Oh Glorius Day

Today is going to be magnificent. I don't have to work, the weather is nice, I have some of my favorite things to do planned and I even tried out a new recipe last night that I can share with you today!

I was paroozing on the interweb a few days ago looking through recipes and found one that really caught my eye. It is Carrot and Chickpea soup and I found it on this blog here. I love carrots (especially in soup), I love chickpeas, I love Indian spices such as Garam Masala, which is used in this recipe. I love it all. All of it. So, without further adu, I give you the recipe;


Carrot Chickpea Soup

Ingredients:

2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil for sautéing

1 onion chopped

3 celery sticks chopped

1.5 pounds or so of carrots chopped

1 tablespoon of fresh ginger chopped

1/4 teaspoon of Garam Masala spice mix

1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

6 cups of vegetable broth

1 can of chickpeas

Directions:

1) Heat oil in a large sauce pan on medium high.

2) Saute onions and celery. When they begin to wilt add the carrots. After a few minutes add ginger, garam masala, rosemary and salt and pepper.

3) When vegetables are all wilted and beginning to brown turn heat to high and add vegetable broth and chickpeas. Bring the soup to a boil and then turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. The longer you can let it sit the better.

4) Before serving puree the soup with an immersion blender or in small batches in a blender. Check salt and pepper to taste. A dollop of yogurt or sour cream is nice on top of this soup. Serve with crusty bread, naan, pita, or over basmati rice.

Hokayyy, next order of bizznass. Today I am doing lots of marvelous things!

First, mi amigo y yo are going to go to a nearby park and do HIIT running and Plyometrics. It's a beautiful day outside, we would be crazy to go to the gym and be cooped up inside all day when we have the whole day off, ya heard?

Next, we are going to make some homemade Jeni's ice cream (not for me but so they can take it home, pshh dairy eaters). Even though I can't eat it, I still love to play around in the kitchen with it :p We're going to make the Sweet Corn and Blackberry ice cream.

By this time we should be approaching dinner time so I will be making the Yellow Curry recipe I posted a little while ago. It may seem like I've been doing Indian food a lot lately and let me tell you why, it's because I am. They adapted to and perfected cooking with coconut milk long ago so they know what's goin' on with the good food and flavor department and let us not forget the spices!

Now we commence in Netflix time, gotta wind down before we make our way to RITA'S :D Rita's has Italian ice. Italian ice is dairy free. I am dairy free. Are you picking up what I'm throwin' down yo?

Hope y'all have a great day! Tootles :)

WIAW 5/8/13

Today was a grand day. I didn't work at my usual branch but instead at a local high school educating students about expenses, bills and other things of the like. I got to sleep in a bit (the high school I went to is roughly 26 miles closer to home than my usual work place) and then made my way to the high school.

Fro breakfast I had a protein shake (made with Amande "yogurt", 1 scoop protein, half a banana and pineapple cubes). What say you? A protein shake? Yes, a protein shake! I know it seems impossible but there is indeed a gluten, soy, dairy, egg, corn, and wheat free protein powder. Multiple kinds actually, much to my surprise! I got one called Nutribiotic. It's a vegan rice protein. Now, if you were looking for a protein based on taste, don't pick this one. It definitely has that "earthy" quality to it.. luckily I can tolerate that, if not enjoy it most days. I'm not 100% sold on the powder only because I have found a different one I may want to try out even more. Stay tuned for results in that department. Moral of the story, do extensive research before investing in the vegan, raw and everything "free" protein.

Since I was at the school today, my mid morning snack consisted of what the cafeteria had to offer. In this case, it was celery, cucumber, carrots and apple slices.

Lunch was a piece of gluten free millet chia bread topped with hummus, chopped peppers and turkey lunch meat. Also, a side of crinkle cut carrots (my secret love <3).

Once I got home from the high school I grabbed a quick snack which consisted of the other half of my banana from earlier and a handful of almonds. I wanted something quick and easy because now I was off to the gym!

At the gym I did some core work and HIIT (high intensity interval training) on the treadmill. I really need to be incorporating more core exercises in my daily shebang. I followed the intense workout with a mega sauna sesh. Dripping sweat is an understatement for what was going on all up in there, sheesh. It felt good though!

I came home, HUNGRY. So, with no prior plan I went to the fridge and looked for things that I really needed to use up. It's so rare that I am home to make dinner at 5:30 or 6 so instead of just putting together premade foods, I actually cooked something and it was awesome. I made sauteed egg plant and onions topped with salsa, black beans (okay you got me, these were left over from cinco de mayo), and tilapia. I seasoned the tilapia with a tikka spice mix that I picked up at an Indian grocery store and it was phenomenal. I love spicy food but woahhhh dangggg, this dinner was enough to get my nose running.

I wound up hungry again just two hours after my dinner so I made a nice bowl of oatmeal with apple pie spice and ground flax meal. Mmmmm :)

Bad, Bad Blogger..

This past week I have been a lousy blogger. For that I'm sorry but everyone needs a little break here and there. I was pretty busy and by the time I would get around to it I would just crash. I was pretty exhausted last week. However, I have exciting news! Well, lots of little exciting things to share. I suppose that's what happens when you take a week off of the blog.. oops.

Firstly, I completed the half marathon! You know, that one I started training for back in November? Yeah that's the one. Back then, I had made it my goal to finish in 2:40. In actuality, I beat my goal. By 20 minutes! My official time was 2:20:29. I was so pleased with myself. I didn't stop running once. Well, except to grab a cup of Gatorade to drink and by drink I mean pour down the front of me because I wouldn't stop running to drink it haha.

Next order of business; deprivation. I have been feeling so incredibly deprived this past week. After a couple days, the no dairy, no wheat/gluten, no soy, no egg, and no corn diet catches up with you. I want ice cream. I want omelets. I want yogurt. I want my green protein shakes. But you know what, I'm not going to have it. I've been feeling good physically and things seem to be working out a little better health wise for me. I know that I'm not going to miraculously be all better in two days, I have to be patient. I didn't start feeling horrible all in one day, it was a gradual process so I'm certain that's how it's going to be in order to feel completely better.

I did however find something to give me a bit of hope. A few things actually. After the marathon, Mom and I hit Earth Fare to grab a raspberry chia kombucha (Best running recovery drink. EVER.) and I thought I would check the ice cream section to see if they had a frozen dessert that would meet my laundry list of necessary criteria. And guess what? THEY DID. And they are completely delicious flavors! I'm not so hot on the price but you know what, I'll take it. It's better than nothing at all at this point. I can't quit ice cream cold turkey, after all I was basically on a once a day ice cream diet.

The brand is called Coconut Bliss. If you couldn't guess, it's made of coconut milk. And it is delicious! I bought three flavors, the Mint Galactica, Ginger Cookie Caramel and Mocha Maca Crunch. I noticed last night that the "ice cream" is really rich. So It didn't take much for me to be satisfied. Maybe that'll make up for the price because it could potentially last longer?

The fun didn't stop there. We also found "yogurt" that I can eat. One brand is coconut based, like the ice cream. It's made by SO Delicious. The other one is made of cultured almond milk. I had never heard of it before. The brand is called Amande It has a good flavor but a bit of an odd texture.. I haven't tried the SO Delicious brand yet but I'm hopeful that the texture is a little more.. yogurt like.

As for the rest of today, I scheduled myself a facial and massage. You know, because I deserve it. I thought it would be a good way to celebrate finishing the race yesterday. And what better way to release some lactic acid? One more thing before I leave you..

My mom has sworn by this mustard bath since 1999. It's a therapeutic mustard bath and releases toxins from the body. So much so that the directions recommend that you take a shower after you take a bath in it because your body will have released toxins that need to be scrubbed off. We stumbled upon this bath during our Earth Fare excursion yesterday. I got some and decided what better day to try such a thing? I was becoming sore and tired from the race so I took a bath in it for the advised 20 minutes. It felt amazing. Once I finished with the bath and recommended shower I plopped down in bed, completely relaxed. I then proceeded to take a two hour nap haha. I can't tell you if it would have made a big difference on how my body felt post race if I didn't use it seeing as this was my first half marathon but I can tell you that it left me feeling great and that's all that really matters here, right?

Have a happy rest of the weekend peeps :D