of grapefruit essential oil cost me $16 at Whole foods, and each of these can be found for cheaper online; a more realistic price would be about $14. This will yield me four batches of deodorant (including the one I just made), at $4 each, but I use so little of it I can see this lasting as long as two or three commercial sticks would. So, let's call it $2/stick if we're comparing to the commercial stuff. That's REAL CHEAP, y'all. And it works better than anything I've ever tried. I am so very pleased!

Okay I need to go to sleep. First day of class tomorrow! Night y'all, and cheers to self-reliance!

So it begins

Well, I went to my first personal training session today. My trainer's name is Frank, and he is a very warm, encouraging guy in his 40s who owns a gym in Old City. He absolutely blasted my arms to smithereens on some kind of cable machine thing called Kinesis. I deserved the total work-out punishment-- I've eaten pizza for two of the last 3 days and had Burmese for lunch! Things will get easier now that I'm back in the city and I'll have a really structured schedule. My first winter CSA delivery will be coming in a week, which will supply me with a TON of great fresh, organic produce to keep me healthy! I need to lay out some solid goals for this week, right here and now, so I have some direction and something to work toward during my exercise sessions.

Goals:

- Avoid cheese all week!

- Drink 3 full bottles of water per day.

- Go to the gym twice this week.

- At the gym, do 25 minutes on either the treadmill or elliptical each time.

- Learn to use one new machine at each gym trip.

- Start each day with jumping jacks, sun salutations, and 8-minute abs.

- End each day with 8-minute abs.

Okay. So. These seem doable, and they give me something to visualize each day. Awake, stretch, cardio, 8-minute abs, healthy breakfast (whole grains? smoothie?), gym time, shower, lunch, readreadread, blahblahblah, dinner, 8-minute abs, bed!

Here's to new beginnings! Let's do this!

Well...

Hi guys. I have been AWOL for many a month now, it's true. My bad. Blogging about one specific topic and I don't seem to get along well, so I'm trying this again. I need to flex my writing muscles more often (outside the context of writing papers and personal statements for grad school applications), so by George I'm gonna do it. This blog will still have a ton about local/sustainable agriculture, my CSA share (winter 2012!), and whatever foods I make, but I'll also give myself a chance to talk about whatever the heck I want in order to, hopefully, make this blog successful.

So, here's what my day has been like so far! I got up, read a little Giles Goat-Boy, by John Barth, made a poached egg and had that over a very small piece of oat bread, along with a mango, a clementine, and a mixed greens-and-raw-beet salad and a cup of green tea. Awesome way to start the day. I've been putzing around on the Internet (silly meee), but I'm about to get down to business. I'm going to do half an hour of yoga, half an hour on the treadmill, some strength training stuff with free weights, and then take a shower. I will then bake pumpkin-cranberry muffins, pumpkin-ginger molasses cookies, and read to page 275 of GGB.

I'm putting all of this out here because I need to be held accountable to some vast swath of Internet eyes-- I am more likely to be productive if I tell someone what I'm going to do!

And, as this is shortly after the dawning of a new year, I should say at least a little about my intentions for the year. I mean to live deliberately; I intend to create an improved version of myself each day. I intend to care for my body, listen to it, and strengthen it each day. I intend to get the heck off the internet-- when not blogging, of course! I intend to live compassionately. I will think not only about the content of my diet, but its origins, and I will strive to eliminate food items for which any animal has suffered.

I also intend to cultivate my mind. I will strive each day to become a better educator, to heal my own wounds and challenge my assumptions, and to keep my mind and heart open to any source from which I could learn important lessons about my life's calling. I intend to grow as a writer as well, pushing myself to write each day, even if it's just a few lines of reflection or a haiku. I intend to continue to make art; this past semester has awakened a creative spirit in me that lay dormant for years between the end of high school and now, and I do not intend to stifle it again.

Well, this got real deep, real quick. I basically just want to get better this year, and actively pursue getting better.

My mantra for the year:

And on that note, I'm gonna go work on this body of mine! Later!

Tofu Banh Mi (Vegan, gluten free)

Y'aaalllll I have had the craziest craving for banh mi today but I didn't feel like spending $6 on a sandwich, or feeling like crap after eating all that gluten. So, I came up with my own solution. I made all the stuff inside a typical banh mi, and topped some brown jasmine rice with it instead. My entire apartment smells like the marinade I used for the tofu and it's making me salivate like a nervous St. Bernard. I am SO excited to eat this in class later. Here's the recipe:

Tofu:

1 package firm sprouted tofu, or 1/2 package regular firm tofu

1/4c Bragg's or tamari

3/4" piece ginger, grated or minced very fine

Squirt of sriracha

1-2tbsp mirin, to your liking

2 tsp turbinado sugar

Juice of half a lime

Slaw:

Napa cabbage, carrot, beets, English cucumber, jalapeno, and red pepper, sliced into matchsticks and mixed to whatever proportion you like. You could also add daikon, but I didn't have any on hand at the moment. Make about 2 cups of veggies.

1/4c rice vinegar

2-3tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp mellow white miso paste

Juice of half a lime

Other ingredients:

Brown rice

Cilantro

Mint (optional)

Portabello mushrooms (optional)

Directions:

Stir all the tofu marinade ingredients together in a microwave-safe bowl or shallow baking dish and heat for 25 seconds. This will release some of the flavor of the ginger and heat the liquid enough for the turbinado sugar to dissolve. When you take the marinade out from the microwave, stir again.

*Prepare your tofu however you like-- fresh pressed works best for this dish, I think, but you could also use it frozen and pressed. Anyway, slice the tofu into six even slabs.

Lay tofu flat in a baking dish or tupperware and pour marinade over it. Shake it around to make sure it's well-coated. Set aside for 15-30 minutes, or overnight if you're not in a hurry.

Stir the slaw marinade ingredients until miso has dissolved completely. Toss the thinly-sliced veggies with the slaw marinade. Set aside for 15-30 minutes.

Start the brown rice in your rice cooker, or on the stove top if you're brave. I made about a cup of brown rice for this dish.

Heat a non-stick pan on medium with 1tsp canola oil, or spray with canola oil cooking spray. Sautee tofu (don't bother patting it dry) 3-4 minutes on each side, or until crisp on the outside.

When the tofu is done, sautee sliced mushrooms in canola oil or water with a bit of the leftover tofu marinade.

Spread rice on one even layer in a plate or a tupperware and top with slaw, tofu, and mushrooms, and sprinkle cilantro and mint over.

Enjoy!