Miss Rachel

I’m going to a cookout today, and I decided to make an asparagus salad to bring.   Here are the raw materials.

First I steamed the asparagus (after breaking off the ends of the stalks).  I let the water come to a boil, and I put the thicker stalks into the pan first so they would be submerged and cook a little more than the thinner ones.  Then I put all the others in, put the cover on and steamed for about 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes I took the pan off the heat and put in the sink and began cooling the asparagus by running cold water on it and putting some ice cubes in the pan.  Then I dried a bit with paper towels, put half of it in the serving dish and made the dressing.

I didn’t measure the dressing ingredients. I just used the juice of 1 lemon and chopped up what looked like enough of the dill and red onion and mixed all those up (along with a few sprinkles of salt), with some Vegenaise.

I poured the dressing over the first layer of asparagus and then put the rest in and poured the remaining dressing over that, sprinkled on a little salt, ground on some black pepper and garnished it with some sprigs of dill.

Then I put the cover on the serving dish and put it in the fridge where the salad chills awaiting its trip to the cookout.

Tags: asparagus, herbs, recipes, salad, vegan mayonnaise

As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m planning on doing a 5K this summer after I’ve gotten some training done for it. But last week I ended up doing a 5K without training for it.  The gym at work was sponsoring a *fun* 1 mile walk and 5K run in honor of National Employee Health and Fitness Day.  A coworker asked me if I was going to do the 5K,  and I hadn’t thought about it too much, but decided why not.  The other three members of my (underwriting) team also decided to do it, and I got pretty pumped up about it even thought I really wasn’t trained for it.

The day of the race was beautiful – bright and sunny and 80-ish degrees. The temperature and sun didn’t bother me, but the running did.  After we started, everyone else in the race passed me, and I do mean everyone.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I was last.  As I continued trudging along, I realized that I was probably going to stay last.  I started feeling a bit nauseated, and then I developed a stitch in my side, but I kept going, albeit slowly. After a while some of the fast starters began to pass me as they headed back down the trail. There are some really competitive men at work and you could see they were all serious about the “fun run.”  However, I did appreciate how one of my coworkers, who is training for an Ironman (!) said, “good job Rachel!” when he passed me.  I thought that was nice of him.  It’s like, he could see I was working, and that this wasn’t easy for me.

Fortunately, I was able to turn off the trail to do the loop so I didn’t have to see everyone going by me as I was still heading out. Through the whole race, I tried to keep my friend V, who was wearing a yellow tank top, in my sites. A couple times I lost her, but for the most part, I was able to see her, even though she was far ahead of me.

The feeling of nausea and the stitch in my side went away, but the race seemed really long.  A couple times I thought of walking, but I was afraid if I walked I wouldn’t be able to start running again.  So I kept running, even though my pace had slowed so much I was almost walking.  There were a few a people around the course to direct and cheer the runners, but by the last mile me and V (who was far ahead of me) were the only two people still running. My friend S actually came out and ran with me when I got near the end to keep me going (what a sweetheart, huh?) and when I got to the finish line, I found that some of  my other friends and coworkers were waiting there for me. They didn’t have to do that but they did, and I told them how much I appreciated their support.

I finished in 43:01 (approximately; there were no chips) which is actually slower than the 5K I did in December, but I was also less ready for this one.  I honestly didn’t really feel bad about being last.  I was just so glad I was able to pull it off.  I emailed my brother about it, and he wrote back, “Glad to hear you did the 5K!  I really try to think of races as a personal accomplishment.  It’s all about ME.  Think of how many people didn’t even try.” Exactly.

Tags: family, friends, race reports, running

Blue and I went up to Rockport this weekend to visit my mom and my sister.  Saturday night dinner, the three of us (me, Mom and my sister, not Blue) went to one of our favorite places, Passports in downtown Gloucester.  My sister treated us – w00t!

I love this restaurant’s location and atmosphere, but the menu isn’t very vegan-friendly. I had to ask them to make me something vegan.  I was nice about it, and said I didn’t want to cause any difficulty, and the waitress was able to procure a pasta dish for me.  I also shared some of the salad that came with my mom’s meal.

They do a nice job presenting the food there.  I love the little rosemary “tree” garnish on my pasta.

It was nice to spend time with my mom again.

After a dinner we went for a scenic drive.  I never get tired of this view.  You can actually see the skyscrapers of Boston from Niles Beach in Gloucester – so cool!

Tags: Cape Ann, dining out, family, pasta, salad

The main news here is that spring semester is over. Woo hoo!  The last week of it had some pretty intense writing (and freaking out), but I got the paper done , did a presentation and got an A in the class.  It’s been a week now, and I’m still reveling in being done!  At least for now.  I need four more classes to get my degree.  But still – four more classes – that’s not many at all.

Right now I’m in Rockport with Blue, visiting my mom and Andrea (my sister) and the cats of course.  I brought Woody’s ashes with me to give to Andrea.  Sweetie and I still miss Woody, but she was my sister’s cat for years before that, and besides, with the ashes of Max (my dog) and Trinka (my cat) on the fireplace mantle, I feel like that’s enough.  I don’t think I will be saving the ashes of all my pets for years to come.  I mean, it could get out of control.  I did put Woody’s personalized ceramic bowl on the mantle though.

During the last few weeks of the semester, I gave myself something of a pass on working out, planning to train for a 5K and hit it hard once I was “free” again.  I pictured myself running fast and feeling great.  It didn’t really end up going that way.  Monday I didn’t have any running buddies so I ended up walking (I ran for like two minutes somewhere in there) the 2.2 mile path at work, then Tuesday I went to Power Sculpt class (more on that in another post), Wednesday I bagged out, but on Thursday I did run-walk intervals for 20 minutes on the ‘mill and 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, and that felt more like it as far a training for a 5K. That is, training to *run* a 5K. I have to do some more cardio this weekend too…

I also kind of took a break from cooking the last couple weeks of the semester, but last week, I got back into it.  I guess it’s fortunate that I love vegetables so much since they’re naturally vegan and healthy.  Monday night I made of my favorite combinations: braised leek, Swiss chard and corn served over soba noodles, seasoned with roasted sesame oil and nutritional yeast.

I also adore the seitan made by The Bridge, (admittedly, I haven’t tried any other brands yet), but I hadn’t had any for a while when I finally made some on Thursday.  I came home from my workout and slapped together an easy but yummy dinner: pan-fried seitan, Road’s End Shells & Chreese, and steamed asparagus.  It was all delicious, and especially great to have seitan again.  I’m going to make sure buy some more for the coming week. A friend mine who tried seitan after she learned how much I love it commented on Facebook that she’d like to love it but she really doesn’t.  Oh well, more for me then!

Tags: animals, asparagus, corn, leeks, nutritional yeast, pasta, recipes, Rockport, running, school, seitan, sesame, Swiss chard, working out

We have no internet or telephone at my house, and it’s really thrown a wrench into my weekend plans. The phone I can take or leave, but not the internet. I came back from class yesterday hoping to wipe out some of my brain cells watching The Real Housewives of New York City online, but alas it was not to be. Also, the paper and presentation I’m doing for my class (due next week!) is on Web 2.0. I called the phone company on my cell phone and the problem supposed to resolved by tonight. Tonight?! I’m dying I tell you. Right now I’m at a local coffee shop that has free wifi, saving webpages I may need to use as web archives so I can read them offline. Oy.

In other news, what I’ve been up to lately has been mostly working, sleeping, and worrying about my paper. I did run on the treadmill twice too.  I have given myself a pass on working out until my paper is done, but I decided it would be more helpful than not to do a couple light workouts last week so I did run / walk intervals on the treadmill.  There is a new treadmill at the gym and I love it.  Running on it felt so fast and easy.  It also helps that I did it with NO incline.  I usually put the incline at 1% which I’ve read simulates running outside.  I was surprised how much easier it seemed running without the incline, but I went with it since I was trying not to tire myself out too much.  Need to keep my energy for my paper. Which I’ve only written about a paragraph of so far. And that’s all I going to say about that.

Another thing that has happened in the last couple of days is that summer weather has arrived!  Remember in my last entry I said we were having a cold snap? (I think they even got a couple of feet of snow in Vermont last week.) Well, that’s over now. Yesterday it was sunny and up in the 80s!  It was a beautiful day, even a bit too hot last night. Yup a few nights ago, I was wearing two sweaters and lying with a blanket over me, and last night I opened the windows and was commenting on how “hot” it was. But that’s New England.  The weather’s always doing crazy things.

That’s it for now. Back to sipping my cafe au (soy) lait and reading blogs before heading home to the internet-less zone.

Tags: coffee, internet, running, school, spring, vegan dairy