Weekendy goodness!
Woo, good run today!
I've been adding time to my runs incrementally each week, and last week I got back up to 30 minute runs, yay! So, despite the beer and margarita I had yesterday (and the TONS of awesome food, which we'll get to in a bit XD), I added another 2 minutes on for a hardcore 32 minute run :) Before I got into the workout area, I ran into two women I used to work with at the school's financial aid office and chatted for a moment. One I hadn't seen in YEARS and years, and it took her a few minutes to realize that it was me! I totally forgot her name so I'll ask Sarah next time I see her :P
My workouts have been consistent 5 days per week, and the past couple Saturdays I've skipped strength training altogether. It seems my weeks are going swimmingly and my weekends - workout and nutrition - have been off, so the weight I gained during the hiatus has not been coming off consistently. I realize that I'm still healing from the massive amounts of insanity I got past to get here, so I've been kind to myself and just keep moving forward when I make mistakes. I've got today and if I make it just through today, I'm doing well! Perhaps it'd be smart to make some mental notes and such for the weekends - whether I'm working or just feeling super lazy.
We had a lazy Saturday - Pat just got back from Alaska on Friday morning (they flew out Thursday night from AK!) - so the both of us just wanted to lounge and chill out.
... so Pat chilled out and I chilled my way - by cooking up a storm!
She came and woke me up Saturday morning (I slept in late, yay!) to show me the package that was sent overnight...
....
20 pounds of Alaskan fish and sausages!
We opened the bitch up and drooled over fresh halibut, king salmon, cold-smoked salmon and bunches of reindeer sausages, YUM!
For a belated birthday dinner, we decided to meet at her dad's house on Sunday (yesterday) and do a cookout of all the good stuff she brought back.
So Saturday I did all my mis en place (prep work) to make things go smoothly for Sunday. I figured the fish should be prepared simply on the grill, just seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled until perfect. If people wanted to add extra flavor, I made 3 sauces to serve with the fish - a traditional style remoulade, a dijon horseradish cream sauce and a lemon dill cream sauce YUMMY. Also cooked up some deer sausage with grilled onions and laid them down on puff pastry with a dot of mustard. SO GOOD!
The day of the feast, Donna wanted to marinate the salmon (I was very well-behaved and just let her do it, since I was having EVERYTHING else my way) so that was done before grilling and it turned out yummy :)
I also chopped and marinated fresh veggies and prepped a smoked salmon and bean salad, and of course, made a super sekrit dessert to surprise Pat!
OMFG it was SOOOOO good! Somehow I didn't manage to put the dessert on my flash drive so I don't have the finished product uploaded, but I'll get it in the food pr0n gallery> (which has been updated!) soon :)
For dessert I made a sugar free high GI carrot cake trifle with raisin rum reduction with cream cheese mousse.
YUMMMMMMMMM!!!!! SO GOOD!
And Peg's gonna get me a trifle dish, which I'm SOOOO stoked about and have been too cheap to buy for myself! Excited!!!
We all met up after I came home from church yesterday and rolled over to the house. I got the grilling started and changed into my bathing suit for a lovely swim and kept checking the foodage. We had some chill time, since her brother and sister-in-law came all the way from Orlando to hang out with us, awe :) I hadn't seen them since Peg's party in February (the night Pat told me to move in :P) so it was good to catch up. That whole family is awesome and they've taken me in totally, so what better way to share the love and gift of cooking?!
Here are some of the food pr0n pics from yesterday :)
Some of the prep work:
Prepping the trifle
First layer of carrot cake
Adding the cheesecake mousse
All topped off!
Getting ready to add the onions and sausage to the puff pastry
Pastries assembled
Before baking
The fridge last night :)
From the BBQ yesterday:
Grill Mistress!
Letting the corn steam in husks and warming the puff pastries
Part 1 of the spread
Broccoli and dip, pretzel crackers, queso, chips, mozzarella with prosciutto and pesto, bean salad with smoked salmon, farmer's milk cheese and green onions and salsa
Part 2 of the spread
Finishing up the corn and getting ready to do the veggies
Marinated Alaskan king salmon and teriyaki garlic shrimp
Grilling the halibut
Spread of hors d' oeuvres
Grilled corn, veggie kabobs, broccoli salad, mmmmm garden salad
Since that was pretty much the weekend, I didn't do much additional work to the garden just yet. I've got my cups strewn about on borrowed workhorses with one of the old doors spread across, but I wanted to get the garden planned and mapped out before planting seeds. I've got a couple sprouts going, so that's SUPER encouraging!
I'm just gonna get home and plant the seeds, do my prayers and meditation and just wait for them to sprout. I'll plan the garden, but it'll be a constant work in progress, which I'm totally cool with. We are also looking into deterring pests, so I'm thinking about getting some PVC, measuring and cutting it out, get chicken wire and get a fence around that bad boy. Rob gave a great tip that's worked for me previously - pour cayenne pepper around the edges to keep the raccoons and other pests away. I'll keep learning the more I do this!
She's also letting me plant an orchard by the other side of the yard, so I eventually want to do lemons, tangelos, apples, limes, cherries and get some blueberry bushes back there, too. All in good time!
So that's where I am with that, and of course, more pics!
Some plants and the workhorses
Planted two grape tomato and serrano pepper plants!
Centerpiece with bits of the strawberry patch
Potted mint!
I'm SUPER duper happy that Pat's back, and we looked at pictures from the trip, shared stories and been talking about the work we'd like to do with the house. Next year we'll do the entire exterior and I talked about possibly turning the carport into a greenhouse, but we'll get it cleared out instead so she can use it to actually park her car! So I'd like to look into getting a shed out back to do some sprouting in for the next harvest, and of course to house my tools!
It'd also be a good idea to borrow her polka dot rubber boots - I swept my room today and it was dirrrrrty dirty! Since I come from the garden straight to my room, it was bound to get messy, so the boots will help with that, as they'll be staying outdoors.
Tonight we're gonna chow on leftovers and cook up some more fresh halibut! Naturally the dessert is all gone - we cleaned it up at the house last night :) - but we've got a load of fresh ingredients and enough leftovers to hold the fort down.
I've been feeling very good, physically strong with very little to no pain, and mentally getting through each challenge, one at a time. I've got a strong start today and the whole week to get more done, as Portus is in less than two weeks (AH!!!!!) and Terminus is in 6. I've got a good deal of creative projects ahead of me (some sewing, costumes and props to finish), but I know me and I know it'll all work out. I'm just waiting on my updated pass and I'll make the flight reservation to Dallas and Chicago (I'm going confirmed *to* both cons, but going standby on the way back).
After that, I'm going to make progress on setting myself up career-wise and financially. There are a LOT of ideas and it'd be smart to narrow down the specifics, but for now I'm doing well and am taking on each task as I can. There's progress, and keeping that in mind is a huge boost.
I know I can do this!
And on a random side-note, freesnowcone and I had an interesting conversation going, which sparked my need to re-discover a classic back-in-the-day entry.
THE GREEN POO ENTRY!
It reminded me to re-up my LJ subscription :) There just ain't any way I'm leaving this place soon!
I've been adding time to my runs incrementally each week, and last week I got back up to 30 minute runs, yay! So, despite the beer and margarita I had yesterday (and the TONS of awesome food, which we'll get to in a bit XD), I added another 2 minutes on for a hardcore 32 minute run :) Before I got into the workout area, I ran into two women I used to work with at the school's financial aid office and chatted for a moment. One I hadn't seen in YEARS and years, and it took her a few minutes to realize that it was me! I totally forgot her name so I'll ask Sarah next time I see her :P
My workouts have been consistent 5 days per week, and the past couple Saturdays I've skipped strength training altogether. It seems my weeks are going swimmingly and my weekends - workout and nutrition - have been off, so the weight I gained during the hiatus has not been coming off consistently. I realize that I'm still healing from the massive amounts of insanity I got past to get here, so I've been kind to myself and just keep moving forward when I make mistakes. I've got today and if I make it just through today, I'm doing well! Perhaps it'd be smart to make some mental notes and such for the weekends - whether I'm working or just feeling super lazy.
We had a lazy Saturday - Pat just got back from Alaska on Friday morning (they flew out Thursday night from AK!) - so the both of us just wanted to lounge and chill out.
... so Pat chilled out and I chilled my way - by cooking up a storm!
She came and woke me up Saturday morning (I slept in late, yay!) to show me the package that was sent overnight...
....
20 pounds of Alaskan fish and sausages!
We opened the bitch up and drooled over fresh halibut, king salmon, cold-smoked salmon and bunches of reindeer sausages, YUM!
For a belated birthday dinner, we decided to meet at her dad's house on Sunday (yesterday) and do a cookout of all the good stuff she brought back.
So Saturday I did all my mis en place (prep work) to make things go smoothly for Sunday. I figured the fish should be prepared simply on the grill, just seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled until perfect. If people wanted to add extra flavor, I made 3 sauces to serve with the fish - a traditional style remoulade, a dijon horseradish cream sauce and a lemon dill cream sauce YUMMY. Also cooked up some deer sausage with grilled onions and laid them down on puff pastry with a dot of mustard. SO GOOD!
The day of the feast, Donna wanted to marinate the salmon (I was very well-behaved and just let her do it, since I was having EVERYTHING else my way) so that was done before grilling and it turned out yummy :)
I also chopped and marinated fresh veggies and prepped a smoked salmon and bean salad, and of course, made a super sekrit dessert to surprise Pat!
OMFG it was SOOOOO good! Somehow I didn't manage to put the dessert on my flash drive so I don't have the finished product uploaded, but I'll get it in the food pr0n gallery> (which has been updated!) soon :)
For dessert I made a sugar free high GI carrot cake trifle with raisin rum reduction with cream cheese mousse.
YUMMMMMMMMM!!!!! SO GOOD!
And Peg's gonna get me a trifle dish, which I'm SOOOO stoked about and have been too cheap to buy for myself! Excited!!!
We all met up after I came home from church yesterday and rolled over to the house. I got the grilling started and changed into my bathing suit for a lovely swim and kept checking the foodage. We had some chill time, since her brother and sister-in-law came all the way from Orlando to hang out with us, awe :) I hadn't seen them since Peg's party in February (the night Pat told me to move in :P) so it was good to catch up. That whole family is awesome and they've taken me in totally, so what better way to share the love and gift of cooking?!
Here are some of the food pr0n pics from yesterday :)
Some of the prep work:
Prepping the trifle
First layer of carrot cake
Adding the cheesecake mousse
All topped off!
Getting ready to add the onions and sausage to the puff pastry
Pastries assembled
Before baking
The fridge last night :)
From the BBQ yesterday:
Grill Mistress!
Letting the corn steam in husks and warming the puff pastries
Part 1 of the spread
Broccoli and dip, pretzel crackers, queso, chips, mozzarella with prosciutto and pesto, bean salad with smoked salmon, farmer's milk cheese and green onions and salsa
Part 2 of the spread
Finishing up the corn and getting ready to do the veggies
Marinated Alaskan king salmon and teriyaki garlic shrimp
Grilling the halibut
Spread of hors d' oeuvres
Grilled corn, veggie kabobs, broccoli salad, mmmmm garden salad
Since that was pretty much the weekend, I didn't do much additional work to the garden just yet. I've got my cups strewn about on borrowed workhorses with one of the old doors spread across, but I wanted to get the garden planned and mapped out before planting seeds. I've got a couple sprouts going, so that's SUPER encouraging!
I'm just gonna get home and plant the seeds, do my prayers and meditation and just wait for them to sprout. I'll plan the garden, but it'll be a constant work in progress, which I'm totally cool with. We are also looking into deterring pests, so I'm thinking about getting some PVC, measuring and cutting it out, get chicken wire and get a fence around that bad boy. Rob gave a great tip that's worked for me previously - pour cayenne pepper around the edges to keep the raccoons and other pests away. I'll keep learning the more I do this!
She's also letting me plant an orchard by the other side of the yard, so I eventually want to do lemons, tangelos, apples, limes, cherries and get some blueberry bushes back there, too. All in good time!
So that's where I am with that, and of course, more pics!
Some plants and the workhorses
Planted two grape tomato and serrano pepper plants!
Centerpiece with bits of the strawberry patch
Potted mint!
I'm SUPER duper happy that Pat's back, and we looked at pictures from the trip, shared stories and been talking about the work we'd like to do with the house. Next year we'll do the entire exterior and I talked about possibly turning the carport into a greenhouse, but we'll get it cleared out instead so she can use it to actually park her car! So I'd like to look into getting a shed out back to do some sprouting in for the next harvest, and of course to house my tools!
It'd also be a good idea to borrow her polka dot rubber boots - I swept my room today and it was dirrrrrty dirty! Since I come from the garden straight to my room, it was bound to get messy, so the boots will help with that, as they'll be staying outdoors.
Tonight we're gonna chow on leftovers and cook up some more fresh halibut! Naturally the dessert is all gone - we cleaned it up at the house last night :) - but we've got a load of fresh ingredients and enough leftovers to hold the fort down.
I've been feeling very good, physically strong with very little to no pain, and mentally getting through each challenge, one at a time. I've got a strong start today and the whole week to get more done, as Portus is in less than two weeks (AH!!!!!) and Terminus is in 6. I've got a good deal of creative projects ahead of me (some sewing, costumes and props to finish), but I know me and I know it'll all work out. I'm just waiting on my updated pass and I'll make the flight reservation to Dallas and Chicago (I'm going confirmed *to* both cons, but going standby on the way back).
After that, I'm going to make progress on setting myself up career-wise and financially. There are a LOT of ideas and it'd be smart to narrow down the specifics, but for now I'm doing well and am taking on each task as I can. There's progress, and keeping that in mind is a huge boost.
I know I can do this!
And on a random side-note, freesnowcone and I had an interesting conversation going, which sparked my need to re-discover a classic back-in-the-day entry.
THE GREEN POO ENTRY!
It reminded me to re-up my LJ subscription :) There just ain't any way I'm leaving this place soon!