I took this picture this morning. Until about 20 minutes ago those recycle bins were STILL out there. Unemptied. I finally cried uncle and brought them back in. Wazupwiththemofogarbagemanyo?

But I digress.

So today… there was a little of this.

A little of that.

We broke for lunch and I made a little hummus sandwich. And took a giant picture of it.

Toasted Ezekiel bread with mustard, garlic hummus, red leaf and tomato.

And pretended I was a little dinosaur eating giant steamed trees.

And steamed clouds.

Sometime between lunch and dinner came cookie time. We busted out the Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chip Cookies.

Observe.

I think they were acceptable.

Product placement at it’s finest.

One thumb up from Ava. I think it would have been two thumbs up, but the other hand had a cookie in it.

And if you couldn’t tell from these pictures, no, not a whole lot of cleaning got done today. Let’s just call my house “lived in”, shall we?

Mama had something else in mind for her snack.

Green lemonade rulez. Same concoction as yesterday’s. Minus the compost rummaging.

[Insert funny, interesting, witty, clever segue here]

Most of Zak’s college roommates were from India, which was the dawning of our taste for Indian food.

A picture of a picture, circa 2000.

We (Zak) learned a lot about Indian food during his years at school and he smelled like curry a lot during those pre-marital years. Maybe that’s why I love curry so much. (Cue: Awwwww!) Chana Masala is one of our favorites that I make at home pretty regularly.

Now I’ll give a little disclaimer here that my eyes usually glaze over when I see a recipe with a lot of ingredients, but this one is worth it. Many items in the list are just spices so don’t glaze over like a donut just yet.

Chana Masala

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
16 oz crushed tomatoes
15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup of water or vegetable broth
4 cups cooked chick peas (or 2 15 oz cans, rinsed and drained)
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice (or half a squeezed lemon)
1 fresh, hot chili pepper, minced (any kind of pepper will do actually)
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

Saute garlic and onion in EVOO until soft. Add curry powder and cumin and stir until garlic and onion are nicely coated in spices. Add tomato sauce and tomatos and cook for 5 minutes. Add chick peas and water (or broth). Add paprika and garam masala, salt and lemon juice, grated ginger and minsed pepper, stir and simmer for an additional 30 – 40 minutes.

Served with brown rice.

If you aren’t a fan of spicy food, leave out the cayenne and the hot pepper. It’s also worth noting that I only estimated with the spices here. In real life I’m pretty generous with the spices and I think I’m more reserved in the recipe here, so spice it up to your own taste. How many more times can I use the word spice in this paragraph? Spice. I guess I’m pretty generous with the word spice too.

What do you think? Is that picture over the top? I’d like to have you believe we are very cultured but truth be told I ran down to the basement to snag that picture off a shelf and wiped off the dust and cobwebs with the same dish towel I wiped up who knows what else with today.

Spice.

• No related posts.

Before my run this morning I dug into my stash of strawberries and blueberries that I snagged from the Farmer’s Market on Saturday.

Food combining rules say fresh fruit is supposed to be “eaten alone or leave it alone”. I have found that *just fruit* is the perfect pre-run/workout fuel. This works perfectly before a run because obviously my stomach is empty from the night before and when eaten alone fruit leaves the stomach in 30 minutes. (45 minutes for a banana.) It gives me a nice little energy boost and by the time I’m dressed and ready to hit the pavement I don’t have to worry about running on a full belly.

I set out for 4 or 5 miles, I hadn’t exactly decided. About 10 minutes in my left foot started to hurt and my toes were going numb and I realized I hadn’t fixed up my laces on my new sneaks!

I have to loosen the laces up by the toes, almost to the point where you think they would be too loose. My toes need some wiggle room.

When I first started running I beat up my feet pretty badly until I got that figured it out. Blisters, numb toes, a black toe nail that eventually fell off. It wasn’t pretty. I finally went to get fit at a running shoe store and learned that running sneakers need to be a half size up and there are different ways to lace them for different reasons.

Because I loosen the laces at the toe I have to tie them in a way that makes them stay put and keep my foot from slipping around too much. Too much foot slippage means rubbing that leads to blisters.

I use that second hole at the top of the sneaker to make a loop, and then stick the other lace through the loop that I just made.

This makes it easier to tie the shoe tight at the top but without having to be tight around my entire foot.

Running got a lot more comfortable for me when I got the shoe thing figured out.

I stopped to fix my laces and then was on my way again. I ended up doing my 5 mile loop and was back home in about 40 minutes.

Last night as I was getting ready to prep my breakfast cookie *dramatic twist* Zak said he wanted one on too. I had visions on my run this morning of taking pictures of our breakfast cookies together, walking hand in hand down the beach into the sunset.

But my vision was shattered when I got back from my to find this.

At least he liked it. What a typical man! Here’s my girl breakfast cookie, all alone. (And where I throw food combining rules to the wind.)

But still fabulous, nonetheless.

• No related posts.