by Sam Tackeff | Sep 17, 2012 | Challenge, Holidays
Happy New Year!
No, I don’t have my months mixed up, tonight is the very first night of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. Where my Jews at?! Challah back, y’all. Alrighty, that’s out the way.
Today started out the way all good days start. With coffee. Zabar’s. I went a few weeks ago with my mom to New York, and picked up some Blue Bottle Giant Steps, freshly roasted. Once I finished that, I stole one of her (10!) pounds of Zabar’s coffee she picked up. It runs in the family.
I spent my morning devouring Gretchen Rubin’s new book, Happier at Home that Crown sent to me. It may just be my very first give-away on the blog. After two hours of reading in bed, I hopped up to make myself breakfast: warm roasted eggplant and zucchini, topped with a fried egg seasoned with salt and bourbon smoked paprika.
I then set to work on some of my “make the house a home” projects, including clearing off the coffee table in our bedroom, and hauling it into the living room. (The living room I cleared of the metric ton of cardboard two days ago.)
This was a difficult task that required lunch not too long after: leftover cold roast chicken, a chopped tomato sprinkled with salt, and a spoonful of mustard.
That’s some gorgeous light filtering in our ancient windows.
And this is my snack: banana with almond butter. This stuff never gets old.
In the evening we headed over to my aunt and uncle’s house for Rosh Hashana dinner. My aunt took over this year from my grandmother, who has been the queen of the holidays for the past fifty years, and frankly deserved a break.
My aunt is an awesome hostess, who plans perfectly down to the tiniest details: roses, name cards, and little chocolates at each sitting? How cute is that?! (Devon got my chocolates, alas.)
Admittedly, I had been worried about dinner, but I shouldn’t have been. I skipped out on the challah and the kreplach soup (think Chinese wonton soup, minus the pork), but filled my dinner plate with grilled asparagus, roasted parsnips, baby onions, carrots, red peppers, beef tenderloin and salmon! We know how to feast!
After dinner, I had a cup of decaf coffee. I did not partake in the crack-brownies (from Shirley Corriher’s BakeWise), or the luscious lemon mousse, or the sugar dusted strawberries, or this gorgeous carrot cake. Excuse me while I head to bed and weep, just a little bit.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 15, 2012 | Challenge
Weekends are a glorious thing. My perfect weekend I wake up, sip coffee in bed for hours reading, and do nothing. It doesn’t usually work out this way. After a year of fast-paced weekends, I’ve been taking things back slowly one weekend day at a time. Today, admittedly, I had planned to wake up and head to the track to meet up with folks to run. But when I woke it was raining, and I didn’t feel like driving the 20 minutes groggily avoiding angry drivers only to get soaked. I’m easing into running, I haven’t yet reached the run or die mentality. Will it come?
Instead, I made my coffee and curled up with the new issue of Edible Boston. Edible magazines are put out all over the country, and you can pick them up at fine food establishments for free!
Breakfast came in the form of this Andy Warhol-esque banana. Sweet goodness. Admittedly small, but I was planning a large brunch for myself, and this did the trick.
After leisure-ing as long as I could, I set to work on my resolution to make my house more of a home. Today I tackled a few boxes of clothes that were sitting in the corner of our room. I unpacked them, put away the ones I wanted to keep, and scheduled an appointment to consign some pieces that I don’t wear anymore.
Then I set to work clearing some clutter. The hardest thing to do was get rid of these guys: my trusty bird salt and pepper shakers, who had suffered through a few too many flight attempts off the stove. I’d been hanging on to these for some time, until I remembered one of the useful tricks from Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project – take a picture to remember the sentimental item, and then toss.
Lunch today was a simple Mexican pork stir-fry.
Devon had a burrito from Chipotle, but I decided to come home and make my own. I think it was a good choice. I did however pick up some of their guacamole, because it’s delicious, and saved me from having to pick up an avocado at the store.
I seasoned some of the freshly ground pork that I picked up at M.F. Dulock with some salt, pepper, cumin, and Rancho Gordo Chile powder. I then added some of the vegetables I had roasted yesterday, and a juicy-ripe chopped tomato. On the right there is the little piece of lamb liver I picked up, seasoned with some salt and pepper. A treat!
In the afternoon we did a bunch of errands, including two Target runs, and by the time we were home I was exhausted. I decided to put together a superbly easy dinner – Thai Red Curry Chicken Soup with Tomatoes.
This dish has four ingredients: Thai red curry paste, full fat coconut milk, homemade chicken stock, and chopped rotisserie chicken.
I cooked about two tablespoons of the curry paste in the coconut milk for just a few minutes over medium heat until well combined. I then added a few cups of chopped chicken, and about a cup and a half of chicken stock. I let the dish simmer for fifteen minutes, and then added three small chopped tomatoes and their juice. I seasoned with a bit more salt (although the curry paste is salty, so you don’t need much), and that was dinner.
Had I been slightly more prepared, I would have squeezed in some lime and added some chopped cilantro. Alas, I was out, so this is what we got.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 14, 2012 | Challenge
{Scroll down if you aren’t interested in fitness enthusiasm and only care about food. It’s okay, I understand, sort of.}
I took this picture last weekend at the CrossFit New England Firebreather Festival of one of my fellow Charles River CrossFit members. I’d never been to an event like this before, but it was something like homecoming/tailgating, minus the massive amounts of booze and grilling. Although, I’m not sure why there wasn’t more grilling. B.Good had set up shop, but I find their burgers to be “meh” at best. Where were the delicious grass fed meats?
Seeing members of my own gym and my coaches killing it was a pretty awesome experience, and got me excited to get back into the gym and push my limits.
Inspired by the weekend festivities, I headed into the gym this morning excited to tackle this workout:
9/14/12 WOD (Workout of the Day)
Warmups: With a partner, switch off between 200 m. runs. While the other is running, we did a few minutes each of leg overs, frog steps, and a few other torturous moves. Nothing like working up a huge sweat before you even start the workout.
Strength: Push Press – establish a 5 Rep Max.
WOD: “Trenchcoat”
AMRAP 6: (As many reps as possible in 6 minutes of this combination)
6 Hang Power Clean 115/80 (I’m not quite at the women’s prescribed #80, but getting there!)
6 Ring Dips (I use a band to keep the rings together. It’s still hard.)
Today I chose a heavier weight than I’m used to, and thus made it through just over three rounds and some change before dying. It was fun though!
I’m growing rather fond of lifting in all forms, because I had no idea that a) I could lift heavy things, and b) how well it translates into the real life activities that I do all the time, such as bringing heavy groceries up three flights of stairs, or lifting ikea furniture, or come winter, shoveling massive amounts of snow. (Just kidding on that last one!)
On to the food!
After my workout, I had a sub-optimal post workout snack of a venti black iced tea at Starbucks. So sue me.
Once I had cooled down, I headed over to Volante Farms in Needham to pick up some fresh produce at their farm stand (which is really a small grocery). I ended up with their homegrown eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and a few pounds of tomatoes.
When I got home, I made a batch of roasted vegetables. I chopped up some of the zucchini and eggplant, drizzled them with olive oil, a big pinch of salt and pepper, and roasted them at 450F for about 45 minutes. I’ll eat them over the next couple of days.
In the meantime, I was now starving, so I put together this simple lunch: sauteed zucchini, leftover roast chicken, and Rao’s marinara sauce. You heat them up together on the stove until warm, and eat!
It took me a long time to get through this bowl, and I ate while sitting at my computer getting some work done. Later in the afternoon I chowed down on a snack: a sliced banana with a spoonful of almond butter and a spoonful of coconut butter. After years of not eating bananas because they weren’t seasonal, I admit that I’ve succumb to the tasty fruit a little too often. In San Francisco, I always had delicious local fruit to eat – here, not so much.
In the early evening, I went for a short walk around Fresh Pond, and then headed out on my most exciting field trip of the day: M.F. Dulock!
M.F. Dulock is a local pasture raised butcher shop that just opened last week in Somerville. I was there on opening day, because, a grand opening of a real live butcher is a blessed thing indeed. I left last week with pork chops, beef, ground pork and Italian sausages, and everything was good. Meat that tastes like meat.
The cases are full of whatever has been butchered, and changes up every day. (Yes, those are bacon burgers down there.)
I ended up leaving with some ground pork, beef stew meat, ground beef, and a small amount of lamb liver. You’ll be seeing it around.
When I got home, I took out the ground beef – gorgeous large grind, a healthy amount of fat. So good you could eat the stuff raw. But I had better plans – a beef and carrot stir fry with Asian flavors.
I used this “Emergency Protein” as the basic template for the dish.
I blitzed an onion, ginger and garlic in the food processor, and softened them in the pan in a little bit of lard from Formaggio kitchen. I grated a carrot and added it to the pan, and then added my ground beef. I seasoned it with a few tablespoons of coconut aminos and a dash of fish sauce. When the beef had browned, I added in a cup of shredded cauliflower for bulk (you can’t really taste it).
I doused it all in a dressing of lime juice and fish sauce, added some chopped mint and basil, and served it with tomato wedges.
Ta da!
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 14, 2012 | Challenge, Seafood
This morning I woke up groggily, not understanding why the whole house smelled like chicken. And then I went to make my coffee, and remembered that the chicken stock was still in the slow-cooker bubbling away. Jewish penicillin! Except, I don’t have a cold, and I want to keep it that way.
I set to work making my coffee, and then immediately after I finished, I realized that it was trash day, and I had an entire room full of cardboard that I had made a resolution to get rid of – the first official step in “making my house more of a home”. And get rid of it I did. A metric ton of cardboard was broken down with a knife and my brute strength, and stuffed in three large recycle bins. By the time I finished, the coffee was forgotten, as was breakfast, but I was rewarded with this beautiful clean room. Wonderful!
Well, I skipped breakfast. It’s something I have to work on. It was a “rest day”, which means that I wasn’t fueling for a workout, but it also means that I’m lazy when it comes to taking care of myself. It’s so much easier to do good when you are focused on good choices.
Lunch, however was a different story. My mom gave me the first of her eight ball zucchinis from the garden. It’s a hybrid zucchini squash – tastes like a zucchini with the firmer texture of a squash.
I doused it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted it in a 450 degree oven for 45 minutes.
And then I put together a simple salad – zucchini, some of the roasted chicken in the fridge, parsley, mint, lemon juice and olive oil. I took it outside to eat on the porch.
In the late afternoon, I polished off an apple from Applecrest, and headed out for a walk.
Because it was a “rest day”, I decided to listen to a podcast and take a short walk around Fresh Pond. It’s one of my favorite places to escape to, because it is full of people at all times of day, you see dogs everywhere, and yet the paths are large enough that you don’t have to dodge people. You do however, have to dodge the wet dogs coming out of the pond. Today I learned my lesson and was totally soaked from an overly-excited sopping wet corgi.
After my walk, I headed over to Formaggio Kitchen for a late snack, hoping that I’d find something despite the fact that I can’t gorge on cheese or honey or anzac biscuit samples. When I realized that I couldn’t have my favorite fennel sausage because it had both milk products and sugar in it, I decided to splurge on something that I’ve been eying for months: Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee.
Honestly? It just wasn’t that great. I mean, it was good, for sure. But, for half the price, Formaggio brews pretty excellent George Howell iced coffee, and I’ve realized that it can’t be beat. Sorry Stumptown, I wanted to love it…
In another failed moment, I went next door to the Fishmonger to see if I could pick up some seafood for my dinner. I noticed that the board said that shelled lobster was $8.50 a pound, a moderately good deal (although Market Basket sells whole lobsters for $3.99 if you can deal with the crowds) but was informed that it was actually $50 per pound. Yes, in this bountiful season, they were attempting to sell the stuff for a good $47 dollars more than market value. Sometimes I don’t understand this world.
After this escapade and all that disappointment, I was feeling a little hungry, so I devoured two small hard boiled eggs.
Instead of lobster, I decided to splurge on crab for dinner to make myself feel better. Devon had a work dinner catered by Barbara Lynch, so this was another day of fending for myself. Actually, I’ve been trying to get the stuff for the past week, but every time I head to the store, it’s sold out. I finally found some, and grabbed it.
Dinner was dead simple fresh crab salad. I peeled a cucumber, chopped up an avocado, some colorful tomatoes. I made a dressing of one part Red Boat fish sauce to one part lime juice, with a pinch of chile. I dressed the salad with half of the dressing, and dressed the crab in a separate bowl with the other half. To guild the lily, I added just a few spoonfuls of coconut milk to my crab, and then served it on the bed of veg. Here it is!
A bright crab salad
serves 1
6 oz. fresh wild crab
1 medium cucumber
1 avocado
2-3 ripe colorful tomatoes
juice of 1 lime
1 Tbs. fish sauce
pinch of chile flakes
a splash of full-fat coconut milk
Start by making your dressing. Juice a lime, and add an equal amount of fish sauce (about 1 Tbs.). Add a pinch of chili flakes and whisk or shake up in a small jar.
Then prepare your vegetables. Peel and chop your cucumber and put in a bowl. Take an avocado, cut it in half, and score the flesh into cubes before spooning it out into the cucumbers. Then, chop up your tomatoes into wedges. Take half of the dressing, and dress the vegetables, and arrange on your dinner plate.
Then prepare your crab. In a small bowl, pour the remaining dressing on the crab. Add a generous splash of coconut milk (a tablespoon or two), mix gently to combine. Pile your crab onto your vegetables, and tuck in.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 13, 2012 | Challenge, chicken
The start of any challenge can be, well, challenging. I’ve been easing myself into things, cooking at home every night, making Pinterest boards with dinner ideas, and stocking up on necessities. With a few exceptions (mostly chocolate), I’ve actually been eating challenge-friendly food for the past week, so I’m hoping not to lose my mind too quickly.
In the morning, I started my day with a light breakfast – a sliced banana with a few spoonfuls of almond butter. Typically I like to eat a little bit more protein for my breakfast (and usually, it doesn’t even look like breakfast), but I was going for a run early, and didn’t want to overload myself. Now that I’m doing shorter, more intense workouts, I usually don’t like to eat much before exercise because I find that my stomach doesn’t cooperate as well as I’d like.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for a race. Let’s be clear, I don’t race. I don’t really run. At the gym, I spent months barely getting through 400m. warmups, because I had been sedentary for 8 months. But for some reason, I caught the crazy, and signed up. It was the middle of the night, I blame exhaustion. And so now, I have a little over a week to get ready for this thing, and so I’ve been running 3-4 miles a few times a week, in addition to two days a week of CrossFit.
Before convincing myself otherwise, I headed out to Fresh Pond to run (very slowly!) around the path. This place is pretty magical.
Fast forward to lunch, and I was hungry again. Steamed kale, and smoked fresh kielbasa, with a large side of raspberries. Kielbasa is one of those “minimally processed” foods I’m willing to partake in for this challenge – but I made sure to choose one with no additives or sugar. This is the turkey kielbasa from Trader Joe’s. It’s a little on the dodgy side of the “happy meat” requirements I subscribe to, but it’s really good. I just need to get the sausage grinder attachment for my KitchenAid.
In the evening, I got to pick up Devon from the airport, and we headed to the store to pick up dinner. Every so often we do the “choose your own salad bar meal” at Whole Foods, and this was one of those nights. Except, in anticipation of hungry afternoons this week, I opted to buy two rotisserie chickens (the second is half off), and shred the meat for the fridge.
I put together my dinner: spinach salad with lemon vinaigrette and raspberries, and a chicken leg with some mustard to dip. After shredding two chickens (and eating a quarter of one as I worked), this was all I could manage on my plate.
Before heading to bed, I froze one of the chicken carcasses in the “miscellaneous bones for stock” bag, and put the other in my very small slow cooker to make some overnight chicken broth.
One day down, 59 to go!
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 13, 2012 | Challenge, Uncategorized
{via}
Things are shifting, and they’ll be looking a little bit different around here. For the next two months I’m participating in a challenge at my gym. Yes, that’s right, cue the crazy-alarm, I’ve gone ahead and lost my mind. The challenge is based on both fitness and nutrition, and boy am I looking forward to it. We’ll eat healthy, unprocessed foods (okay, so minimally processed – I don’t have a larder of canned foods to draw from, nor do I have a 12 cup food processor, so I’m okay with things like canned coconut milk, and frankly Rao’s tomato sauce is better than what I can make even from the best tomatoes) and each week we participate in new fitness challenges, with benchmarks at the beginning and end in power and endurance.
There are a few great things I love about this challenge. First, that I’m doing it with a team (and there are over 50 people participating). Doing anything with a team is fun. I wasn’t really a team gal in school, but now that I’ve been going to the gym on a regular basis and working out with people, I get it. Second, everyone is required to use a food journal. I’m a strong believe in using journaling to help you attain your goals. This is also good because I have a blog, and I plan on using it as my own accountability. Daily meals, inspiration, lists, and even yes, some workouts. Which means lots of posts over here – I hope you don’t get sick of me.
My focus for this challenge is on whole foods, cooking, improving my fitness, and general happiness. I haven’t hashed it all out yet, but, for now here’s what I’ve come up with in addition to the challenge rules:
My major nutrition goals for this challenge include: planning my meals and share my meal planning, eating at home as often as possible, eating a rainbow of colors and taking advantage of seasonal produce, and drinking a hell of a lot more water.
My major fitness goals for this challenge include: running a race, and then another one. I’m signed up for the first, in a little over a week. Yeesh! And, a 200 lb. deadlift. We’ll work on that one. I have a little ways to go.
Happiness goals include: Sticking to my kitchen resolutions, doing more to make my house into a home, being a better partner, daughter, sister and friend.
This won’t be about preaching, it’s a personal reset. But, I do hope to see you around. Have you ever done a challenge before?
