WoYoPracMo Jan 8 & 9

Two Classes to Warm Up the Day Saturday

WoYoPracMo Jan 7 Post

Something

Just about Snapped!

Last night as we walked into the kitchen after yoga, we were greeted with the most delicious smell. Pork Loin roasting in the crockpot on a bed of (by then) caramelized onions! Oh. My. Gosh.

I told Liz it was just so so tempting.

"Me too," she said. "I've always been a big fan of roast pork."

That made me feel better. She's been a veggie for more than a year.

I lifted the meat and onions into a container for the refrigerator. Liz tipped up the crock to pour in the pot liquor.

Neither of us licked our fingers.

yiiiikes!

Roasted Vegetable Stock

VegStock1
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This is my favorite recipe. It's from the new Joy of Cooking (although there might be an even newer one than the one I have).

400 degree oven. Lightly oil a roaster. Drop in whole mushrooms, cut up turnips, carrots, garlic, onion. Cut them all big. Smash the garlic. Roast for an hour. The veggies should be browning around the edges.

Put the veggies in a crockpot. Deglaze the roaster with a little water. Pour that into the stockpot. Fill up with water. Add celery tops, red pepper flakes and some herbs. I put some dried thyme in a teaball and dropped it in (I don't have any fresh herbs right now), along with a couple of bay leaves

Simmer for an hour. Strain and refrigerate/freeze.

WoYoPracMo Jan 6 Post

Restorative Class-FAIL!

Fish Decision Deferred

I haven't decided whether or not my 6-week foray into vegetarianism will include fish. As of 6:45 last night I had decided it would not. I pulled some frozen flounder that was lurking in the bottom of the freezer and put it in the oven to bake. Intention: big salads with a nice fillet on the side or top. We all like salads with salmon fillets but there was no fresh salmon to be found at Harris Teeter. By 6:46 the decision was reversed with yogiLiz showed up to take me to a restorative yoga class. I ran out the door throwing instructions for dinner completion over my shoulder.

Today at lunch I thought I'd have the leftover fish and a salad. It was gone, taken by Mensa Boy to work in HIS lunch! I'm quite delighted that he enjoyed it well enough to do that.

So I'm still fish-less. And undecided.

The Initiatives

I said the other day that I would write out some resolutions. But I prefer to call them initiatives. Why? Mainly because everyone calls them resolutions and I hate to be average. Also because the word "resolutions" makes me think of the usual stuff like lose weight and de-clutter, which usually lasts about a week and then are forgotten. I don't need to lose weight and I de-clutter all the time (it seems to be a never-ending process). But also because the word "initiative" just sounds important and somewhat inflexible and, most of all, self-driven.

So. The 2010 Initiatives

1. And this is the biggest: Go vegetarian until February 14. At least until then. I came up with that date because, for as long as I can remember, my mom has gotten rid of sugary-snacks on January 1. Why? To lose weight. I don't know how she actually did with that...I guess we should ask her. But she has always said "On January 1 we are all going on diets and there will be no more cookies and fudge and candy and all that around."

So I've been around "THE BIG ANNUAL FOOD CHANGE" a lot. And I do it myself still. I continue that tradition by purging the house of sugar on January 1. This year I figured if I was going to be doing that, I might as well give vegetarianism a go too.

I started thinking about it in early December. My yogabuddy Liz is a veggie and we love to cook together. We've played with our food, and I've enjoyed working on new vegetarian entrees that would pass muster with my guys. So I figured why not do it full-time for 6 weeks?

In a nutshell, I'm not going vegetarian because of the animals. Yes, I do feel badly about them and how we do terrible things to them in the name of mass food production. But I still see the value of meat...and firmly believe that God intended us to be omnivores. No, I'm going vegetarian to flex my culinary muscles. Can I keep it up even when there don't seem to a lot of quick choices in the house? Some days when I'm tired I like to just zap a pound of burger, boil up a pot of macaroni and toss it all together with some tomatoes. We'll see. (by the way, when I was thinking about doing this, I asked Mensa Boy if he wanted to think about it too. "No." He said. Didn't even pause)

2. No refined sugar until Valentine's Day. That goes back to #1, I know. But it's a little harder. Rather than just stopping with all sugar until V-Day, I've decided just to forgo REFINED sugar. This will also flex my cooking brain. I will have sweet, but it has to be sweetened with honey, molasses, fruit, agave or what have you. Only natural sweeteners. Tricky, huh? I think that will allow me to make it all the way until V-Day. I never have before. I've gotten close...

3. Waste Not. This is also about food. And water. I end up throwing away eggplants that I bought and forgot. Or half a head of cabbage or leftover meatloaf. It's ridiculous. And water...that's just crazy. I think we run about 3 gallons of water in the kitchen before it gets hot. And I think that's a pretty conservative estimate.

So my plan is to take a look in those crisper drawers every morning. Scope out the contents. Noodle around with that during the day, and then cook from there at night. ALSO...I'm doing a pantry purge right now. I found 4 half-empty bags of various kinds of beans in there. They will all get eaten. Four kinds of rice? To be eaten.

The water situation. The only thing I can think there is to actually run water into the teakettle and bring it to a boil on top of the stove to add to the dishwater. But then I'm using gas on the stove instead of gas in the water heater. My main plan is to get an under-sink point-of-service water heater before the year is out. (note to self: mention this to MB. I think I've forgotten to do that)

4. Yoga every single day. No time limit. Could be 5 minutes, could be two hours. Could be by myself, could be in a class. Could be any kind of yoga. I never understand when people say they don't have time to do yoga. 5 minutes? That's brushing my teeth twice! Gimme a break!

5. Back to the camera. I wish I could say I'll take at least one picture a day. But then I end up at 8:15 p.m. thinking "I need to shoot something, quick!" That's not real. But I will try to photograph more. Kind of a lame statement, I know.

I just realized this embodies all my hobbies and in every one I say I'm going to do more. More cooking, more yoga, more photography. More fun!

That's all. There might be more but I can't remember them right now. I don't think there are more. If so, I'll post again.

WoYoPracMo Jan 5 Post

Side Attraction

WoYoPracMo Jan 4 Post

Meditation & Yoga Nidra

Yoga on Top of the World

crowdersheadstand
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Well, as close to the top of the world that you can get in Gastonia, NC...

So after we huffed and puffed our way up to the top (Well, actually I was doing all the huffing and puffing. Mensa Boy never opened his mouth for breathing purposes. "Can't you at least pretend you're out of breath?" I asked. "I feel like I'm drowning out all the nature sounds."), I asked him if he'd take some photos of some yoga poses.

"As long as it's a safe spot," he said. (I'm going to assume he was concerned for MY safety!)

So I did a half-moon, which pretty much was awful. The photo is on Flickr but I'm not posting it here. I'm not extended in the middle and my hips aren't stacked. It's an all-around pretty bad pose, actually. (But not nearly as bad as the wheel, where I just looked like I was doing a reverse tabletop. No arch whatsoever. THAT one is NOT on flickr) But in my defense, I was pretty cold and sweaty from the climb...it was about 38 degrees by then...and my human shutter pusher didn't know enough about form to correct me. AND he kept shooting and saying "oops," which had me kind of distracted. OK?

Where was I? Oh yeah, the safe spot. We moved away from the edge, but were actually at the highest point here. A nice, flat spot. Good thing we did move from the edge because see those rocks behind me? I fell backwards on to them during the first try. Nope, no bruises. I managed to control my descent pretty well and got my boots down on the rocks and flicked my hands out to save my wrists. Just landed with a slight "oomph" on my back.

It was a fun morning. We climbed up and back down in about 90 minutes. A little over 3 miles of straight up and down. Then we rewarded ourselves with Olive Garden for lunch (THANKS MOM & DAD!).

Back to work tomorrow. Four days left of this semester and then the second semester will be a DOOZY!

WoYoPracMo Jan 3 Post

Kundalini