It's been a couple days since my last post-- it's been kind of a crazy couple days mostly because it was my birthday :-) and I had too much fun celebrating and being surrounded by amazing people. I was so impressed by the thoughtfulness of people. awesomely notable gifts would be the orchids my parents sent me, many thanks to D for picking them up from the flower shop!!! and the secret package my dad sent (a super cute HOT pink wallet, with a nostalgic and embarrassing photo of me haha) and this awesome yoga anatomy book from D. It was truly a trifecta of awesome: Yoga, Anatomy, and BOOKs! It's so cool to know what muscles are involved in each pose, the way you can engage certain groups, and with my basic anatomy knowledge, seriously, best idea ever! I'll know my poses inside and out :-) Lastly, I can't even express the kind of joy that washed over me when this last gift was handed to me.
I had been eyeing this awesomely cute new Manduka yoga mat. It was a beautiful light blue/turquoise, and it called out to me almost every day. Who knows how many times I'd look at the bin before and after class to make sure it was there and silently and not silently telling myself that as a gift to myself, I'd get myself a new mat. I was SO EXCITED to buy it. But before i could get to it, my amazing yogi friend Kat had gotten her hands on it first. She reached behind the counter and pulled out a monster pink tissue paper wrapped gift and was like, happy birthday! I was so overwhlemed when I saw that she got me the mat!!!!!!!! So much so i nearly cried. I'm such a baby sometimes. Apparently there had been a whole plan to get me to notice that the mat was missing from the bin and they wanted me to be sad about someone buying it and then i would have been presented with the mat. I was planning on looking for it and buying it after class, but this surprise was so awesome. And from afar, I got a cute little bag from two very very amazing people M and J. It's like the perfect size to fit my camera + lenses and I'm so excited to take it around with me. I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many thoughtful and caring people, it really made my day. I'm excited to grow inside and out and I really hope that this year brings a lot of great things.
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| my new baby :-) |
I haven't been cooking as many exciting and involved dishes, they mostly have been quick stir frys and salads. But this week, I am going on a culinary adventure: making almond milk, shepherd's pie, and beet salads.
D and I went out for a birthday dinner to one of the local restaurants. They focus heavily on locally grown and organic goods, and we found that their menu was very amenable to our challenge. One thing they also did fantastically well was help us realize that O.M.G...... there are OTHER WAYS to cook and eat our food! Some inspiring things were fried Brussels sprouts with a white truffle and lemon aioli, beet salad, root vegetable mash (since mashed white potatoes are a no go, i think roasted root vegetables are AOK), and just getting even more creative with how we eat and present our foods. Of course this isn't the best time saving method, but I am sure that once in a while, cooking fancy and trying new things is fun.
So here's to new tastes, trials, and tribulations in the kitchen.
Dinner today was awesomely fantastic: shepherd's pie, beet and fennel salad with garlic and lemon aioli. The co-op carried some beets, and I grabbed a bunch of normal red ones and then a mystery beet. When i cut it open, it was just such a beautiful work of art! I don't even know what kind of beet this is, but it was such a decadent treat for my eyes :-)
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| Beautiful Beets! |
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| Beets with fennel! |
Garlic and lemon aioli
2 cloves garlic
1 large egg yolk (warmed to room temp)
1T fresh lemon juice (about all the juice from half a lemon is good)
1/4 c olive oil
3T vegetable oil
1t whole seed mustard
1. Chop and crush garlic with a sprinkle of salt
2. Whisked the egg yolk with mustard and lemon juice until it becomes a thick consistency
3. slowly drizzle in the oil, not letting it separate
4. When completely whisked and a nice thick consistency, add the garlic. Add salt and lemon to taste
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| delicious aioli! |
We wanted ours to be more lemony, so we ended up adding a LOT more lemon juice, and a dash more salt. I had truffle salt laying around so i was sure to use that the entire time.
It was FANTASTIC. like, BETTER than what we had at dinner on thursday. I just wish we had some brussels sprouts to fry up and eat with it! There's so much i want to write about, but i'll have to save it for another day :-)
til next time, EAT WELL and BE WELL!!!!
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