Flybynyght

I’ve been trying to write this post for over a week now and it just seems that the world has been conspiring against it!  In a good way though – been busy and been having a full life.

So my Recipe Challenge continues!  The second recipe is actually two-fold.  After a lot of research, I not only made Spanakopita; but I used my own phyllo dough!

Because there is so much information between the two recipes, I’ve split the post in two.  This is part one, with part two (and the recipe listing) following tomorrow.

Start off by putting the spinach in your food processor and grate it until it’s in small pieces and the stems are incorporated. 

I misjudged how much fresh spinach I had in my fridge and ended up using some frozen too.  After I took out the fresh spinach, I put the frozen stuff right in and did the same thing.

In a bowl, mix the spinach all together, and set aside.   

Cut off any dry parts of your green onions and mince.

Place a pan on medium heat, heat up your olive oil and add the spinach and onions.

Mix thoroughly to ensure even distribution of the olive oil. 

Add in your 2 cloves of garlic.  I have a little problem with garlic.  I love it.  On or in just about anything. Limiting myself to two cloves was a challenge ;)

In goes the oregano,

and the coriander.  This was my first time ever using coriander and I really enjoyed its’ flavour.

last in the pan is the dill.  That’s right, dill.  I read A LOT of Spanakopita recipes and some called for it and some didn’t.  I thought that it would really add to the complexity of the flavour.  I was right ;)

Mix this altogether and cook until the onions are tender, about 5-8 mins.

Remove from the pan and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, beat one egg and add to mixture, being sure to mix thoroughly.

Next up, add in the cottage cheese,

the feta cheese,

and the parmesan cheese.

Add a few turns of ground black pepper and mix everything together well.

That’s all there is to the filling for the Spanakopita!

Tomorrow’s post will have the rundown of the entire recipe along with a phyllo dough recipe and tutorial.  Having it all in one post was just toooooo long.

So instead, here’s a sneak peak (and a blurry picture) of the nearly finished product…

See you tomorrow for part 2!

Okay, I have had one heck of  busy week.  The crazy thing is that I couldn’t even tell you exactly what I’ve been doing!  It’s now the beginning of the next week and I am STILL working on my Sunday recipe posts!  I can’t seem to stay focused.  I have three posts associated with Sunday’s escapades, one from Tuesday and one from yesterday (Saturday).  And of course, today I’ll in the kitchen doing it all over again ;) 

Some of them are marathon posts, I tell you.  I need to learn to say more, with less words.  But if you know me IRL, you’ll know that this just isn’t possible!

So instead, I’m going to share with you the soup that I made last Saturday (Jan 8), which is the easiest soup to make ever!  This soup is not only easy, but it’s delicious!  I make this soup every 2-3 weeks without fail.  In fact, if it gets closer to that 3 week point, Todd will actually request that I make it.  Now that is the ultimate compliment  :)

I call this soup ‘Leek and Lima Bean Soup,’ although the broccoli and cauliflower components are almost as equal.  Buuuut, I don’t want the name to be crazy long, so Leek and Lima Bean Soup it is!

Start out by chopping the leeks,

You want to use the white and light green parts of the leeks.  Discard, the dark green parts of the leeks, as I’ve done with the two full leeks you can see.

Place your leeks in a large bowl and fill it with water so that all of the leeks are floating off the bottom.

Swish them around for a half a minute or so.  This will get any dirt left on the leeks (it likes to hide within the layers) to fall to the bottom of the bowl.

Use your hands to scoop the leeks out of the bowl and shake off any excess water.  Clearly you want the dirt to stay in the bowl, so you can’t pour the water out, you need to leave it in and get the leeks out.

Put your leeks in a large saute pan, where you have melted your butter over medium heat. 

Stir the leeks in oder to get the butter to coat all of the leek pieces.     Cover and let sit until the leeks are slightly translucent.    Add your chicken stock,

and lima beans.

Chop up your head of broccoli.

Leave lots of stalk, as it has lots of flavour!  Add to the pan.

Chop your cauliflower florets in the same manner as the broccoli and add to the pan.

       Stir everything together.

Cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low until cauliflower is fork tender.

Next is the hard part.  Allowing your soup to cool.  I bring my soup down to room temperature before I put it in my blender.  This has come about because of this recipe, a blender glass jar and a complete break in it from the bottom to the top – while in my hand!  So now, I don’t put hot liquids in my blender.  I reheat if necessary.  

Usually, I just take it off the burner and take the lid off, but today, used my environment, Lid left on to deter any potential visitors.

Stirred after 10 minutes…

And moved to a new patch of snow…

And voila! It’s soup!  Not so appetizing this way though, so into the blender it goes!

Blended to your own tastes.  We like a few small chunks, but mostly smooth.

  Ready for the ridge and the freezer.

Doesn’t that look good?   I promise it is absolutely delicious, and you’d never believe how few (and how healthy!) ingredients there are in this soup!  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Leek and Lima Bean Soup

• 1.5 Tbsp Butter
• 1 bunch Leeks (2 large, or 3 medium)
• 12oz frozen Lima beans
• 4 C Chicken stock
• 1 small Broccoli stalk
• 3 large Cauliflower florets

1. Cut leeks down the center and slice 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide.
2. Put sliced leeks in a large bowl.  Fill the bowl until all of the leeks are floating.  Use your hand to swish the leeks around.  Dirt likes to hide in the layers of the leeks, so you want to make sure you get all of it – no one likes gritty soup!  After swishing, any dirt left on the leeks will sink to the bottom of the bowl.
3. Melt the butter on medium in a large saute pan.  Once melted, put the leeks in the pan.  Saute the leeks until tender and slightly translucent, approximately 6-8 minutes.
4. Add chicken stock and lima beans.  Any type of lima beans work, and if frozen, there is no need to defrost.
5. Chop broccoli, leaving several inches of stalk.  The stalk has lots of flavour!  Add the broccoli to the pan.
6. Chop cauliflower and add to the pan.  Cover, bring to a boil and then simmer until cauliflower (which will take the longest) is fork tender.
7. Once, cauliflower is tender, take pan off of the burner and let sit until cooled to room temperature (could take more than an hour).
8. Once mixture is cooled, put half in blender and blend to desired smoothness (8 secs in my case).  Place in bowl and add the second half once blended.  Mix together to ensure consistency.
9. Enjoy!   …freezes VERY well.

…I wrote this last night, but was so tired I forgot to publish it!

It’s snowin like a mofo out there right now!  It started snowing around two and and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon.  I was at the gym for only an hour and a half and it took me a good 7 minutes to clean my car off after I was done!  And of course I came home and shovelled the sidewalk.  In my capris.  That’s right, I’m Canadian hard core. 

When I got home, I fully intended to have leftovers again; but they were missing from the fridge when I looked.  I’m guessing Todd took a menagerie of food for lunch today.  So I decided that this was a great opportunity to open up a cookbook and follow a recipe!  That’s right, trudging along with my recipe challenge!  I already fulfilled my week 2 recipe commitment (x3! I just haven’t written the posts yet), so this doesn’t contribute – it’s just bonus and a great habit to get into.

I didn’t feel like having any meat tonight, which was good, because I didn’t feel like cooking any meat.  Confession:  If there isn’t meat already made, 95% 99% of the time, I don’t bother with it.

I found a delicious looking recipe in Cooking Light:  The Essential Dinner Tonight

  Looks pretty good, doesn’t it!  Now of course, since I hadn’t planned on making this (and amazingly it wasn’t one of the tabbed recipes that I want to make – think I have enough of them? lol!), I had to make a few substitutions.  Although there were several of them, I don’t think that the substitutions interfered with the integrity of the recipe.

My one complaint with the recipe came right at the beginning of the process. The amount of oil you use to saute the garlic seems a bit excessive to me.  I understand that the flavour of the oil helps to flavour the sauce for the dish, but it just seems unnecessary to me.

Now this recipe called for chickpeas cooked into a sauce.  I really don’t like chickpeas – save for hummus of course – so I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it.  I decided to increase the amount of crushed red pepper it called for, in order to hedge my bets. As I don’t keep seashell pasta on hand (ummm, does anyone?), I used half a box of whole grain fettuccine instead.

These are the fixins to be tossed with the pasta.  The red peppers were supposed to be grape tomatoes and the mushrooms were an add in, and definitely a good add in.   

I drained the pasta, but didn’t rinse it.  The starch will help the sauce stick to the noodles.

And speaking of sauce,Well, this was a bit of a non-start.  We just replaced our food processor and this one has an extra piece that the old one didn’t.   Yup, there it is.  Once I actually attached it to the bottom (which actually allows the blade to turn), we were off to the races!

The recipe said that it was pureed enough when it was smooth.      

This is definitely not smooth.  There are two reasons for this:  1) I used a can that had 4 oz more chickpeas in it than I should have (and forgot to reserve it) and 2) I used my food processor when I should have probably used my blender.  I‘m VERY hesitant to use my blender for hot or warm items though.  I had the glass container part of my last blender actually crack all the way from bottom to top – IN MY HAND!  Scary, for sure.  And the liquid was just warm, not hot (which the glass was supposed to withstand).

All together now,

     Looks delicious!

Of course, I had to make one more substitution.  It called for parmesan, I used a bit of asiago.

Other notes that I had about the dish:

- Although it was absolutely delicious, I will say that the sauce looked like vomit

- The few grape tomatoes it called for definitely wouldn’t have been enough.  More veg to the dish would definitely enhanced the dish.

- I felt like this dish could have used a tad more raw garlic – or maybe that’s just my addiction talking…   

I’d give this recipe a 7.5/10, but will absolutely make it again (incorporating my notes of course).  I actually left the cookbook open on the counter, because I know that when Todd sees this in the fridge, he’s gonna be like, “What in the world is that?”  lol!

Hope you had a great weekend!  I certainly did.  My weekend involved, relaxing, reading, lots of cooking, lots of grocery shopping, some laundry and some cleaning.  Perfect if you ask me.

Today was good too.  Work was productive, my Reader shrunk, my workout was fantastic and my dog was happy to see me when I got home.  Again, perfect if you ask me.

Another perfect thing?  Leftovers.  Not having to cook dinner after a busy  and very full day, sign me up!  Leftovers really get a bad rep, and I have absolutely no idea as to why.  Just look at this delicious plate:

Here we have leftover barbecue chicken, leftover pan-fried mushrooms, leftover green beans, leftover homemade macaroni and cheese and some raw cauliflower.  If it weren’t for leftovers, there’s no way I would have eaten this well tonight.

The macaroni and cheese is a Cooking Light:  the Essential Dinner Tonight recipe.  Todd made it yesterday and it was absolutely fabulous (and fabulous again today!).  The only complaint with the recipe is that we had to double the amount of macaroni (and we switched out whole wheat instead of white); because it was so cheesy, it was nearly soupy.

We’ll definitely make this recipe again.  It’s a stovetop version and I think next time we’ll make it on the stove, but transfer it to the oven with some breadcrumbs and grated cheese on top.  Yum.

Speaking of yum, this is the second week of my Recipe Challenge and I must say it’s going great!  I created not one, not two, but three new recipes!  I also made a soup that I’ve made dozens of times, but have never featured on the blog.  Because I’ve made it before, it doesn’t fit in with the challenge, but I think that I’m set for recipes for this week ;)

So look to see those recipes in the next few days.  Which means that I have a lot of typing to do (2 of those recipes are for one dish)!  Off I go to type my heart out :)

I woke up this morning before the sun had a chance to reach the sky, and also before most people had had a chance to shovel their sidewalks. And it was –11.  So why not go for a run! I decided to head out in my neighbourhood and get out before everyone else did.  I also decided to make this the first time that I have ever took a camera with me on a run!  Ya, smart when everything has a good coating of snow and you KNOW that there is a bunch of ice underneath it, (which I found out firsthand here).

My route was to the left, where there were no more sidewalks. I wasn’t sure if this would be a good thing, or a bad.  My run the other day had me running on everyone’s yards, because the road was so slippery.  Today I was a little more fortunate!

The first peeks of the sun between the trees, coming up over the houses…

I love when evergreen trees are full of snow.  So pretty! Although, you don’t want to be walking underneath when they let go…

I ignored the  subliminal message and continued along the snow covered road.

Not a ton of snow, just enough to keep your feet sliding with each step and getting your feet full of snow.

My first ever running self portrait.  I can’t believe, 1) it turned out (as did ALL of my pics), and 2) that I’m posting such an unflattering pic.

Ummm…I live in an okay neighbourhood – I hope that this was done by the owner –lol!

Look!  shovelled sidewalk!!!!

Of course this wasn’t to last…

And only got worse.  Fresh powder is good for skiing (and apparently biking?), not so good for running.

Let’s just say, it’s a good thing that Todd had a dry pair of socks and shoes waiting for me at the gym.

That’s right, my destination was to the gym!  I actually live only 4/10 of a mile from the gym (meaning their is NEVER an excuse not to go), so I definitely took the long way.  I managed to make it take me 2.10 miles to get to the gym :)

I was meeting Todd at the gym (where I ran another mile and did some major stretching) because I wasn’t sure how long I wanted to be outside running with the low temps.  I figured I could shorten my route if it felt really cold, but it was actually really nice.  I know that my city’s name (Windsor) has nothing to do with the wind, but it seems like it is ALWAYS windy here.  Except this morning – which helped the air temp and windchill.

Yay!  Made it to the gym in one piece, no slips, no falls and not even that cold (except for my ankles).  This looks quite like the last unflattering pic, except this one has more sweat and a redder face:)

I really felt fine here, lung wise and cold wise; but I must say that my legs really got a workout with searching for traction the entire run! This was the slowest that I think that I’ve EVER run 2 miles.  And it doesn’t bother me a bit, because it felt great and it was nice to see the neighbourhood waking up.

However, I must say I’m happy that I have this,

I was in a race on New Year’s Day – the Resolution Run 10K – and this is what you got instead of a tshirt.  It’s lightweight, but keeps you warm (without you overheating), it has thumbholes for days unlike today when you don’t need gloves and it’s bright enough that no car has an excuse not to see you.

Getting this jacket was well worth the ick race.  I’m pretty sure I never did a review of it, but here are the main crappy points:

• It was way colder than today and windy as all get out
• The course was FOUR 2.5k loops (idiotic)
• There was a 5k and a 10k, with only a few dozen people running the 10k
• It was described as flat, but had some of the biggest hills I’ve ever seen in a neighbourhood (and remember, I had to run up them 4 times!)
• The course wasn’t closed, so we actually had to battle traffic
• I finished last :( ….and JUST barely…

But I’d do it all again for the jacket!

My next run is Monday – I’m hoping for a thaw by then, think I’ll get it?

It’s Friday, yay!!!!

It was a great day at work, except for the fact that I made a mistake in payroll that affected 2/3 of the staff…oops!  never done that before!  Great way to impress the new General Manager though, eh?

To blow off a little steam, I did one of my favourite things after work – I went grocery shopping!  I really do love shopping for food and ingredients.  Today’s trip was grocery shopping:  bulk store edition!!!

The Goods!!!

Now I must say that as I look at this, I see a ton of plastic.  However, at the bulk store, it is a necessary evil.  For spices I use the smaller bags, which I really can’t reuse (because of the spice residue, duh), but I always reuse the larger bags from grains etc.  In fact any plastic bag that I receive (bread bag, produce bag from the grocery store), always gets reused it some way.

The name of the game today was stocking up and refilling.  So you wanna see what I bought?

Well, if not – see ya later ;)

• Chili Powder $0.85
• Ground Coriander Seed $0.70
• Garam Masala $0.70
• Curry Powder $0.92
• Cinnamon $0.56

• Organic Red Quinoa $1.98
• Toasted Light Sesame Seeds $1.31
• Pearl Barley $.018

• Whole Bay Leaves $0.11
• Rubbed Oregano $0.66
• Granulated Garlic $1.32

• Tahini (Sesame Seed Butter) $3.51
• Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) $1.31

I also got some Rawhide chips ($2.13) for this cute little lady,

I put our Mexican blanket on the couch and thought that she’d make herself a little nest in it (one of her favourite things to do).  Instead she buried herself completely in it so that only her tail was showing out of the back of the blanket.  Of course, I reached for the camera.  When I turned it on, she heard it and had to pose :)

So the total damage for this whole stock up:

$16.24 + .28 tax – 3.00 coupon (!) = $13.52  Love it!

The best part is that I still have a few more things that I’d like to buy and I still have another $3.00 off coupon (after you buy $10) that’s good until January 20.  If I’m going to buy it anyway, why not buy it when I have a coupon!

Speaking of coupons, have you seen that new show on TLC (I think), called Extreme Couponing?  It’s crazy!  People will take a $500 bill and bring it down to like $7, just by using coupons!  Unfortunately, 95% is for food (I use that term loosely) that I’d never eat.  I’m not saying I won’t watch the show again though  ;)

On my way to the bulk store, I walked next door to HomeSense to look for something like this for my counter.

Source

I found two that I liked, both stainless steel, but thought I should get some input from Todd before I went ahead and bought one (not sure if they could be returned).  Hopefully you’ll see something new on my counter soon though!

When I was there looking around, I saw their planner and journal area (they have GREAT journals) and instantly realized that I just needed to have a new notebook for my Recipe Challenge!  However I had 3 stipulations:  1) it needed to be lined, 2) it had to be coiled so it would sit flat, and 3) it had to be contained in some way that if I left a partially written recipe card in it, it would stay there.

Unfortunately, HomeSense had nothing that fit the bill exactly (although they had a ton of daily planners and journals that I wanted to grab!). However, on my way home, I stopped in another store and found exactly what I was looking for!

Coiled – Check!  Self Contained – Check!

And lined – Check!

And the best part, I got it at Dollarama for a mere $2!!!  Wahoo!

And since I got such a great deal, I picked this little baby up too.

Isn’t it cute?

This is actually the size that I use for the gym.  It fits perfectly on most machines and it’s not cumbersome.  The one I have is nearing completion, so I feel that this purchase was a necessity  :)

So apparently this was actually the Flybynyght goes shopping post.  Hope it wasn’t too boring ;)

I’m thinking about taking my smaller camera on my run with me tomorrow – don’t know though, I’ve never tried running and taking a picture at the same time before.  Oh, and managing to stay on my feet too.  We just got some fresh snow – maybe I shouldn’t chance it…  although I bet the snow will make for some great pics!  Decisions, decisions…

This morning didn’t start out as a great day… 

At 5am, Todd’s watch alarm went off.  He didn’t need to get up this morning, and I don’t get up until 620.  Of course Todd didn’t hear the alarm.  And I didn’t know where the watch was.  When it went off for the second time 10 minutes later, I jostled him and made him find it :)  Of course I couldn’t really get back to sleep after that. 

Then as I was packing my lunch, my lunch bag fell off the counter and spilled all over the floor.  Thankfully none of my Tupperware containers opened, but my fruit went everywhere and it received some real nice bruises. 

I took a break from the kitchen to get dressed and realized that when I put my clothes out the night before, I did so with the intention of doing laundry.  Laundry that I totally forgot that I was going to do.  So I had to wear a pair of dress pants that I had previously worn (they might not have been fresh, but they were clean).  Muttering under my breath, I went back to the kitchen  to fill my travel mug, and proceeded to knock it over – along with all of the half and half that was in it.  Let me tell you how fun that stuff is to clean up at 645 in the morning.

I had a few choice curse words, and then I decided to make it a better day.  Instead of going into my day with the attitude of, another thing crappy just happened, what’s next?  I said, from this point on, it’ll be a good day and I then I CHOSE to have the positive outlook I try to carry myself with every day.

And what do you know, it worked.

The rest of my day was great! 

And started when I saw this sitting with the mail from yesterday,

It’s a $10 gift card courtesy of P.F. Chang’s!  They sponsored the Rock and Roll Marathon in Las Vegas and sent this out as a Congratulations!  And since Todd and I both ran, we got two!  Well, worth a trip across the border to me!

Speaking of Vegas, nearly 4 weeks later, I finally have my Google Reader under control!  Between vacation and the holidays, it just exploded and continued to explode.  Thankfully at the beginning of December I whittled down my reader a bit – otherwise, oh my!  As of right now, there are a mere 6 posts waiting to be read!!!

Continuing on with my productive day, I went for a short run outside after work.  Surprisingly, it was my first run outside since the half marathon.  I’ve done short runs at the gym, but the treadmill is nothing like running outdoors.  Unfortunately I picked a craptastic day to run outside.  It snowed last night (just an inch or so) and warmed up just above freezing, letting everything melt a little.  Of course this afternoon, it cooled back down and everything froze.  And then it started snowing again.  So the people who didn’t shovel had an icy, bumpy mess on their sidewalks, and the people who did shovel, had a slick bit of icy snow on theirs.  Perfect running weather!  I managed to stay on my feet amazingly, and had a pretty good run.

I actually used my run today to run my errands – pun intended!  I had to take money from one bank and put it in another and usually I just do this on my way home from work.  However, sometimes I find that the littlest diversion from getting straight to my workout can really do a number on my will to complete it.  So instead of allowing that possibility to occur, I incorporated my running around into my running around – ha, pun intended again!  Now I’m sitting on the couch, typing this out in my Snuggie and my hair wrapped in a towel.  I look like Cookie Monster in a turban.  Mmmm, cookies…

Now it’s time to chill out and read my new cookbooks!!!

…although I think Todd was trying to send me a message by fanning out all of my unread magazines,

Normally I don’t buy magazines, but between travelling and freebies, I’ve amassed quite the collection.  However, it doesn’t usually occur to me to pick one up when I’m not on the go. 

I did happen to notice that one of those magazines wasn’t mine, but was actually Todd’s.  Although, I think he put it in my pile because he knew that I’d want to read it

Hello Marky, how you doin? 

;)

Happy Wednesday!

Today’s entry is going to be a short one, for two great reasons.

First of all, the Gold Medal Game for the World Junior Hockey Championships is on tonight and Canada is playing Russia for GOLD!!! 

It’s a rite of passage for all Canadians to grow up loving hockey.  That love didn’t leave this girl behind.  I actually enjoy Junior hockey more than NHL hockey.  Junior hockey is the level before NHL.  For my American friends, unlike other pro sports, most hockey players don’t play college hockey, Junior hockey is where you go (think of it as the minor leagues), and this is where the NHL drafts from.  These players are typically 17 – 19 and are fantastic!  The biggest difference between the Junior game and the Pro game (IMO), is that there is a lot more passing and finesse.  I love a good check like anyone else, but I find it’s such a focus of the pro game that it can get repetitive and actually decrease the excitement.

The Junior team in my city – The OHL team, the Windsor Spitfires – is actually the 2x defending Memorial Cup Champs (which is the Championship for the Canadian Hockey League, with teams all throughout Canada and a chunk of the US – and the best of the players of that age).  I went to just my second game last year and had a blast.  Hope to get some tickets for this year!

*Currently Canada is leading Russia 2 – 0!*

The other excitement for my night keeping me away from blogging (although now that I’m looking at it, maybe I am making a full post – lol!) is that the two cookbooks I ordered from Amazon came today!

I’ve been wanting to get a new cookbook for a few months and I’ve taken a lot of time at the bookstore looking at what book I wanted to buy.  After many scouting sessions, I ended up finding two, one of which was $42 and the other $43.50.  Ummm, if you don’t know by now, I’m cheap.  So I looked online and thanks to Amazon, I was able to get both for just over $50 (thanks to some Christmas money!)!

I’m so used to having to sign for packages, that I was quite surprised to see the box just sitting in the dark on my front porch today.  The thing is, it’s not really a non-descript box…

  Needless to say, I ripped into the box straight away!

Notice the lack of books? lol!  I left Todd’s Futurama Season 5 DVDs in there, not nearly as exciting as the books!

And speaking of the books,

The Simple Art of EatingWell Cookbook – Jessie Price, 2010

  The Sunset Cookbook – Pam Hoenig (Ed.), 2010

Look at how thick this one is – it’s the same size as the Joy of Cooking!

I figured that it would be apropos to pose them on my stove – they are cookbooks after all.  And this is the first time that I got to use my cookbook holder that I got for Christmas!  I’ll be thumbing through them tonight and hope that I can make something tomorrow, but I do think that I have a lot of reading before me (but didn’t I want that?).  I hope they’re as great as I thought they were in the store! 

I’ll give a review of them and why I chose them in a couple weeks, after I’ve been able to make a few dishes.  Seriously, I can barely contain my excitement!!!!

***As I’m reading over my post, I just realized that both books are based on magazines!  Strange as I really don’t read magazines!  Is this new development bad, or good, I wonder?   ….oh, and now it’s 3-0 for Canada :)

Today was an uneventful day.  Great, but non-eventful day at work.  Excellent, but non-descript workout.  Delicious, but not made by me whole wheat pasta and homemade marinara sauce for dinner.

However, on Sunday I created a Curried Mushroom Lentil Soup, and it was delicious :)

As you may have read in my Commitments for 2011 post, one of my commitments this year is to either create or make a new recipe each week for the entire year.

So, without further ado, I give you Curried Mushroom Lentil Soup:Measure out 6 cups of mushroom stock (I added 2 more cups to the 4 that you see in the picture).   Pour it into your crockpot, or large pot that you’re using.  Ignore the SOS pad in the background.  Not very appetizing, but man do they work!  Don’t ignore the glorious sun streaming in the window onto my measuring cup :) Dice your onion.  Note that I only used one of these onions. Dice your celery, and once again, note that I only used one of the stalks.

Chopped and ready for your pan.  Notice the bite out of the remaining celery stock.  Hey, a girls’ gotta eat ;)

Add to a pan with your olive oil at medium heat and cover. Chop your mushrooms and add to the pan.  Also add the garlic and mix together.  Be sure to keep covered to allow the celery and onions to soften and absorb the olive oil flavour.When vegetables are at desired softness (slightly translucent), add the curry powder.  This may seem like a lot of curry powder, but with the amount of liquid, it needs it.  In fact, Todd isn’t a curry fan (I’m trying my best to convert him) and absolutely loved and devoured the soup.  So it couldn’t have been too curry-y… real word – I swear!

And add the Italian seasoning.  I know that the thought of curry and Italian seasoning sounds a bit schizophrenic, but I think it pairs excellently.  Stir altogether, until spices are completely incorporated into the rest of the mixture.  

Add to your stock in the crockpot.Next, add in the cooked shredded pork (can easily be omitted for a vegetarian version).Add your lentils.  Lentils don’t need to be soaked, but be sure to look through them to make sure there are no bad ones, or *eek* stones.

For a bit of creaminess and tang, add your Greek yogurt.

For an extra colour to the palette and extra fibre, add in the black beans.   Stir, stir, stir.Add a few turns of cracked black pepper – we love lots.    And I just want to note that the colour of the soup was before 2 of the cups of mushroom stock and 2 cups of water.  It kinda looks like broccoli cheese soup here – lol!Add crushed red pepper flakes for a teeny bit of heat.  This doesn’t make it ‘hot,’ so if you like HEAT, add more; and if you don’t, don’t add any. I love pearl barley in most of my soups and couldn’t resist adding it for some chewiness.

Everyone into the pool!  Also be sure to add in your water, otherwise, it’ll be closer to a stoup (a la Rachael Ray) than a soup.  And once it’s done cooking, you still may need to add more water or stock – that’s those lentils for you!

Recipe number one for the year!  The part in brackets is where it’s from.  In this case, I created this one, I didn’t follow a recipe.  I figure that if I write it on the calendar, I’ll be able to see it everyday and I really hope that I complete the challenge!  Speaking of the calendar, it is a Heart and Stroke Lottery Calendar that I got for Christmas.  There are lottery draws each and every day of the year.  Great present!

The finished product – yum!  The lentils tend to sink, so you don’t really see them…

Todd enjoyed his with a few cheese and garlic croutons, and again this sounds slightly confused; but the sharp garlic flavour really sets the soup off.       I enjoyed mine with a well-deserved glass of wine :)

Curried Mushroom Lentil Soup

• 6 cups of Mushroom stock
• 1 medium Onion, diced
• 1 Celery stalk, diced
• 2 large Button Mushrooms, chopped
• 1 tsp Olive Oil
• 6 tsp Yellow Curry Powder
• 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
• 2 cloves of Minced Garlic
• 3/4 cup Shredded Cooked Pork
• 1 cup Lentils
• 2/3 cup Greek Yogurt
• 1 cup Black Beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup Pearl Barley
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• 2 cups Water
• Cracked Black Pepper to taste

1. In a crockpot, add your mushroom stock.
2. Finely chop your celery and onion and add to a pan with your olive oil, over medium heat.  Cover.
3. Chop your mushrooms.  Add the mushrooms and minced garlic to your pan and cook until tender (approximately, 6-8 minutes).
4. When vegetable mixture is tender, add curry powder and Italian seasoning, incorporating well.  Add to stock.
5. In crockpot, add shredded pork, Greek yogurt, black beans, pearl barley, crushed red pepper flakes and water.
6. Add a few turns of cracked black pepper to taste and stir together.
7. Place in crockpot on high for 4-6 hours, or low for 6-8 hours
8. Enjoy!

So it’s 3 days into the New Year and I’ve yet to write out my Commitments for the year, save for a small scribbled piece of paper in my purse.

I’m generally pretty successful in sticking to Resolutions (or Commitments as I’m calling them this year), when I take the time to make them.  Last year I had two:

• Try more new things (ingredient wise)
• Incorporate more nuts and seeds into my diet

I absolutely was successful on both fronts, and am ready for more commitments for this new year (which feels like it is so full of promise and success!).  This year I have 6 Commitments that I’m challenging myself to.

Running

I would like  to run 5 races (of any length) this year.  This is a manageable number, but with the summer pretty much completely out and my first half not until April, I’ll have to do some good planning.  I would also really like to get my endurance back (has anyone seen it?).  My endurance is much better right now than it was this summer (stinkin humidity!), but it’s nowhere near where it was last year.  I don’t want to put a specific number on how far I want to be able to run without a walk break (although 11 miles would be great again! ;P), but I’ll know if when I have had significant improvement.

Photography

I love taking pictures and would love to not only take a photography class, but to buy an SLR.  Alas, these aren’t in the budget for this year.  Instead, I’m going to read some books on photography and learn more about the camera that I have.  Do the best with what you’ve got, right?  My goal is to be able to better translate what I see through the lens into the picture I take.

Blogging

The past year and a half has seen a lot of changes here at Flybynyght.  When you’ve been blogging for 8 and a half years, you’re bound to change your message and the way you deliver it from time to time.  I’m going back to my roots and blogging for me.  It’s easy to get caught up in comments and visits, but I write this because I love to write and I love to share my life and interests.  So while the content won’t be changing, the delivery will change.  I want to blog more often.  Everyday is not realistic for me, but several times a week absolutely is.  But if I have nothing to say, I won’t write an entry.  I’m more concerned with quality than I am with quantity.  The second part of this commitment is to not have any long periods without an entry (longer than 2 weeks – I’m trying to be realistic).  I haven’t had a gap-free blog in a loooong time.

Recipes

I think I’m most excited for this Commitment!  I’ve challenged myself to either make or create a new recipe every week for the year.  That’s 52 recipes that have either been created or followed by me.  I can make more than one a week (and really hope and expect to!), but these can’t be saved up for weeks when I’m really busy.  The only reason to miss a week (and subsequently make up the recipe at the first possible opportunity) is if something happens that is beyond my control like an all inclusive trip to Mexico.  I’ve already created my first recipe and I’ll be posting that tomorrow – it was simple and delicious!

Reading

I want to read 40 books this year.  I know going in that this isn’t realistic for me (as I only read about 20 last year), but I want to commit to making books a larger part of my life.  This will mean choosing to read rather than keeping up so intently on social media (and let’s face it, celebrity gossip) and to PVRing a show instead of watching it in its’ entirety when it’s on. 

Appearance

This commitment doesn’t seem to really fit with the others, but it’s the only one that I feel is really NEEDED.  I need to take more care in my appearance, especially when going to work.  I work in a very casual office and it’s just so easy to throw on a t-shirt with my dress pants and whip my hair back and forth put my hair up in a ponytail.  But this needs to stop!  I feel like a shlub a lot because I kinda look like one!  I’ve also decided to start wearing makeup regularly again (I used to be a makeup fiend, but stopped wearing it almost completely 2 and a half years ago when I started to work out regularly).  I commit to wearing actual outfits, complete with hair done and accessories on (I make jewellery for gosh sakes!), at least 4 workdays a week.  Makeup will likely be a part of this, but not a necessity.

So those are my commitments to myself for the next year.  I hope to remember to examine these every few months, but I think that with my recipe challenge being in the forefront of my mind, I should remember about the others as well.  Here’s hopin!

And since I don’t have  a single picture in this post and it looks a little naked, here’s a random picture of me

Tweeting and eating as usual…   :)