Hayley: Firefly

Tonight at yoga I did firefly. It looks like this:

Mine wasn’t quite that good… but I did it, and I had never done it before. (image source: yogajournal.com) I think trying something new or achieving any kind of fitness “milestone,” however small, is really important for motivation. Now I can’t wait to go to another class so I can do it again!

Hayley: Easy Roasted Vegetables

Chop vegetables and sprinkle with herbs and seasonings. I went for parsnips, onions, and asparagus and added parsley, sage, thyme, and sea salt for flavor. Any vegetables work, and if you’re uncertain about which herbs to use, plain salt and pepper never fails.

Arrange vegetables on a pan and drizzle with oil. When I’m feeling particularly lazy (always), I lay down a sheet of foil to avoid having to scrub down the pan later.

Bake somewhere between 350 and 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. It’s a good idea to look at them a couple times during baking and make sure they aren’t turning completely black.

When they’re done they will look something like this:

A little brown in places and smelling amazing. Dare I say perfect for Thanksgiving?? Aside from the veggies, I’m most looking forward to the wine tomorrow! Be sure to take a minute or several to be grateful for all the good things in life.

 

 

Hayley: Ode to the Rice Cooker

This holiday season, ask a loved one to buy you a rice cooker. I love my rice cooker and I want everyone else in the world to be able to share my joy for this kitchen tool of dreams. Maybe you already do share my joy. If so, buy someone else a rice cooker!

It knows just how long to stay on until the rice is cooked, then it clicks off and goes from “cook” mode to “warm” mode. Whether I’m making rice, quinoa, millet, or oats (all of which it can in fact cook- told you it was awesome) I always use a 3:1 ratio of water to grain.

Tonight, I poured in a cup of dry brown rice and 3 cups water to make 4 servings that I can put in the fridge and eat all week long.

Thanks to that grey basket on top of the rice cooker, it’s possible to steam vegetables while the rice cooks. If I’m making rice, I always put something up top because since the rice cooker is already fired up for rice, I might as well. It’s always nice to have things ready to go when hunger or laziness hit.

Tonight, potatoes, sliced so they would cook faster, went in first.

Then, I took this squash that I really wanted to just eat like an apple (but didn’t, because that would be disgusting),

Sliced it open,

Took out the seeds and stringy pieces,

and sliced it along with some beets

to form steamer basket #2. After about 20 minutes (the rice takes about 40 to cook), I switched out the potatoes.

Now,  after all of the rice cooker’s hard work, I have rice, potatoes, squash, and beets– the makings of a few different meals– after just one foray into the kitchen. Let’s all take a moment and say thanks to the rice cooker.

Hayley: The Nearly Naked Mile

Today, a friend politely reminded me that it was time to blog again. She’s totally right, too. When I don’t have an outlet for my thoughts, they tend to get dumped onto unsuspecting people. Rebecca has recently been away from home, so now every time she has to stop by to grab something from the fridge or her room, she ends up spending at least 30 more minutes than she intended sitting and listening to me talk.

So, I was appreciative of the reminder that I can just use the internet void as my audience! As a thank you to this friend, here’s a picture of her in her underwear. Hi Mackenzie!

That’s me, Lindsey, Rebecca, and Mackenzie before we ran the Nearly Naked Mile, a race the school (yes, the school) puts on every year. Usually it’s freezing cold, but we got lucky and had really nice weather. It was at the very end of October, and some people wear Halloween costumes, but we opted for regular workout clothes and jungle-themed underwear.

There’s a blurry (good for anonymity) shot of the crowd. We ran through campus in front of lots of cops who were planted along the course to ensure things didn’t get too out of control, which they really didn’t. It basically felt like any other time I’ve ran a mile in my life, just wearing a slightly different outfit.

See you soon, with lots of goodies that (I promise) won’t involve my “goodies.”

Hayley: More Than Just a Salad

My favorite meals are made up of a vegetable base with some kind of protein (goat cheese, nuts, meat, beans, or seafood) on top, but I wouldn’t call them salads. “Salad”, for me, describes a raw vegetable creation, while I prefer the taste of cooked veggies.

For the creation above, I cooked kale, mushrooms, onions, and beets in coconut oil until they were tender. I added the kale at the very end so that it wouldn’t get too wilted, and I sliced the beets very thin to speed up their cooking time. For protein, I chose chickpeas and goat cheese– two all-time favorites. I also added a tiny drizzle of maple syrup, which tasted especially good with the beets. The flavors were sweet and earthy all at once. Dwight Schrute would have loved it.

Cold vegetable salads can be refreshing and delicious, but sometimes they just don’t have the depth of flavor that you get with warm, roasted vegetables. I would rather season a pan of vegetables with oil, salt, pepper, herbs, garlic, or other spices and make the veggies themselves become flavorful instead of pouring tons of salad dressing over raw vegetables and getting flavor that way.

Last week Rebecca came home from work holding this:

I love cooking vegetables, but Squashy is still sitting on our kitchen counter because both of us are too intimidated to touch it. We might need a bigger oven and a sharper knife.

Hayley: Senior Year

Today I had the pleasure (?) of sitting in a classroom, looking around at all the people I know, and realizing that some of them are people I know…. intimately.

Ahhh.. CU. Always full of surprises.

There’s always going to be that guy from that party who also happens to be taking Animals, Philosophy, and Identity in a Multicultural Context from 1900-1950, or whatever other awkwardly titled class I’m in. That’s understandable, I believe, but it gets under my skin a little bit if the count is more than one.

So I haven’t taken a math class since high school. Doesn’t mean I can’t count.

Today was the first time this has happened in a classroom setting (parties and bars are a slightly different story). It’s not that I wish I had gone the chastity belt route, but I’m taking it as a confirmation that I am a college senior, I have “experienced” my college town, and it’s probably time to move to greener pastures come May.

(source)

Although I don’t need much additional support for my (tentative) California decision, this article offers some. West coast, west coast!

Hayley: Bad Combo

Some combinations- of food, people, activities, you name it- just work. Some don’t. As I learned a few days ago, one that decidedly does not is yoga in a 90 degree room, followed by lunch, followed by moving a bike into a car.

Yoga was hard, but I managed. I fully knew I would be sweaty and tired afterward.

I knew I needed to move my broken bike while I was still dirty. If I did it later after I cleaned myself up, I would run the risk of needing to shower twice in one day. What a waste of time.

I pushed, pulled, grunted, shoved, hoisted, and moved seats around unsuccessfully, then successfully. I cursed both the Colorado heat and my leaky bike tire, and then I just cursed. I think I actually overexerted myself, because once the bike was finally in the car, these guys really didn’t want to be in my stomach anymore:

They stayed there, but it was not a good situation.

And now I can’t imagine ever eating tofu again, because even that picture is triggering a gag reflex.

At least I’ll be able to ride my bike again?