Woah Baby!

I sure took some time off!  First it was the bike crash (less than a week after my last post and 3 weeks before my triathlon I took a spill on my bike and broke my wrist).  Then it was a busy September and October (a visit from my parents, a work trip to Melbourne, and a week in SF spent almost entirely in the office).  Once I got home from San Francisco, I had a feeling I should take a pregnancy test which started us on the path to a huge life change.

That's our girl!

That's right, baby girl Donovan is due in early July!!

Aren't you convinced?

Yesterday we celebrated Valentine's Day at home.  I made some delicious Ricotta Gnudi
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/ricotta-gnudi-with-pomodoro-sauce

Kale salad and Ricotta Gnudi

And chocolate pudding: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/dark-chocolate-pudding-with-pretzels

Why yes, the chopped pretzels on top are actually peanut butter pretzels.

After dinner we lit a fire in our fireplace and watched Mulan on Netflix. We went to Disney World with Kevin's parents last month and decided to rewatch (or in some cases watch for the first time) Disney movies to figure out which ones we want to introduce our kid(s) to and which ones we'd rather not have to watch repeatedly.

I'll keep updating about food and baby related stuff, just in case anyone is still paying attention!

Testing the limits

I haven't posted many updates about cooking or life or my triathlon training because I've been too busy swimming, biking and running, but I'm really getting excited for my half-ironman 4 weeks from today! And I'm going to talk about it! (Lisa, you can skip to the end if you want, for the food part)

I have not been perfect in sticking to my training plan, especially because I've done a fair bit of travel over the last 16 weeks that I've been training, however I've made every effort to stay on track - from renting a bike in San Francisco, to running along the Seine in the rain in Paris, to (accidentally) lap swimming with the city-wide swim team at the West Boise YMCA.  It has not always been fun, and very rarely been pretty, but I have grown and transformed over the past few months, not just physically but mentally too.

I have an attraction to setting goals that seem out of reach, because it's the only way to learn what your limits are, and to face things that seem scary or impossible.  As embarrassed as I am to admit it (especially to more experienced triathletes) I have only done one triathlon, a sprint distance, 2 years ago, and it did not exactly go well.  There is something about open water swimming that really freaks me out. (That something being squishy mud, murky water that you can't see the bottom of, fish, and plants that grow on the bottom of lakes and try to reach up and grab your ankles while you're swimming). In my first race, I was under-prepared for the swim, had a huge panic attack as soon as I hit the cold water and choked on my first breath, and ended up doing the backstroke the whole way. (Which, as you might imagine, makes sighting difficult).  After that, I wrote off the triathlon, and especially open water swimming as "not for me".

Last year I focused heavily on running - posting my fastest half and full marathon times by far, and did a 60+ mile bike ride.  For each of these endeavors, I had training plans, and committed myself to them as much as possible, but what I realized is that they lacked balance.  I was getting sick of running, because I felt like that was the only thing I could do while marathon training, lest I get injured cross training.  I kept reconsidering the triathlon, but at a slightly different scale. I had already done a sprint distance, so I wanted to go further. And the portion I was most concerned about - the swim - is only slightly shorter in the mid-range Olympic distance (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run) than the half-ironman distance (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run).  When I selected my goal race (http://mititanium.com) back in December I figured I've run plenty of half marathons, I've ridden my bike further than 56 miles before, and the swim will work itself out, right?  It definitely was a stretch, but one I wanted to take, to test myself, my determination.

With countless hours in the pool and 4 long open water swims under my belt, I know that I will never be a fast swimmer.  I may even be the last one out of the water for my distance (there's also a full Ironman - yes, double those numbers! happening at the same time, and hopefully some of them will take longer to swim twice as far as me).  But I know I can do it, and I'm pretty confident I can do it without having a panic attack or resorting to the backstroke.

Yesterday I drove out to Grand Rapids, where the race will take place for an on-course swim/bike training put on by the race directors.  It was such an awesome opportunity, since I probably would not have made the 2 hour trek to check out the course otherwise.  The lake is gorgeous and the water is cool enough for me to use my (shiny, new) wetsuit, which is definitely a major security blanket.  The bike course is pretty hilly, especially at the beginning and the end, but now I know and can mentally prepare for that.  While a 7+ hour endurance event cannot quite fall into the category of "fun" I am looking forward to the race, and the chance to see what I'm capable of.

Plus (and Kevin's favorite part) I got a new bike out of this:

Right when I got 'er home from the store.

And for those of you who are primarily interested in the cooking aspect of this blog, never fear! I've also been testing the limits of how much food I can consume in a given day. Training leaves me famished much of the time, and I work from home, so I have a pantry and fridge full of ingredients to work with any time it strikes my fancy.  Plus we have a fabulous farmer's market here in Ann Arbor, and I've taken advantage of seasonal produce to try new things.

Such as garlic scapes! They're green stems that grow above ground on garlic plants, and while I had read recipes that used them, I had never seen or eaten them myself.  When they showed up in the farmer's market earlier this summer I snagged some, without any idea what to do with them. I ended up making the pesto in this blog post: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/06/the-crisper-whisperer-what-to-do-with-garlic-scapes-recipe.html and sautéing the leftover scapes with asparagus:

(Store bought) ravioli with garlic scape pesto and
sautéed asparagus/garlic scapes

We also get an abundance of blueberries around this time of year, so I have been buying them weekly, mostly for snacking or to eat with my morning oatmeal or yogurt, but I also decided to make a blueberry crumble.  I used this recipe: http://leitesculinaria.com/81109/recipes-blueberry-crumble.html just added lemon zest and lowered the amount of sugar in the filling. It was delightfully tart and delicious warm with ice cream or room temp for breakfast (not that I tried that…)

Blueberry Crumble

I promise more food and life updates once this triathlon is done!

Fancy that

My sister cooks fancy.  There are courses to her meals, many steps to her recipes and a grand tradition of delicious holiday (or weeknight) dinners.

If I were to have a cooking philosophy it would roughly translate to "get 'er done".  No frills, lots of repeats.

Sometimes on weekends I put forth extra effort - try something new.  And on this Saturday, I think I found something that would even impress my sister, while still being relatively low maintenance.

This one's for you, sister:

Cabbage and Onion Torta - I followed the recipe pretty exactly, except I used white wine vinegar (I didn't have cider vinegar) and no ham, of course.

The finished product - It's as big as my sheet pan! 

I served it with salad - these slices were about 1/8 of the torta

This is life

I'm lazy.  I am often wasteful of resources, or do a subpar job at household tasks, simply to avoid expending too much time and effort.  But today I was sick of dog hair everywhere. Sick of salt and wet boot and paw marks on my floors.  So I meticulously vacuumed.  I moved furniture and even used attachments to get the pesky hairs hiding in corners and crevices.  We ran out of Swiffer wet mop pads, which hardly work anyway, so on my hands and knees I scrubbed the floor.  It was hard not to feel like my mother, using vinegar and water to clean my (faux) wood floor. Using a towel to keep my knees from bruising and to dry the water as I went.

And the entire time I felt eternally grateful.

To have a home that keeps me warm.

To have a dog who loves (and sheds) unconditionally.

To have parents who set examples for how to work hard and play in balanced measure (note: retire before you get old!)

To have in-laws who came and helped us build shelves.

To have a husband who cares so deeply about our family.

To have a nice table to gather friends and family near.

Chairs still forthcoming.

Come, have a toast with us to all life's blessings.

Valentine's Day

We are not very sentimental.  Anniversaries are sacred, because for the last 3 years they have meant Hawaii vacations! But Valentine's Day, we can take and/or leave.  For example, last year on Valentine's day I had a work deadline that lasted til 3am.  If anything we use V-day as an excuse to go to a nice dinner.  This year we wanted to stay home and enjoy our new house so we had a fancy night in. We dressed up and poured some rose and ate fondue!  (Warning!  This is definitely not a vegan blog anymore!)

Why yes, I did make a cheese plate as an appetizer for our fondue dinner.

There are a million cheese fondue recipes on the internet and most of them are essentially the same.  I used a variation on this one: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/11/making-swiss-cheese-fondue-recipe/.

The spread! Fondue, plus broccoli, brussels sprouts, bread, mushrooms,
cauliflower and potatoes for dipping.

For dessert, I made mini molten chocolate cakes from this recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/dining/141nrex.html. I didn't really think it was necessary to make 6 servings for the 2 of us, so Kevin was very helpful in doing the math for halving 1/3 and 3/4 cups. There were spreadsheets involved.  The cakes turned out amazing and I even whipped some cream and added strawberries:

Those cakes!  So molten!

And for breakfast this morning I turned the leftover cauliflower, potatoes, mushrooms and brussels sprouts into a hash with a little cheese and some scrambled eggs.

Repurposed!

I'm off to San Francisco next week, just in time for the heat wave to hit Michigan (Highs above freezing!  And even in the 40s and 50s!).  But look forward to more posts about our new home, and life in the "country".

I believe I promised some French Onion Soup?

Surprise! I didn't forget!

French onion soup is such a perfect winter food - sweet and savory with caramelized onion, bread and melty cheese.  I had actually never had it before I made it for the first time a few months ago. It took a little while to grow on me, but now it is one of my favorites, and a perfect dish for the first week in our new house!

That's right, we officially moved in on Wednesday.  It snowed about 4 inches Tuesday night and on into Wednesday morning as the movers began to carry our stuff down the precarious flight of external stairs up to our apartment.  Things only got crazier when the movers got to our new house:

Ooops!  The moving truck got stuck in our neighbor's
lawn/driveway!

But now we're here, almost entirely unpacked (bless you, Kevin and your type A tendencies!) and cooking delicious meals in our new kitchen.

Chopping onions makes me sad

Don't worry, I'd still be crying even if I wasn't chopping pounds of onions!  It's those darn Olympics! Even in years not marred by human (and animal!) rights abuses (ugh. Russia!), the Olympic Games regularly bring me to tears.  There's something about a person devoting his or her life to a sport, and having the skill to achieve the extraordinary that makes me weepy.  Kevin will attest that I even cried tonight watching a commercial of Bela Karolyi carrying Kerri Strug after her historic vault… Damn you Olympics!!  I'm crying right now just thinking about it.

Anyhow… back to the soup.  It's based on this recipe: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/french-onion-soup-with-comte.  I half the recipe, so that it makes one dinner and one set of leftovers, and I cook the onions on medium (or medium-low, given the power of my new stove's burners) so that they brown without burning. 

I enjoy watching a huge pile of onions slowly cook down

and caramelize

To become:

Soup!

Hope you all are enjoying the winter, in whatever form you may have it (polar vortex, California drought, or even 2-inch snow day!)

Happy New Year!

For New Year's Eve Kevin and I went out to a nice dinner, as is our custom since we're not really party people.  We had a leisurely meal and reflected on the past year - all the changes that happened, the high points and the low points (thankfully there were more of the former).

Some of the best things, you already have read about:

We moved to Michigan!

We got a dog!

I got to spend two weeks in Idaho this summer with friends and my whole Nothwehr family!

I ran really really fast! Twice!

Now we're looking forward to 2014.

I love New Year's Resolutions - or "goal setting" as I prefer to call it to avoid negative connotations.  It involves two of my favorite things: making lists (and sublists! And if you're lucky calendar appointments!) and fostering positive intentions. I try to set somewhat ambitious but still achievable goals, but don't get discouraged when some fall by the wayside.

So here's a sampling of what 2014 has in store for me:

1) I have been itching to do a half-ironman since watching the Boise 70.3 about 3 years ago.  In the meantime I tried a sprint triathlon, with mixed results (swimming in open water is scary!)
But I'm biting the bullet and signed up for a half-ironman distance race in Grand Rapids, Michigan this summer: http://mititanium.com.  I've already started having nightmares about the swim, but my pool sessions have been encouraging, and I'm joining the local tri-club, who does weekly open water swims once all the local open water stops being frozen over.

2) Once we move into our new home (closing on Friday!) I'm really looking forward to some homesteading.  We're inheriting some chickens (and a kick-ass coop) and I'm already plotting my veggie garden.  One of my goals is to take classes - there are organic gardening and cheese-making courses at the local community college and beekeeping classes at the botanical gardens.

3) We're going to work on training Canyon more! As in "Canyon! Don't bother those chickens!" or  "Canyon quit peeing in the garden!"

4) Reading 2 books for fun each month.  I'm already at one and a half books in 5 days, so I think this one will be manageable.

And I'll definitely try to blog more!  Including one tomorrow about French onion soup.  Hooray!