Exercise on holidays

Who wants to exercise while on holidays? Not me! We have just returned from almost 3 weeks of vacationing in Australia, spending loads of time with friends and family. If my sister wasn't such a running nut, I probably wouldn't have lifted a finger while away. As it is we managed three runs together, albeit short ones. Our third sister has a back injury so unfortunately couldn't join us. It was nice to get out in the forest and run an unfamiliar trail. My sister usually runs on pavement alongside the Indian Ocean and I run groomed trails here in Colorado so the terrain and trail conditions were new to us both. It felt a little strange running around my parents property were I grew up - almost like seeing the road and surrounds for the first time. I guess my mind is just used to what the forest looks like from a car.

After a stint in the forest it was back to the big city. Our plan - meet with as many friends and family as possible in a week. The reality - wisdom tooth surgery, a 2yr old and a 4yr old!! I was looking forward to running at the beach and getting back out on the Ultimate field again. After I had my wisdom tooth out though it was another story. The pain and swelling meant that running was off limits. In a way I am lucky that it also meant less eating. We went out to breakfast and/or lunch and/or dinner every day and I could have easily stacked on the weight.

Now we are back home, but still settling in and getting over jet lag. As soon as life feels calm enough I will be out on the trails. I just hope that will be before the snow sets in!

Stress and pasta

Is there anything more comforting than a fresh pasta dinner?

I had a meltdown at the state of our kitchen last night. Biiiiiiiig meltdown. Right when R was leaving for Ultimate. Right when J arrived to have dinner with me and knit. Just before T and E sneaked a jar of Rhubarb and Strawberry jam into the play room and ate the WHOLE THING on the couch. I wanted to cook fresh pasta but couldnt because the kitchen was such a bombsite. I felt such relief once the dishes were done and the benches clean that I wasnt even too fussed about the kids eating an entire jar of jam at 6.30pm!

Back to the pasta. We have a ton of eggs at the moment and I'm not a huge fan of them straight so pasta is a great way for us to use them. 2 1/4 cups of flour and 3 eggs later and I have enough pasta for 6. I added fresh thyme to last nights edition as we have plenty of that in the garden. For the sauce I sauteed garlic in olive oil and added a big bunch of chopped parsley, yep you guessed it we have a ton of parsley in the garden! After I dished out the kids pasta I added chilli flakes for J and I. It was perfect. The stress dissolved, the pasta was delicious and everyone was happy again. A true pasta prince with a fairytale ending :)

Menu Plan 6th July

A mixed bag this week - as all menus should be to get a range of nutrients and importantly, flavours.

Crisp green veg w/ tempeh and brown rice - we have some snow peas and asparagus in the fridge and snap peas in the garden

Creamy mushrooms w/ spinach and pasta - we have mushines in the fridge and spinach in the garden

Lentil coriander wontons - requested by T!!

Baked sweet potato gnocchi

Lunches will be lots of salads and some leftovers. I made some raw mushroom soup the other day which was surprisingly AWESOME! There is a little left so that will be only one lunch. I also have some vegan broccoli pesto I made as a pasta topping on Saturday that needs finishing.

Sticking to the plan

Do you ever find yourself planning a menu, shopping for it, then other things come up and food goes bad in the fridge? It used to happen often to me. I just wasnt organised. Or maybe I have a problem with following through. Either way, I am pleased to say it hasnt happened this week :) We have stuck to the menu and will finish off with the lentil balls with rocket tonight. I will be out at Ultimate so I will have to get it all ready for R to assemble or he and the kids might just eat watermelon for dinner.

Being a Monday I should get this weeks menu sorted. I'll first check the fridge and make sure there is nothing hiding that needs using up, then pair what is seasonal with the grains I already have in the cupboard and the tofu I have in the freezer. We are heading away this weekend with the extended family so I need to get some vegetarian ideas to feed the masses while we are in Tincup. I'm thinking Spinach and Fetta Pie as our silverbeet is trying to take over the whole garden!

It has been a week since I began my Sourdough starter and I am so far very pleased with the results. It hasnt really turned grey or pink or green so thats a good start :) I have only made one loaf so far, a plain white sourdough, but it turned out to be an enormous loaf. I guess it picked up quite a bit of natural yeast from the air. We used up some this morning in savoury French Toast - the parsley in our garden is almost as big as the silverbeet!! I'm not sure if I've ever had French Toast with Sourdough before but let me tell you - I'm not going back to plain bread now! It was delicious. I am about to out on a loaf of Sourdough Rye and Raisin bread. I will report back soon with pictures and a menu plan.

Target Toning

I made it past hump day and got my exercise groove back - but not until Friday :( I have been doing some of the 10 minute solutions DVDs and will until I feel like my toe can fit back in running shoes again. On Friday I did 10 mins of Ballet, the 10 mins of Abs and 10 mins of Arms. Today I did 10 mins of Abs and 10 mins of Buns. It always surprises me when I get back to these DVDs that I do in fact *have* said muscles because they hurt afterwards!! Thats a good sign, right? I will endevour to do the Abs workout every second day and see what success I have. R has started his own training program as well, so I hope we can keep each other motivated.

Leftovers

We eat so well that leftovers night is always a delicious dinner :) Last night T ate pasta with peas and fresh mint and basil from the garden, E had tofu, pistachio and snow pea stirfry with sprouted lentils and some mashed potato, R and I had some of the same stirfry as well as pepper cream vegetables. Deluxe!! This morning we started off with a green smoothie of silverbeet, nectarine, apple, blueberries, bannan, yoghurt and juice. I also made a fruit loaf last night that we baked first thing this morning and had fresh hot bread. Yum :) T took one look at it and asked me to pick all the fruit out while E munched away - then handed bread bits with no fruit in them to R! Argh! I began my first sourdough starter on Monday and have put some aside for a sponge to make tonight and bake tomorrow morning. MIL tells me that Grandpa S had a sourdough starter going for over 5 years and made sourdough pancakes every Saturday morning for breakfast - I feel another tradition coming on!!!

Hump day

Wednesday. Mid week. Halfway there, halfway through.

The food this week has been awesome, the exercise not so. None yesterday or today so far, and none expected as we have guests for dinner. Wednesdays are a mental stumbling block for me. If things havent gone as well as I hoped for the beginning of the week I often feel inclined to waste the rest of the week away. I have only recently realised this since starting the Couch to 5km running program. If I did Monday's run but not Wednesday's, it felt like such a waste. I need to get R in on this realisation so he can help me get some exercise done on Wednesday so as not to feel out of sorts for the rest of the week.

The harder part

Exercise. I am not fit and havent been for a long time so exercise is hard for me. Todays exercise was a 2 hour Ultimate skills session. I have been doing this for the last 4 weeks. I love getting back into it but the sprinting kills me. I am anything but fast! I am doing the skills sessions in the hope that I will be ready to play in the Fall league but need to do some kind of sprint training if I am going to be serious. Not sure how to do that yet but am open to ideas.

Menu plan 29th June

For me to be able to feed my family a well balanced vegetarian diet and be organized, I try to plan a weekly meal plan. It helps our food budget inadvertantly as I always check the fridge and pantry first to see what we have lots of to use up - rice, noodles, pasta, couscous etc. We also have access to a great little farmers market as well as our own backyard veggie patch. I try and plan meals around what is fresh, local and in season. I am still not used to going to the supermarket and finding EVERYTHING available year round. The food miles make me shiver!

This weeks dinner menu looks like this:

Peppercream vegetables w/ brown rice

Lentil balls w/ tomato and rocket

Sugar snap and snowpeas w/ tofu, pistachios and soba noodles

Pasta w/ brocolli, zucchini, blue cheese and pine nuts

Spaghetti w/ pear and walnut sauce

Thai veggie puffs

Lunches will mostly be leftovers or salad!

I will try and add recipes, links and/or pics as we go!

Welcome

Welcome to my new food blog. My plan is to write about my vegetarian food adventures as well as track my fitness and keep myself accountable. Sharing a computer with a work from home partner may prove a little tricky when it comes to maintaining this blog but I will do my best to be regular :)