Fall Cooking-Minestrone Time!

Image source here

Aaaaaaaaaand......just like that, Fall is here.  It's like the occurence of Labor Day signaled some shift and what was warm and summery is now cool, crisp and swathed in morning fog.

This slight nip in the air, accompanied by a steady, cold drizzle yesterday drove us indoors and into the kitchen.

Otto and I decided to make Minestrone- a great soup to make with kids and, let's face it, fucking delicious to boot. 


Minestrone (Adapted and changed a little from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook)

2 tbs Olive Oil
A big onion, chopped
Lots of garlic (5 cloves or so), minced
Some sea salt...maybe 1 1/2 tsp.
One or two celery stalks, diced
One or two carrots, diced
One chopped bell pepper, any color (we chose orange, but red and green are great too)
One zucchini squash, diced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
A well rinsed and drained can of Garbanzo Beans
Some dry pasta- (any shape-we like penne) , 3/4 to 1 cup, give or take
15 oz. can of tomato puree or sauce
3 tbs. or so of dry, drinkable red wine (optional)
4 cups of organic chicken broth (or water or veggie stock, if you wanna go vegetarian like Mollie)
2 ripe, fresh tomatoes, diced
Parmesan cheese
Fresh parsley, chopped


First,  chop all the choppables and set them aside, ready to be dumped in the soup pot when the time comes.  Then heat the oil in a big ol' soup pot, and add the onion, garlic and salt.  Stir and cook and smell for about 5 minutes.  Next, add the carrots, celery, oregano, basil, and black pepper.  Stir and cook and smell again until it's all mixed up.  Put a lid on it, reduce heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes.

"Onions hurt my eyes but they smell good, Mom."

Pop the lid off, throw in your bell pepper, your zucchini, the chicken stock (or water) and tomato puree and wine if you've got it.  Stir it up, bring to a simmer and cover and cook for about 15 minutes.  Throw in the chick peas.  Cook another 5 minutes.

Bring the soup to a gentle boil, throw in your pasta and cook until its done.

Don't you feel comforted and warmed just looking at that?

Inhale deeply.

At the last minute, once your pasta is nice and edible, toss in the diced tomato and stir.  Serve with parsley and Parmesan and maybe some crusty bread and butter on the side.

Oh, and pour yourself a glass of that wine.

And stuff.

What's up with me:

For obvious reasons, I don't want to say much about my job here.  There are folks out there who get canned for writing about their jobs on their blogs and NO THANKS.  However,  work is presenting some challenges lately that are not entirely pleasant.  Ugh.  Its nothing big or earth shattering, rather a thousand tiny little annoyances that add up to one unhappy, bored, listless me.  I'm SO MUCH MORE fulfilled by my home life and volunteer work that it leaves me wondering if there truly is something wrong with my current situation or if I'm just the personality type that will never be content.

Home is OK... not getting enough time with the Mister (if you know what I mean, wink, wink) but having been married 11+ years, I know that these things ebb and flow.   We're both training for endurance events, working full-time and being parents.  So yeah, nookie will take a back seat from time to time.  But still...I'm starting to look forward to curling up on winter nights and canoodling while the snow falls.

In a similar vein, I'm looking forward to cooler weather and the domesticity that tends to come with it.  I'm itching for minestrone, green chili, and other cool weather comfort foods that just don't seem right when temps are 80+ degrees.   And hot drinks.  And wearing scarves. 

The little guy is in a new classroom at preschool and seems to be thriving, even with the reduction of nap time down from 2 hours a day to 1 hour a day.  I've noticed a little grumpiness in the evenings but overall he's handling the transition much better than I'd anticipated.  And HOLY SHIT he's going to be 4 this month.

...And I'm thinking about having another one more and more.  Eeeep.  The Mister is on board, I think, with considering attempting a pregnancy a year from now.  I'll be 35, officially "advanced maternal age."  Not sure how I feel about that...


Anyway.  The end of summer is clipping right along and this long season of intense training has an end in sight.  (I'm going to wait and see how I feel after before saying if I'll attempt a marathon again, heh.)  I love it that we have such beautiful late summer here.  The weather is pitch perfect and you can see folks visably trying to soak it up, because in a month and a half there will be snow.  Probably.

Pass the Pickles

Right now, I feel consumed by my training.  It's not all together a bad thing.  Its a special kind of awesome to devote yourself to an endurance goal and work, work, work to meet it.  I feel focused, centered.  motivated....tired.

It occurred to me last night, however, that I've felt like this before but for a very different reason.   I now present:

2 lists

List the first:  Ways in which marathon training is uncannily like the 2nd trimester of pregnancy:

1.  I am hungry ALL. THE. TIME.  I will eat anything and everything put in front of me...

2.  ...except for things I won't.   Such as cilantro (GROSS), and cheesecake (GAG) and super heavy, fatty things the night before a run.

3.  I can't drink (much).  While I technically can drink more than I would allow myself in pregnancy, any more than one or 2 beers WILL be felt in the next morning's run.  And not in a good way.

4.  I am tired ALL. THE. TIME.  I can and will sleep anytime, anywhere.  If only I got more opportunities.  Stupid work.

5.  I mostly feel really mentally energetic and motivated and don't really have the time or brainspace to devote to feeling sorry for myself, except for...

5.  ...the mood swings.  Exhaustion/hunger/burned-out-ed-ness manifests itself in some crankypants.  Occasionally.

6.  People who have done something similar or know someone who has tend to react to my "condition" with advice or horror stories about their brother's wife's cousin's daughter who had some totally fucked up thing happen.  People who have never been there just give me strange looks that imply that I'm probably not right in the head.



List the second:  Ways in which marathon training is definitely different from 2nd trimester pregnancy:

1.  I am losing weight, rather than gaining it. 

2.  I'm not spending crazy amounts of money and time shopping for nursery items/clothes/toys/slings/carseats/etc.  Although I am replacing my running shoes more often.

3.  My "due date" will not involve medical bills.  Hopefully.

4.  My husband does not have that constant look of abject terror in his eyes.  Mostly he just rolls them and tells me to make sure I get enough rest so that he and my son can stand to be in the same house with me.

Birthday Blues

Tomorrow, I turn 34.  I tend to get cranky and weird around my birthday. Which is strange, I know, but I very rarely have great birthdays. At best they are OK, at worst, they are really bad (like having to put my dog to sleep. On my birthday. Oy.)

This year, however, has promise.  I'm in the best shape of my life and feeling really good.  My kid is amazing.  My husband is kind and sweet and cute as hell.  And despite the occasional setback, we're all healthy and enjoying life.

We're planning a picnic dinner in the park with fancy sandwiches, fizzy drinks and strawberry pie.

Here's to another year. 

(I didn't hit all my 34 before 34's but I made a fair dent in them.)

Yep, I'm Terrified. With a capital T.

Ho-lee-shit.  The coverage of the Iowa straw poll makes me want to gouge my own eyes out with a spoon.  All the candidates literally scare the ever loving shit out of me.

Exhibit A:  This woman.

Picture from here

There are no words.

Exhibit B:  And this man.

Photo credit here

Abject terror.  *Shudder*



Thank the universe, we have Rachel Maddow to remind us that the straw poll is a total racket.

I loves her.

And now, before my head explodes, I'm going to brew some green tea, hug my knees to myself and watch a Woody Allen movie, repeating the mantra "its going to be ok.  It's going to be ok."

Isn't it?

Oh, its ON

This post coming to you from smack dab in the middle of marathon training.  And...ZOMG.  Consider my ass thoroughly kicked.   I can't seem to get enough food/sleep/hugs, my knees are starting to complain and its getting harder and harder to push through some of the longer runs.  This is supposed be fun...right?

It occurred to me recently, that if I'm feeling this burnt out this early, the training plan I chose may well be a bit ambitious.  This week, I made the decision to scale back to the Novice 1 plan which is a bit gentler.  We'll see if that helps the motivation and squeaky knees.

(I also gave myself an extra rest day last week.  Shhhh.)

Race-wise, I've got a half marathon coming up in 2 weeks (through a wild horse refuge!!) and an 8-mile trail race the week after that and then that's it until October 9th's marathon.

Butterflies.

I'm trying to remind myself that I'm doing this for ME- not to beat any time records or anything.  And that I run because I love it.

But, truth be told, right now I'm looking forward to October 10th.  :)  At which point I'll probably look a lot like these folks:

Realizations.

1.  If I had one of those "I'd rather be..." bumper stickers on my ass today, it would say "I'd rather be thrift shopping."  I'm starting to compile my fall wishlist and on it so far:

-Minnetonka Moccasins:

(Delightfully Tacky totally inspires me...)

-Some pinstripe pants and a cute cardigan a'la Maggie Gyllenhal in Stranger than Fiction:

Image from powet.tv

-An infinity or circle scarf...I love this masculine print:

Remixed by Jacki's whole shop is totally dope.

Good thing my birthday is coming up!


2.  I think one of the reasons I've got fall on the brain is that I work at a university and the students move back in a week.  A week!!  At that point, the population of our town will swell, there will be more traffic, lines at restaurants (the good ones, anyway) and the whole feel of the place will just...change.  Going to enjoy this last week of true summer!



3.  I should really own some Belle and Sebastian.  There is no excuse.