Monthly Archives: September 2010

Happy Fall

Humm, it’s fall and predicted to be 94 degrees today.  Lucky for me I love the heat.

Yesterday morning, right as I was deciding whether it was a running or a Jillian day, Tate asked me to go for a run with him before work.

I must have been inspired by Tuesdays run with Kath and Suzanne because I didn’t let up on the gas once!  Even the hills (and there were plenty) were taken with a good amount of speed.

Map My Run informed me that we had done 3.69 miles in 33 minutes.  O.K, so I ain’t winning any races with those numbers but I could set a PR for next months

Fall Classic 10K. I am really looking forward to this run because C’ville is such a running town!  I am continually impressed that there are runners on the streets no matter the time or temperature!  It’s very motivating.

After our speedy run and a speedy shower it was seriously time for breakfast.

A cup of yogurt topped with Tuesday nights baked apples and chopped walnuts and sprinkled with cinnamon and ginger.  That’s not just any yogurt though, that’s my yogurt!

My second batch of homemade yogurt turned out pretty well.

Next time I am going to use 1 or 2 percent milk instead of fat-free and see if it turns out a little thicker.

The afternoon was spent printing and framing pictures for our house.  It was so much fun to go through all of our travel pictures and relive that AMAZING experience.  Our house looks brighter and more personal!  Here are a few of the highlights I put up

*sigh* that was an UNBELIEVABLE trip…memories for life.

Last night was interesting.

Tate and I attended a free class at Sunrise Herb Shoppe on “natural healing with diet, nutrition, and herbs”.  The class was presented by Herbalist, Nutritional Consultant, Certified Natural Health Professional, and shoppe owner, Terri Saunders.

It was a very nice group of people (Tate and I were the youngest by at least 10 years :)) and a lot of information was given but it went on for too long.  We were there from 7-10:30pm!  Terri was organized but strayed from topic every few minutes so we didn’t get into the food aspect until 10pm, which is what I am most interested in.

She did touch on fermented foods, something that I have been aware of, thanks to my awesome whole foodie parents, for some time but haven’t given a lot of thought too.  That is, until recently.  I have been hearing/reading so many praises of fermented foods lately that I think it’s time to move beyond kombucha, yogurt, and the occasional miso or tempeh, and start experimenting with making sauerkraut and kimchee.

The basic concept behind the health benefits of fermented food is that the process of fermentation breaks down food so that the nutrition is more readily available when eaten.  I am no expert on fermented food so if you are interested in learning more, here is a good start

Top 8 Reasons to Eat Fermented Foods

And of course, I will keep you up to date on my adventures with creating some fermented foods of my own!

I have an exciting afternoon planned but first I must Shred, yoga, garden, and shower!

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Kitchen Experiments

Let’s discuss dinner.

More specifically my delicious dinner last night.

I have been seeing lots of recipes for carrot soup recently and, being on this all-things-orange-and-fally kick, I knew I had to give it a whirl.

Into the soup pot went

  • wee bit of olive oil
  • chopped celery
  • chunks of carrots
  • chunk of butternut squash
  • chunk of fresh ginger
  • two pinches of unsweetened coconut flakes
  • a 2-3 cups water

I left these ingredients to simmer and soften while I prepared short-grain brown rice, baked summer squash, and kale chips.

Once the carrots were nice and soft everything went into the food processor.  Also, in went

  • curry powder
  • coriander powder
  • smoked salt
  • liquid aminos
  • a tiny pour of vanilla

I was really just working with what I had on hand and seemed interesting, curried carrot soup seems very forgiving.  The important thing is to start with quality carrots.  Carrots are not on the dirty dozen list but I always buy organic because I think they taste SO much better.

Once the whole batch has been processed return to pot to simmer until time to serve.   This soup screams for a garnish, we had greek yogurt mixed with chopped fresh cilantro on top of the “soup” (we ate ours on the plate with everything else as you can see but it could easily be thinner).  I made enough for 4-6 servings because I like leftovers and soup always gets better as it sits.

Success!  Dinner was super tasty.

And very filling!  As long as the oven was on I baked some apples with cinnamon and ginger with every intention of eating them mixed with yogurt for dessert but I was done eating after dinner.  Sounds like baked apples and yogurt for breakfast.

Tate and I are off for a quick run before he heads to work.

Now tell me about your dinner!  Come on, spill it!  I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly (cereal? 5 star restaurant? fast food? home-cooked?)

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