Lightweight Eats

Yum. This dish was super tasty, savory, nutty and satisfying. It more than made up for the lack of turkey on my plate at Thanksgiving, and would also be a festive addition to a Christmas feast. (In fact, I might bring it along to our traditional Christmas Eve meal, seeing as none of the dishes that are normally served are dairy/meat free.)

All of the pieces can be prepped individually and just thrown into the same bowl a few hours before serving. The cauliflower should be made no earlier than one day ahead, unless you expect zero leftovers. (It doesn't start to smell funk until about 4 days later, but taste deteriorates by the end of day two.)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Quinoa Cauliflower Kale Salad
serves 4 as a main, 8 as a side

1c quinoa, dry
2c water

2 heads cauliflower, cut into florets, leafy bits reserved
spray oil

2 bunches kale, deveined and well chopped
1 onion, sliced
1T olive oil

1c pomegranate arils

For the dressing:
(from Smitten Kitchen)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
0.5c lemon juice
6T tahini
4T water
4T olive oil

1. Put the quinoa and water in a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce to a light simmer for 15 minutes. Let sit for at least 5 minutes covered, then let cool fully.
2. Spread the cauliflower on a baking tray. Spray with oil. Roast in a 375°F oven until lightly browned all over, about 30 minutes. Stir regularly (about every 10').
3. Saute the onion in olive oil and a pinch of salt over medium-low heat until golden. Add the kale, sauteeing over medium until tender. (If necessary, add about 0.25c water and cover the kale to help it steam to tender.) This will take about 15'.
4. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust as necessary.
5. Assemble: Mix all of the cooked elements, at room temperature, in a large bowl. Add half of the pomegranate arils and the dressing, tossing to combine. Garnish with the remaining pomegranate. Serve at room temperature.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Recently, I've been thinking more and more about purchasing organic produce. The move to our new place has helped with our budget enough that we can start to consider organics.

At our old place, we bought nearly all of our produce from the market. Much of the produce was pesticide free, although not certified organic; other items weren't available in organic form, or weren't affordable. I also felt good enough about purchasing locally that I wasn't as concerned with organics.

The local farmer's market at our new place is pretty pathetic--it's got maybe four stalls, one of which sells candied nuts and candy. Instead, I've started shopping at Farmer Joe's, our local natural foods store.



I'm still not entirely sure how much produce makes sense to purchase as organic. However, the logical side of me has a lot of good arguments in favor of organics:
It's better for the environment. It's better for the people who grow my food. It's safer. Most importantly, it's better for my body, and if I'm going to spend 2-6 hours a day training my body to be the best it can be, I should be fueling it with the best I can find.

I do have a few arguments against organics, though:
The produce isn't always high quality. (The poor organic bell peppers are always squishy..) It can cost significantly more. It isn't always available--although this is becoming less and less of an issue.

I've posted a list of the dirty dozen and the clean 15 on our fridge. I'm going to make an effort to purchase the dirty dozen as organics as often as possible. Otherwise, I think I'm going to try to start my shopping in the organic produce section and then follow up in the conventional section instead of the other way around.

I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make. Although I've never done an all-organic experiment, I have never felt a significant difference in my body after consuming more organics. Certainly I haven't felt the same changes I felt when I switched to not eating meat, or even to eating more vegetables and fruits.

I will keep you updated on my position on organics as time passes. Please, let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter!

P.S. Happy birthday, Kat!

At our old apartment, the living room, dining room, office and kitchen were all one room. There were certainly perks: if Dan was working and I was cooking, we could still chat and hang out. It also made it easy to transition from cooking to eating to hanging out.




There were also major downsides. When we moved in, getting our furniture to fit was like playing Tetris. The wheels on our kitchen cart were crucial, and helped us allocate space to either the kitchen or dining area as necessary. And we hardly used our "living room": the solitary couch and lonely chair were just awkward.

In the new place, our furniture has room to breathe!

This means we need a lot more decorations, which is awesome. I look forward to making this space home--putting up pictures and purchasing decorations (vases, sculptures, plants, etc.). I can't wait to hang curtains, mirrors and clocks. We're even thinking about doing some painting!

This house is much cozier--it's begging for a warm cup of cocoa and a Christmas tree. Maybe it's just the season, or maybe it's the central heating and the fireplace, which we aren't allowed to use :(, but I already feel more at home here. (It could also be the spacious kitchen, the well-stocked pantry and the yard.)



Clearly, we need some more decorations for our living room. We are slowly working on acquiring decorative elements. We were thinking about buying a crappy, old 10 speed, taking it apart, and hanging the various elements on the walls. I think the frame would look nice above the fireplace, and some wheels and chains between the windows.

There were so many things to be grateful for this weekend, and this whole year. My life is so different from this same time last year and looking better every day.

For this year's Thanksgiving, we decided to have a low-key celebration at home. It's been a stressful month for both Dan and me, so having the long weekend at home was much needed. We're both feeling much more relaxed.

Dan came home from work early on Wednesday and found me elbow deep in cooking. A lot of people find cooking for Thanksgiving very stressful--I had the opposite experience. It was fun and relaxing to plan and execute the menu!!

To help, I planned my dishes so that many of them could be made ahead of time. We had a few rowing friends over to our place for Thursday dinner and wanted to spend our evening enjoying good company, not slicing, dicing, chopping and cooking.

On Wednesday, I managed to make:
- bean salad: garbanzos, edamame, cucumber, bell pepper, red onion and a lemon-thyme dressing
- quinoa, roasted cauliflower, kale salad with a tahini dressing and pomegranate aril garnish (recipe coming soon)
- vegan pumpkin bread and accompanying cranberry sauce (recipes coming after more testing)
- Mmmm sauce, intended for broccoli

Thursday morning, Dan and I worked together to put the finished touches on the meal:
- oven roasted turkey
- super garlicky mashed potatoes
- broiled broccoli spears

Dinner was an absolute blast--we spent the evening laughing and eating until late.

Friday, we headed into San Francisco to see what all the Black Friday hubbub was about. Neither Dan nor I can remember going shopping on Black Friday, and it was quite an experience. I've never seen lines so long for deals that could also be found online. It seems to be as much tradition at this point as actual deal scavenging.

Saturday and Sunday were both spent around home. I had Saturday morning practice, and we spent the afternoon going grocery shopping, making dinner and generally putzing about the house.

Sunday morning, we made pancakes and went for a nice bike ride on the waterfront. In the afternoon, we explored our new neighborhood and went on a coffee date! Lovely!

Overall, a great way to spend a long weekend with an incredible husband.

This coming week, we start training in earnest after a light training week due to Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to the increased eating that comes with increased training! I'll also be putting in a number of hours at work while we prep for our launch.

As I've mentioned, the West Coast Speed Order this past weekend was our biggest and last race of the fall season. I definitely had mixed results.

The race was a two day event, with a weigh-in and 6K test on the erg on Saturday, followed by a 4K race on the water on Sunday.

In college, our weigh-ins were the night before the race. This gives you about 16 hours to recover from the effort. Generally, lightweights sit slightly above their race weight during the course of the season; in college, it was standard to sweat out at least a pound of water weight for weigh-ins, knowing that you could replenish your body before the race.

For this weigh-in, I did a really poor job of weight management in the month leading up to the race. I left myself too much weight to drop in the last two weeks, and ended up depleting my store of carbohydrates in my system. I managed to make weight easily (129.6 pounds, after eating half of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and having breakfast and snacks throughout the morning), but at a pretty significant cost.

The weigh-in was two hours before the start of the erg test, and about 75 minutes before I started my warm-up. This really didn't leave enough time to refuel. Having never tested this process before, I was stuck guessing what and how much to eat. I guessed wrong, and my 6k test suffered as a result.

Mentally, I was in a pretty bad place after that 6k, and it took some work to get back. Fortunately, my awesome family, a La Farine baguette and some football helped a lot. The Ducks' loss to Stanford Saturday night reminded me that even great athletes have bad days.

I went out Sunday morning, fueled, calm and ready to race. I've spent the last three months perfecting my steering over this race course, and I would give myself a 9.5/10 during this race. I made some of the same steering mistakes I always make, but I caught myself before they got too bad.

On the water training before the race.

I raced conservatively in the first half, still cautious after my previous day's experience, but managed to pull off a decent time. Next time, I would row with a higher stroke rate, plan a few power moves throughout the course, and spend a few more minutes warming up on land before launching. Overall, though, I was very happy with my Sunday performance on the water.

Going forward, I plan to research refueling options for post weigh-in, and do some practice runs, much like marathoners practice fueling during long runs.

Six months ago, I left my job as a coach and made my way back to the other side of the megaphone. After college, I wasn't really planning on continuing to train, and my efforts to stay in shape during my year long hiatus were pretty pathetic.

Before I even had access to our new place, and before our lease had officially started, I had already bought our first pantry staples. Therefore, I think it's fitting to start the tour of our new place with the pantry.