Thursday, March 25, 2010

big red month

and it's not red for the ladies, just red due to unwillingness to exercise. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but between stressing out over everything related to the sale of our house (I still can't believe we were lucky enough to sell it!) and packing, I stopped doing extra physical activity. well, the upshot is that I feel like a giant flobberry, and foolish to boot because I don't have any real excuse. I did go to the gym the other day, and it was not a wonderful, fluid, back to the ole' workout experience. today, I'm planning to go again...and just get through it until it feels good again. the sad thing is that I'm writing about only running like two miles!

john and I went to Ambler for dinner last night. we ate at a restaurant called, from the boot. john's food tasted like it was from someone's boot. I had mussels, which were pretty tasty, but now my hands are all weirdly swollen. is there a connection? the best part of dinner were the complimentary garlic knots. Henry put a bunch of those down.

ah, it feels good to write a blog entry again!

by the way, have I mentioned the fact that windows vista really DOES SUCK?

I don't have a photo of dinner, so here's this one instead, Henry at 10 months. dogs are Gummi and Gary.

must go shower for work.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I will live to blog again!

Does anyone even bother to check anymore? I've moved, and now I have post-traumatic stress disorder from it. OK, so maybe that's a bit dramatic, but really, everything feels so disorganized and hectic that even though I know I should be happy, I just feel crazy, flat like a pancake! but look, even through it all, I still take photos of my food! they're littering my camera roll on my iphone. who needs memory for photos of their kids, or pets, or family? today's breakfast was the dregs of my sunflower seed butter + granola that I made in my newly moved into kitchen. more to come...exercise? ha! I'm going to the gym for the first time today in weeks. ugh.


Tuesday, March 9, 2010

this will not be pretty

the move is beginning this morning. the A-Team can't find a place to put their truck. tune in again tomorrow for gory details and photos. love, e

Friday, March 5, 2010

grody, totally grody

I decided to get all homey and make Henry's birthday cake. it was his birthday yesterday, but we're celebrating one day late.

anyway, I made a chocolate cake with buttercream icing. the icing was intense, I had to buy a candy thermometer to do it properly. I got the recipe from epicurious, and made sure the reviews were good...

all went fine, except that I mistakely bought salted butter. um, ever tasted 5 sticks of salted butter that's been mashed together with some suger and egg whites? it tastes SALTY! oh, and buttery too. this cake is not going to taste good. it's got two layers, and some raspberry jam, so hopefully that will do something. my guess is that we'll each eat one bite, then throw it in the trash!

this morning, we took Henry to our neighborhood diner, and Ann, his friend, had a birthday booth all decorated! I'll post photos soon.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

gym hiatus

I've vowed to stay off the treadmill until I no longer have a respiratory infection. well, I'm not positive that I have an infection per se, but I am still hacking stuff up, wheezing, and blowing my nose all the time.

breakfast this morning was not my usual greenie, but a boring piece of bread. I was starving by lunchtime, which came after I drove out to the mall to get a cakestand, offset spatula, and candy thermometer (which also doubles as an oil thermometer). I'm making a layer cake for Henry's second birthday. I've decided on chocolate cake with raspberry filling, and chocolate buttercream icing. yes, it's completely decadent! what can I say, the kid likes chocolate. plus, it's been an ambition of mine to get good at making layer cakes. this will be my first one.

I got lunch from the cafeteria once I was back at work.

it was my standard soup and salad lunch. this time I added a bit of brianna's poppyseed dressing to the beet portion of the container. there was some lettuce in there, but that was just for show. I barely ate any of it. I feel that I must get over my aversion to lettuce, but it's just so unappealing. the only way I like it these days is as a wrap for stuff. there isn't any salad dressing I like so much that makes me really want to eat lettuce. I think I od'd on salads in 2004.

last night we had my favorite split pea soup for dinner. here's a really bad photo of it. I swear it tastes so much better than it looks. plus, it's super easy to make.

here's how to make a yummy split pea soup:
one large onion, diced
3 or 4 large carrots, sliced into disks (or on the bias, or whatever) ~1/4" thick
3 stems celery, cut same thickness as carrots
16 oz. green split peas (or yellow), rinsed (pick out any weird looking items)
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
salt and pepper to taste (only add salt after soup is finished)

- saute all of the vegetables until fairly well sweated
- add to crock pot (or soup pot) with split peas
- stir well
- add water to pot so that level is about 1.5 inches over the contents
if you're cooking it on the stovetop, bring the pot to a boil and skim off the scum that floats to the top (yeah, that sounds pleasant), then lower flame to simmer, stir well, and partially cover - cook until the peas turn to mush. finish by adding water to get the consistency you like.
- if you're using a crock pot, then put the setting to high for 3 hours, or so, then turn to low and let it stay on for a couple more hours. if you're away all day, put the setting on low & the soup should be finished when you get home.
- salt and pepper to taste. I find that the soup cooks better if you avoid salting it before it's cooked.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

holy moly!

I'm eating a KIND fruit+nut bar, and it is DELICIOUS! it's the almond and coconut flavor, and I'm totally impressed. it's not too sweet, has the right chewiness to crunch ratio, and tastes fresh. I love coconut, and the bar scores big there because rather than coconut shreds, it has coconut chips. take a look at the photo, you can see how big the coconut pieces are.

mmmmm

yesterday at the gym

I had a most crappy workout! maybe it was because I had a dinner party on Sunday and didn't sleep well and ate lots of falafel and bagna cauda (garlic, anchovies, extra-virgin olive oil, and butter - yes, it sounds gross, but it's actually delicious! photo of sauce below, we used it for dipping veggies)? I hate myself for not taking photos of everyone hanging out. how silly can a girl be? we had a feast, and lots of good conversation, and yummy wine, and it all made me nearly cry to be leaving my neighborhood. I live in Fishtown, and while it's not the most scenic place on earth, there are some mighty great people around! I'm moving in a week.

but back to working out. I ran like a mile yesterday, then gave up. that's it. that's all she wrote yesterday. I felt like a big bailer, but then gave myself permission to stop, and said, oh well, at least I went to the gym. sigh.

egg whites

mmm, I just ate two scrambled egg whites for breakfast. which reminds me, I keep forgetting to ask someone (or I suppose I could look it up) what egg white puffs are. I notice that Kate enjoys them quite often.

I'd post a photo, but I left my phone in the car. for some reason, I hate going back to the car once I've gotten in. in terms of things I'm lazy about, it ranks up there with being too lazy to go to the bathroom until just before my bladder begins to send out emergency signals.

in a random note, I'm wearing my danny devitos today, but with clogs and not boots. I put them on this morning with the intention of wearing a pair of boots, but got so absent-minded on my way out the door that I just shoved my feet into shoes that were sitting there. imagine these in bright red and you'll have a picture of my feet in your mind. not elegant, but I do love my shoes (they remind me of pee-wee herman).

Monday, March 1, 2010

french fry guys

so, the most disquieting thing about my kombucha experience is that I was looking closely at the bottle as I opened it (slowly, a-hem), and I unfortunately noticed that there were disturbing things happening during the opening process.

do you see those two mop-like clusters of something hanging out above the label? this stuff was floating about, coming up to the top, and cavorting about inside my drink like the McDonald's french fry guys (front row, picture below).

not to sound too picky, but I didn't want the sensation of one of those devilish creatures touching my lips as I quaffed my beverage.

anyway, the taste wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. not that I knew what I was expecting. to tell the truth, it tasted like a Lambic Framboise Ale. I was thinking, am I going to get drunk if I drink this entire thing? I didn't get through the whole drink, but I am going to try it again soon. John kept exclaiming everytime I opened the bottle (we were in the car, running errands), 'woa, that stuff really stinks!'

there are apparently many health benefits to drinking kombucha (I didn't feel anything, but I only had like three ounces of my bottle), but I think that the part I like best is that it's scientifically classified as a 'zoogleal mat.'

I found out last night that I have more than one friend who is currently fermenting up their own kombucha. apparently, you use a 'mother' to start a new brew. each time you bring a mother through the fermentation process, she makes a 'daughter.' by this convenient process, you can always be in the kombucha, baby!