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Checking In

As I write this, the workday is over and the weekend is beginning. I’ve missed blogging for a couple weeks now due to myriad issues, mostly a questionable internet connection at home paired with an old and ailing computer. Not to mention being slammed with work at work. I’m writing this from my office, since I have a little bit of a breather before I go off to a Diwali party tonight, thrown by a good friend.  I can’t wait to try some of the traditional Indian dishes she’s prepared.

Despite that, I have continued to eat well – traditional, nutrient dense food that is oh so delicious.  I’ve even taken photographs of them, and will upload soon once I take care of the tech issues at home. Some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks:

  • Turkey meatballs made with pastured turkey sausage and pastured eggs. Fantastic.
  • An escarole and white bean soup with said turkey meatballs – the escarole was organic from my CSA and the white beans are also organic and are grown upstate. Light and wonderful and full of healthy stuff.
  • Pan de muerto – this is a traditional Mexican bread made during All Souls/All Saints days. It’s full of pastured eggs (15 of them!) and pastured butter. It does contain AP flour, but this was a holiday treat, and boy do the eggs make a difference!
  • Fried pastured eggs for breakfast.  One or two, along with a glass of kombucha, usually holds me til lunch.
  • Pastured chicken thighs and drumsticks from my buying club, seasoned with za’atar and olive oil.  Boy is this stuff good.  I plan to use it again on chicken, too.
  • Lots and lots of roasted organic sweet potatoes, some roasted on their own and one batch roasted in the pan with the above chicken. Yum!
  • I was at L’Artiste, a new French restaurant in town, and I ate so many delicious things there – an amuse with liver and bacon; spinach, fennel, and citrus salad in a creamy blue cheese dressing; a wonderfully seared duck breast with delicious crispy skin; and a panna cotta for dessert that blew me away.

Additional good news is that I ran the 5 mile NYC Marathon Warmup race last weekend in under a hour. This is a personal best! I felt really good throughout, too. I attribute my success to consistent training with both long runs and intervals, as well as eating a nutrient-dense, unrefined diet for the most part. Along with the delicious things I mentioned above, I’ve been eating plenty of apples, which have kept my sugar cravings in balance.

So, off I go to the Diwali celebration with friends, and hopefully I will be back up and running here very soon! Oh, I am somewhat active during the day on Twitter, where you can find me there at @harmoniousbelly.  Hope to connect with you in 140 characters or less!

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Kitchen and Garden Update

This weekend was hot – like summery hot, in the upper 80s.  I was totally loving it, but it was a little bit of a shock to have to all of the sudden adjust to hot weather practices, like not exerting too much in the middle of the day.  I’m used to more freedom of movement in the spring months, to be honest.  Everything worked out, though, and I got a lot accomplished.

My week of meal planning and being on a running schedule last week was a rousing success!  I have planned out this week, too, so we’ll see how it goes.  I expect I’ll learn new things, and that it will be a success, too.  I have planned to make one of my old standards for dinner one day this week, which is wonderfully flexible and open to improvisation, and I look forward to sharing about it here.

It’s a crazy week for me in the evenings, which means not much time to cook.  So, we made 2 pans of lasagna today for ready-to-eat meals, which came out fantastic – these lasagnas are some of the best we’ve ever made.

two lasagnas

meat cooked

veggie cooked

This was the first time I’d used fresh pasta sheets, and I’ll have a hard time ever going back to dried.  The sheets were made up the street by local pasta maker Cassinelli, the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses made just around the corner at a local salumeria.  In one of the lasagnas I used pesto, which I made last summer from CSA basil, that was frozen until today.  Overall the lasagna is almost creamy in texture, yet has substance.  I will enjoy eating this lasagna throughout the week.

I was also able to make my soaked granola this weekend, which I’ll have with raw yogurt and milk this week for some breakfasts.  This time I’m using cranberries and pepitas, along with apricots and hazelnuts, which should make for some interesting tastes.  This is my favorite cold cereal ever and will be a great option for this coming week of warm/hot weather when I don’t want to heat anything up.

oven granola

nuts and seeds

fruit

Over the past couple of weekends, I’ve been digging in the dirt.  I’ve added compost twice now to the garden plot, and really turned up the ground.  My friend Charlene came over to help out, too, which was a lot of fun.

compost

I am so fortunate to have this space in which to garden and grow my own food.   I also have a good sized planter on my deck, which originally was going to live elsewhere, but has found a home with me, which is filled with dirt and compost.  There is a volunteer cilantro plant growing in it, and the french tarragon that was in there last year has new growth.  I’ll sow some thyme seeds probably, or perhaps even some parsley.   Photos to come.

I’m also surrounded by lots of sort of ambient greenery, which makes a huge difference living in a big city like NYC.

greenery

That’s the view from my back deck.  So, so nice.